How the Philosophical Analysis of Emotions was Introduced

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to delineate the emergence of the philosophical analysis of emotions in Plato and Aristotle. Our main thesis is that certain philosophical questions pertaining to what might be called occurrent emotions were first formulated in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and that the same questions to a large extent shaped Hellenistic and later ancient discussions. The Hellenistic theories provided material for early medieval thought concerning the emotions. Of special importance was the Stoic doctrine of spontaneous first movements as modified by Augustine. The general background of early medieval discussion was, however, Platonic psychology. Aristotle's theory came into the scope of interest in the thirteenth century. Even though some new systematic ideas were developed in later medieval thought, it seems that ancient theories and classifications dominated the Western discussion of the emotions until the seventeenth century. (See Knuuttila forthcoming.) We use the term ``emotion'' as a translation for a certain type of pathos. (For discussions of some questions pertaining to this term, see Aimas 1992, 103 --105; Nussbaum 1994, 319; cf. Rorty 1984.)