more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Some philosophers make the emotions varieties of reason, on the ground that all desire and grief and anger are judgments, while others declare that the virtues have to do with emotions, as when fear is the province of courage.
Gist of Idea
Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion
Source
Plutarch (68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' [c.85], 1025d)
Book Ref
Plutarch: 'Selected Essays and Dialogues', ed/tr. Russell,Donald [OUP 1993], p.247
A Reaction
The second idea comes from Aristotle, but the second is interesting, and corresponds to the views coming from modern neuroscience, where even the most basic thought seems to involve emotion. What could be the motivation for 'pure' reason?
Related Idea
Idea 20850 Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
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] |