My Emotional Self

What is the relationship between emotions and the self? This is a difficult question to say the least since the questions of what emotions are as well as what the self is, or which self are we referring to are not obvious. Robert Solomon wants to argue that while emotions are not necessarily self-centered, they are self-involved. This follows from his conception of emotions and engagements with the world, for emotions are not only about the world, or only about the self, but rather about the self’s engagements with the world. Of course the self, being part of the world, is sometimes the exclusive object of an emotion as well, though I agree with Solomon that such instances are the exception rather than the rule.

Ideology, Revolution and Utopia in Marx

In the recent post concerning Marx’s views on alienation we saw that he was very Hegelian in many aspects while departing from Hegel in the role which he saw ideas and reason to play in a meaningful account of life. For Hegel, history emerges from rationality and meaning can be found not in our playing a significant role in histories unfolding but rather in our coming to understand our place in its rational unfolding. Thus, for Hegel, the ideas and thoughts which we have are all important while what we do in our practical endeavors are relatively insignificant.

The Abduction of Science

The distinction between primary and secondary properties is an important one, especially as it relates to the scientific worldview. For instance, metaphysical materialism seems to assert that primary qualities are all that “really” exists in the world in the form of matter, an assertion which raises the all too obvious question, “what about secondary properties?” It is the problematic metaphysical nature of secondary qualities with their corresponding qualia which makes property dualism a rather appealing alternative to materialism.

Passions, Will and Reason: Emotions and Ethics

We have seen in many posts how the relationship between emotions and the good has been viewed in various and often mixed ways throughout history. Various arguments have been put forth in defense of the claim that emotions are not intrinsically bad or stupid. Emotions as engagements with the world is an intelligent and evaluative process which often bestow salience, value and importance upon the world as we experience it. As such, it should come as no surprise to find that emotions play an essential role in our everyday moral deliberation.

Alienation in Marx

We have seen that the good life by many accounts has consisted in many forms. The Axial model held that this lower life was one to be escaped by way of enlightenment in favor of a higher, more real realm. Kant held that a meaningful life can be found in the total subordination of the will and passions to the dictates of reason in the form of morality and religion. Hegel saw history as the rational unfolding of God’s autobiography and asserted that meaning can be found in our placing our lives within such a historical narrative in which morality and creativity are in constant tension. Schopenhauer felt that life is insatiable suffering in which, contrary to Kant and Hegel, reason is the unwitting servant of the will and that the most we could ever hope for was to disengage with the world by way of distraction. Marx, we will see, takes up many themes which can be found in Hegel as well as some which are native to Schopenhauer and creates an account of life’s meaning which seems more fulfilling than those we have considered thus far.

Prying Science From Mathematics

Between moving twice, having finals and papers due, going on vacation and getting sick, the posting has been pretty slow here as of late. With all of that behind me, things should pick up now.

What is a scientific theory? What are scientific theories for? What is the nature of a scientific explanation? We have seen how since the time of Socrates and Plato the desired answer, the answer which is still general at the popular level, is that scientific theories and explanations gives us an objective account of reality as it really is. Nevertheless, we have also seen how, beginning with the Newton/Leibniz debate and culminating in Fourier’s equations in the 19th century, such a view of scientific theories was seriously called into question. Instead, the primary aim of science was not to give an account of reality as it really is, but rather give us the ability to predict and control the world as we experience it. The purpose of this post will be to describe how this conception of science developed in the late 19th century.

Taking Responsibility for our Emotions

In the last post concerning Schopenhauer’s remedies we considered a number of views concerning the relationship between reason and Will/passions. Is reason necessarily and inevitably the slave of the Will or of the passions as Schopenhauer or Hume would have us believe? Or is it possible for reason to rule as Kant and Plato would have it? While I do not intend to argue for one position or the other in this post, I do want to consider an issue which I see as being central to these positions, namely that of emotion and responsibility. I think the motivating force behind those who would like us to subdue our emotional experience to our reason is the idea that in the case of reason, we are in control, whereas in the case of passion/will/emotions, they are in control of us. The purpose of this post will be to argue that such a view is wrong.

Remedies to the Disease of Life

We have seen how in the philosophy of Schopenhauer life is characterized by the ceaseless torment which we are subjected to by our passions. We are constantly striving to satisfy our cravings and yearnings, only to find that the rare cases in which we are able to find satisfaction, such cases bring either destructive results or boredom. While Schopenhauer does not advocate suicide, he does believe that it would be better if we had never been born. It would be difficult to find a more pessimistic outlook on life. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer does offer a number of remedies to the disease of life. It will be the purpose of this post to describe these remedies.

The 19th Century Rise of the Earth-Giants

Through out the 19th Century, scientific knowledge and technological innovation finally began to merge into more or less unified whole which popular culture sees them as today. This unification began to transform society as the avalanche of wealth which the new technologies spilled forth onto the western world in a manner which has only accelerated since then. The transformation which modern science wrought upon everyday life only served to strengthen the intuition that scientific theories were about the natural world as it really was. Nevertheless, as this intuition built up strength in the public’s mind, during this very same time a number of intellectual revolution would take place which would seriously undermine the notion that science could provide knowledge of the world which was necessary, certain and universal.

Rationality and Emotions

I hesitate to treat the topic of emotions and rationality, if only because I do not have even a familiarity with any kind of theory of rationality. Nevertheless, let us throw caution to the wind and dive right into the deep end while using Robert Solomon’s treatment of the topic as our water-wings.