SPRING 2001
This information effective for Spring 2001.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Philosophy
190L. The Emotions
Spring 2001
Instructor: J. Neu
The readings for the course are Plato's Symposium, Freud's
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and articles 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.
The discussions are meant to be rooted in the texts. 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. Lateness should be unthinkable. (Class
starts at 9:00 a.m. sharp.)
I. Introduction: Thought and Passion [April 2,
2001]
- 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.
Suggested Reading:
- '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?)
II. Love - Plato [April 9, 2001]
- 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?
Required Reading:
- Plato, The Symposium
- Neu, 'Plato's Homoerotic Symposium' (in A Tear Is
an Intellectual Thing)
Related Materials:
- 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
- Anders Nygren, Eros and Agape
- Stendhal, Love
III. Love - Freud [April 16, 2001]
- 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 Freud?
- What distinguishes 'normal' love from neurotic, perverse, and
transference love?
Required Reading:
- Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
- Freud, 'Observations on Transference-Love' (1915),
Standard Edition, XII, pp. 159-171*
- Neu, 'What Is Wrong with Incest?' (in A Tear Is an
Intellectual Thing)
Related Materials:
- Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love
- Thomas Nagel, 'Sexual Perversion' (in his Mortal
Questions)
- Jerome Neu, 'Freud and Perversion' (in A Tear Is an
Intellectual Thing)
- Anders Nygren, Eros and Agape
- Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire
IV. Jealousy and Envy [April 23, 2001]
- 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?
Required Reading:
- Freud, 'Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and
Homosexuality' (1922), 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)*
Related Materials:
- 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 (1980), 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
V. Boredom and "Fearing Fictions" [April 30,
2001]
- 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?
- Is fear of fictitious objects 'real' fear?
Required Reading:
- 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, 1975)*
- Greenson, 'On Boredom,' American Psychoanalytic
Association Journal, I (1953)*
- Williams, 'The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium
of Immortality' (in his Problems of the Self)*
- Neu, 'Boring from Within' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual
Thing)
- Walton, 'Fearing Fictions,' Journal of Philosophy
LXXV (1978)*
Related Materials:
- 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
- Patricia Meyer Spacks, Boredom: The Literary History of
a State of Mind
- Bijoy H. Boruah, Fiction and Emotion
VI. Anger and "Pride and Identity" [May 7,
2001]
- 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?
- 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?
Required Reading:
- Solomon, 'Emotions and Anthropology,' Inquiry
(1978)*
- 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)*
- Neu, 'Pride and Identity' (in A Tear Is an Intellectual
Thing)
Related Materials:
- 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
- Alasdair MacIntyre, 'Emotion, Behavior and Belief' (in his
Against the Self-Images of the Age)
- 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
- Fairlie, 'Pride or Superbia' (in his The Seven Deadly
Sins Today)
- Foot, 'Moral Beliefs' (in her Virtues and
Vices)
- Isenberg, 'Natural Pride and Natural Shame' (in
Explaining Emotions)
- Strawson, 'Freedom and Resentment' (in his Freedom and
Resentment and Other Essays)
- Taylor, 'Pride and Humility' (in her Pride, Shame, and
Guilt)
- Walsh, 'Pride, Shame and Responsibility,' The
Philosophical Quarterly, XX (1970)
VIIa. Regret, Remorse, and Grief [see VIIb, May 14,
2001]
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"?
Required Reading:
- Hampshire, 'Sincerity and Single-Mindedness' (in his
Freedom of Mind)* [5/15/00]
- Williams, 'Moral Luck,' Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, Suppl. Vol. L (1976)* [5/15/00]
- Nagel, 'Moral Luck,' PASS (1976)*
[5/15/00]
Related Materials:
- Lawrence A. Blum, 'Will, Emotion, and the Self' (in his
Friendship, Altruism, and Morality)
- Janet Landman, Regret: The Persistence of the
Possible
- Herbert Morris, 'Nonmoral Guilt' (in Schoeman, ed.,
Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions)
- 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)
VIIb. Grief [May 14, 2001]
- 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?
Required Reading:
- Freud, 'Mourning and Melancholia' (1917), Standard
Edition, XIV, pp. 239-258* [5/15/00]
- Deutsch, 'Absence of Grief,' Psychoanalytic
Quarterly, VI (1937)* [5/15/00]
- Engel, 'Is Grief a Disease?,' Psychosomatic
Medicine, XXIII (1961)* [5/15/00]
Related Materials:
- 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
- Keyes, 'The Interpretive Basis of Depression' (in Kleinman
& Good, Culture and Depression)
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Living with Death and Dying
and On Death and Dying
- Lindemann, 'Symptomatology and Management of Acute Grief'
(in his Beyond Grief)
- Lofland, 'The Social Shaping of Emotion: The Case of
Grief,' Symbolic Interaction, VIII (1985)
- Martin Seligman, Helplessness: On Depression,
Development, and Death
VIII. General Theory [May 21, 2001]
- 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?
Required Reading:
- Darwin, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals
(in What is an Emotion?) [5/22/00]
- James, 'What is an Emotion?' (in What is an Emotion?)
[5/22/00]
- Cannon, 'The James-Lange Theory of Emotion' (in What is
an Emotion?) [5/22/00]
- Schachter and Singer, 'Cognitive, Social, and Physiological
Determinants of Emotional State' (in What is an Emotion?)
[5/22/00]
- Sartre, The Emotions: A Sketch of a Theory
(selection in What is an Emotion?)
[5/22/00]
- de Sousa, 'When Is It Wrong to Laugh?' (in his The
Rationality of Emotion)* [5/22/00]
- Neu, "A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing" (in A Tear Is an
Intellectual Thing) [5/22/00]
Related Materials:
- H.M. Gardiner, et al., 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?
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