SPRING 2000
This information effective for Spring 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
SPRING 2000
This information effective for Spring 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Professor: J. Neu
The readings for the course are Plato's Symposium, Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and articles in in a Supplement (*), in Neu, A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing, and in Calhoun and Solomon, editors, What is an Emotion? The books are available at The Literary Guillotine, and the Supplement at the Bay Tree Bookstore.
Questions to bear in mind as you do the reading are suggested in connection with each topic. They are not meant to restrict the range of issues discussed.
The written work for the course will consist of brief (two or three page) responses to the reading for a given week. You may focus on one of the suggested questions, or on any other question of interest to you, attempting critical analysis of the issues involved and showing how the readings (or even a brief passage in one of the readings) is problematical or helpful in relation to those issues. A total of seven such brief papers will be expected, and participants will at various points be asked to make oral presentations based on them. These papers will be extremely important, for they will play a dominant role in setting the direction of class discussion. The papers are due at the start of each class.
Because of peculiarities in the calendar this year, some of the topics may be skipped or combined (as explained in the initial class meeting).
Do you find helpful approaches to any of the "ten problems" in the selections from Spinoza or from Hume?
How might Spinozists (cognitivists) or Humeans (feeling theorists) respond to the criticisms of their approach offered in the readings?
Do you see advantages or problems additional to those spelled out in the readings to either of the two main approaches to understanding emotions? Give explicit examples.
--'Ten Problems in the Analysis of Emotion' (pp. 23-40 of What is an Emotion?)
--Spinoza (selection in What is an Emotion?)
--Hume (selection in What is an Emotion?)
--Solomon, 'Emotions and Choice' (in What is an Emotion?)
--Calhoun, 'Cognitive Emotions?' (in What is an Emotion?)
Why do we love anyone?
How are the objects of our love chosen?
What are the desires characteristic of different types of love?
What is the relation of sex and love according to Plato/Freud?
What distinguishes 'normal' love from neurotic, perverse, and transference love?
--Plato, The Symposium
--Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
--Freud, 'Observations on Transference-Love' (l9l5), Standard Edition, Volume XII, pp. l59-17l*
Alan Soble, ed., Eros, Agape, and Philia
R.C. Solomon and K.M. Higgins, eds., The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love
Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse
Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love
Thomas Nagel, 'Sexual Perversion' (in his Moral Questions)
Jerome Neu, 'Plato's Homoerotic Symposium' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
Jerome Neu, 'Freud and Perversion' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
Anders Nygren, Eros and Agape
Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire
Stendhal, Love
What is the relation, if any, of jealousy to different types of love?
What are the sources of jealousy?
Is jealousy eliminable? Is envy? Under what conditions?
What is the relation of envy to justice?
--Freud, 'Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality' (l922), Standard Edition, XVIII, pp. 223-232*
--Neu, 'Jealous Thoughts' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
--Tov-Ruach, 'Jealousy, Attention, and Loss' (in Explaining Emotions)*
--Forrester, 'Psychoanalysis and the History of the Passions: The Strange Destiny of Envy' (in John O'Neill, editor, Freud and the Passions)*
Gordon Clanton and Lynn G. Smith, eds., Jealousy
Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, 'Envy and Jealousy,' Canadian Journal of Philosophy, XX (1990), pp. 487-516
Ronald de Sousa, 'Interlude' (in his The Rationality of Emotion)
Leslie Farber, 'On Jealousy' (in his Lying, Despair. . .and the Good Life)
Daniel M. Farrell, 'Jealousy,' The Philosophical Review, LXXXIX (l980), pp. 527-559
Nancy Friday, Jealousy
Jerome Neu, 'Jealous Afterthoughts' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
Peter van Sommers, Jealousy
Peter N. Stearns, Jealousy: The Evolution of an Emotion in American History
Is all boredom from within?
What is the relation of boredom to the nature of desire? To satisfaction? To repetition? To meaningfulness?
When boredom? When depression?
--Berryman, 'Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.' (in his 77 Dream Songs)*
--Bellow, 'On Boredom' (New York Review of Books, August 7, l975)*
--Greenson, 'On Boredom,' American Psychoanalytic Association Journal, I (l953)*
--Williams, 'The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality' (in his Problems of the Self)*
Kierkegaard, 'The Rotation Method,' in his Either/Or (Vol. I)
Otto Fenichel, 'On The Psychology of Boredom,' in his Collected Papers (First Series)
Reinhard Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature
Jerome Neu, 'Boring from Within' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind
What makes anger and fear 'basic' emotions?
How may they be recognized and understood across cultures?
What is 'empathy'? What are its conditions?
How is anger connected to 'angry behavior'?
What makes a painting a sad painting or an angry one? How can art be expressive?
What is the relation/difference between anger and resentment? Are they ever justified?
Even if justified, should they be suppressed?
--Solomon, 'Emotions and Anthropology,' Inquiry (l978)*
--MacIntyre, 'Emotion, Behavior and Belief' (in his Against the Self-Images of the Age)*
--Hampshire, 'Feeling and Expression' (in his Freedom of Mind and Other Essays)*
--Murphy, 'Forgiveness and Resentment,' Midwest Studies in Philosophy (1982)*
--Spelman, 'Anger and Insubordination' (in Garry & Pearsall, eds., Women, Knowledge, and Reality)*
Bohannan, 'Miching Mallecho' (in John Middleton, ed., Magic, Witchcraft, and Curing)
Jean L. Briggs, Never in Anger
Briggs, 'Living Dangerously' (in Leacock & Lee, eds., Politics and History in Band Societies)
Catherine A. Lutz, Unnatural Emotions
Michael S. Moore, 'The Moral Worth of Retribution' (in Schoeman, ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions)
Rodney Needham, 'Inner States as Universals' (in his Circumstantial Deliveries)
Carol Z. & Peter N. Stearns, Anger: The Struggle for Emotional Control in America's History
Carol Tavris, Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion
Is fear of fictitious objects 'real' fear?
What is the relation of fear and desire?
How are unconscious emotions possible? How can they be identified?
How might one distinguish the cause and object of fear?
Must ambivalence always involve unconscious feelings?
--Walton, 'Fearing Fictions,' Journal of Philosophy LXXV (l978)*
--Phillips, 'Psychoanalysis and the Future of Fear,' Raritan XV (1995)*
--Neu, 'Getting Behind the Demons' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
Barbalet, 'Climates of Fear and Socio-Political Change,' JTSB XXV (1995)
Bijoy H. Boruah, Fiction and Emotion
Robert Gordon, 'Fear,' The Philosophical Review, LXXXIX (1980), pp. 560-578
Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics
Kenny and Thalberg selections in What is an Emotion?
Are there limits to the appropriate objects of pride and shame?
What is the place of conditions of 'nearness to self,' 'control,' and 'desert' in this area?
Is there a line between natural and moral qualities?
What is the value of feelings such as pride and shame?
What gives emotion direction? Is shame the 'opposite' of pride? Is humility?
Are certain beliefs about freedom and responsibility essential if certain emotional attitudes (towards ourselves or others) are to make sense?
--Foot, 'Moral Beliefs' (in her Virtues and Vices)*
--Isenberg, 'Natural Pride and Natural Shame' (in Explaining Emotions)*
--Fairlie, 'Pride or Superbia' (in his The Seven Deadly Sins Today)*
--Walsh, 'Pride, Shame and Responsibility,' The Philosophical Quarterly, XX (l970)*
--Neu, 'Pride and Identity' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
--Strawson, 'Freedom and Resentment' (in his Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays)*
Annette Baier, 'Master Passions' (in Explaining Emotions)
Joel Feinberg, 'Problematic Responsibility in Law and Morals,' 'Justice and Personal Desert,' and 'Collective Responsibility,' in his Doing and Deserving
Freud, 'On Narcissism' (l9l4), Standard Edition, XIV
Taylor, 'Pride and Humility' (in her Pride, Shame, and Guilt)
Most of the questions about pride and shame carry over. We might add:
What is the relation of one's present state of regret to beliefs about past and future action?
Can one sincerely regret something, yet do it again? Repeatedly?
What are the effects of reflexive knowledge on one's psychological state?
Can you properly be blamed for something, even by yourself, if you "could not help it" or it was "out of your control"?
--Hampshire, 'Sincerity and Single-Mindedness' (in his Freedom of Mind)*
--Williams, 'Moral Luck,' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. L (l976)*
--Nagel, 'Moral Luck,' PASS (l976)*
--Morris, 'Nonmoral Guilt' (in Schoeman, ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions)*
Lawrence A. Blum, 'Will, Emotion, and the Self' (in his Friendship, Altruism, and Morality)
Janet Landman, Regret: The Persistence of the Possible
Martha C. Nussbaum, 'Luck and the Tragic Emotions' (in her The Fragility of Goodness)
Amelie Rorty, 'Agent Regret' (in Explaining Emotions)
Sabini and Silver, 'Emotions, Responsibility, and Character' (in Schoeman, ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions)
What is the origin of feelings of guilt? Of shame? Do they serve a useful purpose?
What are the differences and similarities of guilt and shame?
What are their relations to past wrongdoing? To future behavior? To wishes? To actual deeds?
When does guilt become neurotic (or unjustified or irrational)?
Could a society exist without either guilt or shame? How would we recognize such a society?
What are the appropriate responses to such feelings? To their absence?
--Psalm 51*
--Nietzsche, '"Guilt," "Bad Conscience," and the Like' (in Morris, ed., Guilt and Shame)*
--Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (selection in Guilt and Shame)*
--Rawls, "The Sense of Justice" (in Guilt and Shame)*
--Mead, 'Some Anthropological Considerations Concerning Guilt' (in R.W.. Smith, ed., Guilt)*
--Piers and Singer, Shame and Guilt (selection in Guilt and Shame)*
--Erikson, Childhood and Society (selection in Guilt and Shame)*
--Lynd, 'The Nature of Shame' (in Guilt and Shame)*
John Demos, 'Shame and Guilt in Early New England' (in Stearns, ed., Emotion and Social Change, 1988)
John Deigh, 'Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critique' (in Deigh, ed., Ethics and Personality 1992)
Herbert Morris, On Guilt and Innocence
Gabriele Taylor, Pride, Shame, and Guilt
Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity
Can grief and depression be distinguished?
Does failure to experience grief at the death of someone close show lack of love?
Is grief a disease?
Does grief, does mourning, serve useful purposes? Which purposes and how?
What is the role of social convention in relation to grief, mourning, and depression?
--Freud, 'Mourning and Melancholia' (l9l7), Standard Edition, XIV, pp. 239-258*
--Deutsch, 'Absence of Grief,' Psychoanalytic Quarterly, VI (1937)*
--Lindemann, 'Symptomatology and Management of Acute Grief' (in his Beyond Grief)*
--Engel, 'Is Grief a Disease?,' Psychosomatic Medicine, XXIII (1961)*
--Keyes, 'The Interpretive Basis of Depression' (in Kleinman & Good, eds., Culture and Depression)*
--Lofland, 'The Social Shaping of Emotion: The Case of Grief,' Symbolic Interaction, VIII (1985)*
James R. Averill, 'Grief: Its Nature and Significance,' Psychological Bulletin, LXX (1968)
Averill and Nunley, 'Grief as an Emotion and as a Disease: A Social-constructionist Perspective,'
(in Stroebe & Hansson, eds., Handbook of Bereavement)
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Albert Camus, The Stranger
Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia & Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Living with Death and Dying and On Death and Dying
Martin Seligman, Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death
What is the role of physiological changes and specific feelings in the emotions?
What is the relation of emotion to expression of emotion and action?
Can one understand an emotion one has never experienced?
What distinguishes one emotion from another?
What are the characteristics of causes and objects of emotions?
Is all consciousness emotional, or are emotions episodic states?
To what extent are emotions passive, to what extent active? (Chosen or purposive or rational?)
Is there an "ethics of emotion"?
What factors are relevant to changing emotions? How?
Can the emotions be educated? At what cost?
What are the most promising approaches for learning more about the emotions?
--Darwin, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (selection in What is an Emotion?)
--James, 'What is an Emotion?' (in What is an Emotion?)
--Cannon, 'The James-Lange Theory of Emotion: A Critical Examination' (in What is an Emotion?)
--Schachter and Singer, 'Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State' (in What is an Emotion?)
--Sartre, The Emotions: A Sketch of a Theory (selection in What is an Emotion?)
--de Sousa, 'When Is It Wrong to Laugh?' (in his The Rationality of Emotion)*
--Neu, "A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing" (in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing)
H.M. Gardiner, R.C. Metcalf, and J.G. Beebe-Center, Feeling and Emotion: A History of Theories
Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will
Joseph Fell, Emotion in the Thought of Sartre
See articles and bibliography in:
A. Rorty, ed., Explaining Emotions
C. Calhoun and R.C. Solomon, eds., What is an Emotion?