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Full Idea
What is often called the 'irrationality' of our emotions is rather the faulty timing or inept choice of their expressions.
Gist of Idea
The supposed irrationality of our emotions is often tactless or faulty expression of them
Source
Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 6.4)
Book Ref
Solomon,Robert C.: 'The Passions (1993 ed)' [Hackett 1993], p.190
A Reaction
The irrationality can be pretty obvious when having a tantrum over trivia, or resenting some tiny slight, or falling in love with a dead film star. That said, his point is well made.
| 5963 | Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch] |
| 17203 | Minds are subject to passions if they have inadequate ideas [Spinoza] |
| 4864 | An emotion is only bad if it hinders us from thinking [Spinoza] |
| 12935 | Every feeling is the perception of a truth [Leibniz] |
| 23939 | We fail to see that reason is a network of passions, and every passion contains some reason [Nietzsche] |
| 23937 | It is reason which needs the anchorage of passions, rather than vice versa [Solomon] |
| 23947 | Dividing ourselves into confrontational reason and passion destroys our harmonious whole [Solomon] |
| 23958 | The supposed irrationality of our emotions is often tactless or faulty expression of them [Solomon] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |