The Dark Side: Philosophical Reflections on the “Negative Emotions” (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 25)

✍ Scribed by Paola Giacomoni (editor), Nicolò Valentini (editor), Sara Dellantonio (editor)

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 262
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book takes the reader on a philosophical quest to understand the dark side of emotions. The chapters are devoted to the analysis of negative emotions and are organized in a historical manner, spanning the period from ancient Greece to the present time. Each chapter addresses analytical questions about specific emotions generally considered to be unfavorable and classified as negative.

The general aim of the volume is to describe the polymorphous and context-sensitive nature of negative emotions as well as changes in the ways people have interpreted these emotions across different epochs. The editors speak of ‘the dark side of the emotions’ because their goal is to capture the ambivalent – unstable and shadowy – aspects of emotions.

A number of studies have taken the categorial distinction between positive and negative emotions for granted, suggesting that negative emotions are especially significant for our psychological experience because they signal difficult situations. For this reason, the editors stress the importance of raising analytical questions about the valence of particular emotions and focussing on the features that make these emotions ambivalent: how – despite their negativity – such emotions may turn out to be positive. This opens up a perspective in which each emotion can be understood as a complex interlacing of negative and positive properties.

The collection presents a thoughtful dialogue between philosophy and contemporary scientific research. It offers the reader insight by illuminating the dark side of the emotions.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Chapter 1: The Structural Ambivalence of Emotional Valence: An Introduction
References
Chapter 2: The Subtle Interplay Between Disgust and Morality: Miasma as a Case Study
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Miasma: A Multifaceted Concept
2.3 Conceiving Pollution
2.4 Revolting miasma
2.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Shame and Self-Consciousness in Plato’s Symposium: Reversals of Meaning of a Social Emotion
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Ancient Passions and Virtues. Honour, Anger and Shame
3.2.1 Between Courage and Fear: The Role of Shame
3.3 Athens: A Shame Culture?
3.4 Why the Symposium? A Neglected Route
3.5 Two Passages on Shame in the Symposium: 178a6–185c3 (Phaedrus and Pausanias’ Speeches) and 214b3–222b6 (Alcibiades’ Speech)
3.5.1 An Old-Fashioned Kind of Shame
3.5.2 A New Model of Shame
3.5.2.1 Alcibiades’ Divided Conscience
3.6 Are There Advances of Self-Consciousness in a Shame Culture?
3.7 Conclusion: Plato and Shame as an Expression of the Intersubjective Roots of Morality
Bibliography
Chapter 4: The pathos of Ridicule (to geloion) in Plato’s Dialogues
4.1 Introduction
4.2 To geloion as pathos
4.3 The Place of Ridicule in the Platonic City: The Republic and the Laws
4.4 The pathe of Platonic Dialogues: Philosophical Ridicule
4.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Envy and Rivalry in Aristotle’s Rhetoric
5.1 Aristotle’s Discussion of the Emotions in Book 2 of the Rhetoric
5.2 Envy
5.3 Feeling Outraged
5.4 Outrage and Envy
5.5 The Principle of Merit
5.6 Emulation
5.7 Competitive Emotions in the Athenian Public Discourse
5.8 Conclusions: Aristotle’s Redefinition of the Language of Competitive Emotions
References
Chapter 6: Philosophical Fear and Tragic Fear: The Memory of Theatre in Plato’s Images and Aristotle’s Theory
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Fear of Tyrants and the Paradox of Tyrants
6.3 Fear, Speeches, and Theatre: Aristotelian Stimuli and Anaesthetics
6.4 Oresteia: Fear and Authority, Vengeance and Surveillance
6.5 The Sophoclean Diptych of Oedipus: Fear, Transgression, Guilt, and Innocence
6.6 From Theatre to Philosophy, and Back. Ancient and Modern Fears. Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: An Optimistic Anger? From Antiquity to Descartes
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Ancient Anger Reinterpreted
7.3 Thomas Aquinas: Anger, Hatred and Reason
7.4 Transitions
7.5 Modern Anger. Descartes, Cureau de la Chambre: ‘Anger is good for the health’
7.6 Conclusions
References
Chapter 8: Triumphs of the Mind. Hobbes and the Ambivalences of Glory
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Power, Glory, and Honour
8.3 The Dark Side of Recognition
8.4 Afterlife
References
Chapter 9: Where Is the Fury? On Hume’s Peculiar Account of Anger and Resentment
9.1 Introduction
9.2 An Emotional Empiricism
9.3 Anger: but, Where Is the Fury?
9.4 Angry, Thirsty, Sick, or “More than Five Foot High”
9.5 Resentment, Proto-Morality, and Justice
9.6 “Not in My Temper:” Hume’s Separateness from Anger
9.7 Conclusive Remarks
References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Chapter 10: The Pleasure of Weeping: The Novelty of a Research
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Tears of a Stranger
10.3 Divert the Mind
10.4 Artificial Passions
10.5 Terror Is Fascinating
10.6 Reality, Fiction, Illusion and the Paradox of Painful Art
10.7 A Look at the Present
10.8 Conclusion
References
Chapter 11: Boredom, Temporality, and the Historical Dynamics of Abstract Negativity
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Boredom’s Historicity
11.3 Metaphorics in the Metropolis
11.4 Boredom’s Eternity
11.5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 12: Blushing with Shame: Toward a Hegelian Contribution on the Issue of the Positive Role of Negative Emotions
12.1 Introduction
12.2 The Expression of Shame in Hegel’s Anthropology
12.3 Shame as a Practical Feeling in Hegel’s Psychology
12.4 The Genesis of Shame
12.5 Shame as the Origin of Clothing
12.6 Conclusions
References
Chapter 13: A Moral Algorithm. Toward a Neuropsychological Model of Shame
13.1 Preview of This Chapter
13.2 From a Social Emotion to a Moral Emotion
13.3 Shame Compared to Guilt
13.4 Adaptive and Maladaptive Aspects of Shame
13.5 Cultural Differences
13.6 Neural Bases of Shame
13.7 Toward an Integrated Neuropsychological Model of Shame
13.8 Conclusions
References
Chapter 14: Anger Issues: The Nature and Complexity of Emotions and Emotional Valence
14.1 Introduction
14.2 What Are Emotions?
14.3 The Nature and Origin of Emotional Feelings
14.4 The Multiple and Ambiguous Valences of Emotions: Why This Matters?
14.5 Conclusive Remarks
References