The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) presents: program THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PASSION AND EMOTION – IN SEARCH OF CASE STUDIES

DATE: Friday 17 JUNE 2016, 2-5pm

LOCATION: Philippa Maddern Seminar Room (Arts 1.33), The University of Western Australia

Meanings of the words ‘passions’ and ‘emotions’ changed significantly during the period 1500–1800, as medical paradigms and institutions evolved, societies became less theocentric and more secular, and body, mind and soul were seen in different analytical realms. The meanings have changed even more since the Romantic period in the early nineteenth century. Professor Charland is pioneering new ways of retrieving earlier models of thought in relation to the concepts behind these words, and applying them in twenty-first-century psychiatry, cognitive science and clinical situations. In this workshop he will present his overall theory, especially in terms of the changing distinctions between ‘passions’ and ‘emotions’, and together we will explore possible case studies from different periods and different disciplines. FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2016 14.00–14.45 Louis C. Charland: 'The Distinction Between Passion and Emotion'

14.45–15.15 Danijela Kambaskovic-Schwartz: ‘Passion vs Emotion: "A Discourse Divine, Morall and Physicall"'

15.15 – 15.30 TEA BREAK 15.30–16.00 Kirk A. Essary: ‘"Passio" and "Affectus" in the Sixteenth Century'

16.00–16.30 Sally Holloway: ‘Love in Letters: "no Mortal ever felt so strong, so soft a Passion"'

16.30-17.00 Bob White: ‘Where Were Emotions Before We Had the Word?'

‘passions’ and ‘emotions’. Ribot cites Kant theory of the affective life requires that ABSTRACTS as a noteworthy precedent in this regard. we make and respect something like this However, while Ribot agrees with Kant distinction between 'passion' and 'emotion'. that the passions can sometimes veer Additional case studies might provide further LOUIS C. CHARLAND dangerously into psychopathology and evidence in defence of this hypothesis. mental disorder, he sharply disagrees that Our research question for this workshop they are always morbid and pathological. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN then is this: Are there interesting historical According to Ribot, passions are also PASSION AND EMOTION case studies where the distinction between essential and healthy ingredients of our ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’ is explicit or implicit While there are convincing case studies mental life and the source of many healthy that might provide evidence for or against that show that there has been a transition hobbies, life projects and pursuits. from ‘passion’ to ‘emotion’ in the history of the hypothesis that we need to make and Western thought, other case studies show Therefore, both Kant and Ribot distinguish re-enact that distinction in contemporary that there are also important exceptions to between ‘passions’, which are complex philosophy and psychology and literary or this trend. Two famous examples should long-term affective states and processes, historical studies? suffice to illustrate the distinction with which and ‘emotions’, which are simpler affective we are concerned here. states of shorter duration. They treat Louis Charland is based at Western University ‘passions’ and ‘emotions’ as affective posits in Ontario, Canada. He is a jointly appointed In his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of that are categorically different and mutually professor in the departments of Philosophy and View (1785), the philosopher Immanuel Kant irreducible to one another. Both agree Psychiatry, and also in the Faculty of Health explicitly distinguishes between relatively that duration is an important criterion for Sciences. Professor Charland was previously a simple short-term affective states, namely distinguishing the two. member of the Biomedical Ethics Unit and the emotions (Gr. Affekte), and more complex Clinical Trials Research Group in the Faculty of and enduring long term affective states, The purpose of this workshop is to inquire Medicine at McGill University, Montreal. He is namely passions (Gr. Leidenshaften). He into whether there might be other similar the author of a number of recent journal also famously argues that the passions are case studies in the ‘history of emotions’ articles on madness and the passions, ultimately all morbid and unhealthy – topics where the distinction between ‘passion’ including ‘Anorexia Nervosa as a Passion’ in for psychopathology. and ‘emotion’ can be found, either explicitly Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (2013) and or implicitly, or, in contradistinction, cases ‘The Distinction between “Passion” and Much later, in his (1907) Essay on the where it might be challenged or denied. “Emotion” – Vincenzo Chiarugi, A Case Study’ Passions, the French philosopher Theodule The topic is interesting because the term in History of Psychiatry (2014). Ribot proposes a very similar analysis of ‘passion’ is no longer in vogue today. Yet, affective states where he also distinguishes if we are to believe Kant and Ribot, a full

Image: V. Chiarugi, Della pazzia in genere, e in specie:Trattato medico-analitico, Florence : Luigi Carlieri, 1793. Courtesy of Bibliothèque numérique Medic@. abstracts

DANIJELA KAMBASKOVIC- of emotion terminology. Thomas Dixon, for BOB WHITE example, has argued for a rigid distinction in SCHWARTZ the ‘classical Christian tradition’ between the WHERE WERE EMOTIONS passions and the affections, but jumps from PASSION VS EMOTION: ‘A the twelfth to the seventeenth century in his BEFORE WE HAD THE WORD? DISCOURSE DIVINE, MORALL history of the move ‘from passions to emotions’. It is generally agreed that the word AND PHYSICALL’ Here I will consider several sixteenth-century ‘emotions’ in English was borrowed from dictionaries as well as a few religious texts to French in the early seventeenth century A more ancient concept than ‘emotion’, show how difficult it is to distinguish between but with a highly specific meaning (‘moving ‘passion’ is also characterised by a profound ‘affectus’ and ‘passio’ in the sixteenth century. away’), and that it did not come to have duality. In a meaning associated with Latin its modern range of meanings until the passio (and Christ’s suffering), it denotes eighteenth century. But if so, this raises Kirk A. Essary is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in reaction to a landmark event which must some large questions about how affective the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of be suffered or endured; but in another states in English were described before this, Emotions (Europe, 1100–1800), based at The meaning, linked to Greek pathos, it denotes and how it came to be that ‘emotions’ rather University of Western Australia. His special any strong feeling at the pinnacle of its than ‘passions’ was eventually accepted as expertise is in the works of Erasmus. power; and some of those would, today, the primary term. My exploration will posit classify as emotions. The tendency to see that the simpler word ‘motions’ was used passion and emotion as separate stems SALLY HOLLOWAY to describe certain feelings which might from the axiological shift from the viewpoint be fleeting and rapidly changeable, while according to which suffering and heightened LOVE IN LETTERS: ‘NO MORTAL ‘passions’ described more deep-seated emotional states are prerequisites for the and fixed states (reflecting the etymology pursuit of excellence, and one characterised EVER FELT SO STRONG, SO SOFT A in ‘passive’), and that these two terms by the imperative of avoiding difficult or PASSION’ were throughout the early modern period unsettling feelings and discussion of them My contribution to the discussion will consider used in conjunction as complementary, in favour of positivity and even-handedness. how courting couples in eighteenth-century to describe the full range of feeling- ‘Emotion’ caters to the relatively recent need England conceptualised love as a ’soft states. I will suggest that over time ‘the to denote inner feelings without reference passion’ in their letters. As a growing number passions’, which had a religious association to heightened mental states. I will briefly of correspondents picked up their pens, originally, were subsumed under the term discuss the longer history of this shift on the individuals reflected at length upon the nature ‘emotions’, which came to serve as a general example of love madness. and intensity of their feelings, as they sought description, while 'passion' and 'affections' to classify and understand them. As the poet were secularised in the vocabulary of love Danijela Kambaskovic-Schwartz is a Judith Cowper wrote in an unsent letter to relationships during the eighteenth century Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ARC Captain Martin Madan in 1723, in the rise of the novel as a form. My offering Centre of Excellence for the History of is based on some conjectures and is not Emotions (Europe, 1100–1800) based at The I feel something so infinitly above yet offered categorically as fully developed University of Western Australia. She has all ye Low Ideas I have hitherto research, but it seems a suggestive model published widely on Shakespeare’s sonnets and conceiv’d of Love, that I Want a for discussion focused on changes in other early modern topics. new name, to Express ye warmth, affective vocabulary from early modern to ye freindship [sic], ye admiration, ye shore Romanticism. My ‘case study’ will be Othello. KIRK A. ESSARY then Love with wch I am yours. Bob White is a Chief Investigator in the ARC ‘PASSIO’ AND ‘AFFECTUS’ IN THE Sally Holloway is a Visiting Early Career Fellow in Centre of Excellence for the History of SIXTEENTH CENTURY the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe, 1100–1800) and Winthrop Emotions, from the Richmond American Professor of English at The University of Despite the fact that the sixteenth century International University in London. Her current Western Australia. He has published extensively was a time of momentous linguistic change, project is ‘Romantic Love in Georgian England: on Shakespeare and on English Romantic both in Latin and vernacular languages, Courtship, Emotions and Material Culture, writers. historians of emotion often gloss over it in 1714–1830’. general accounts about the development

EMOTIONS MAKE HISTORY