THE EMOTIONS IN HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY The New Synthese Historical Library Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy VOLUME46 Managing Editor: SIMO KNUUTIILA, University ofHelsinki Associate Editors: DANffiL ELLIOT GARBER, University ofChicago RICHARD SORABJI, University ofLondon Editorial Consultants: JAN A. AERTSEN, Thomas-lnstitut, Universität zu Köln, Germany ROGER ARIEW, Virginia Polyrechnie Institute E. JENNIFER ASHWORTH, University ofWaterloo MICHAEL AYERS, Wadharn College, Oxford GAIL FINE, Cornell University R. J. HANKINSON, University ofTexas JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University, Finnish Academy PAUL HOFFMAN, University ofCalifornia, Riverside DAVID KONSTAN, Brown University RICHARD H. KRAUT, University ofIllinois, Chicago ALAIN DE LIBERA, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne JOHN E. MURDOCH, Harvard University DAVID FATENORTON, McGill University LUCA ÜBERTELLO, Universita degli Studi di Genova ELEONORE STUMP, St. Louis University ALLEN Wooo, Cornell University THE EMOTIONS IN HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by JUHA SIHVOLA University of Helsinki, Finland and TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN University ofCopenhagen, Denmark SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-481-5123-3 ISBN 978-94-015-9082-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9082-2 Printed on acid-free paper Ali Rights Reserved © 1998 Springer SciencetBusiness Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1998 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vii SIMO KNUUTTll..A and JUHA SlliVOLA I How the Philosophical Analysis of the Emotions was Introduced 1 TAD BRENNAN I The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions 21 JOHN M. COOPER I Posidonius on Emotions 71 CHRISTOPHER Gll..L I Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions? 113 RICHARD SORABII I Chrysippus - Posidonius - Seneca: A High- Level Debate on Emotion 149 JOHN PROCOPE I Epicureans on Anger 171 RICHARD BETT I The Sceptics and the Emotions 197 T.H. IRWIN I Stoic lnhumanity 219 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY I The Two Faces of Stoicism: Rousseau and Freud 243 MARTHA NUSSBAUM I Eros and the Wise: The Stoic Response to a Cultural Dilemma 271 TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN I Marcus Aurelius on Emotions 305 EYJ6LFUR KIALAR EMll..SSON I Plotinus on the Emotions 339 CONTRIBUTORS 365 SUBJECT INDEX 367 INDEX OF NAMES 373 JUHA SIHVOLA AND TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN INTRODUCTION Since the nineteen-seventies, the emotions have been among the most intensively debated topics in the philosophy of mind and action. This philosophical reflection has led to thoroughgoing criticism of certain stereotypical views, e.g. that emotions are irrational bodily and psychic movements which just happen to people because of their psychophysical constitution. According to these views, they are essentially passive reactions to external stimuli, which give rise to certain behavioral tendencies but cannot be much modified through teaching and argument. Recent philosophical Iiterature on the emotions has paid attention to the fact that even the everyday use of the paradigmatic instances of emotion­ terms, such as anger, fear, pity, grief, and joy, involve prominent features that are neglected in the notion of emotion as an irrational feeling or passive psychophysical reaction. First, emotions are intentional; they have an object at which they are directed or about which they are. Secondly, emotions are closely related to the representational and evaluative acts of those under­ going them. Thirdly, occurrent emotions are regarded as adequate or inadequate reactions. The emotions seem to involve elements that are often understood as functions of reason: cognition, evaluation, judgment. In spite of a growing recognition of the intentionality of the emotions and the role of cognition in them, the notion of emotion has remained quite controversial in modern discussions. Cognitive philosophical theories concerning the emotions can roughly be divided into judgment theories, which more or less identify the emotions with the judgment involved, and componential theories, in which the emotions are understood as complexes of cognitions, desires, and affects. Discussion is still much at what Aristotle would have called a dialectical stage. Analyses concerning the emotions have been focused on what is designated by the paradigmatic instances of emotion-terms, but no consensus has been reached either on the overall definition of the notion of emotion or on the general demarcation lines of discussion. In such a Situation, it is not surprising that the ancient discussions of the pathe have been thought to be directly relevant for philosophical analyses of the emotions. However, the conceptual tools provided by ancient philosophy Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen (eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, vii-xii. @ 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. viii JUHA SIHVOLA AND TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN do not at first sight seem too promising for a theory of what we would call the emotions. The basic meaning of the term pathos is not "emotion"; pathos stands for a much more general notion which covers all accidental and contingent changes that happen to somebody in cantrast to what he or she actively does. The broad sense of pathos, familiar from Aristotle's Categories and Metaphysics, comes out in translationssuch as "affection", "experience", "undergoing" or "attribute", as opposed to "emotion" or even "passion". However, both Plato and Aristotle also focus attention on pathe in the sense of the emotions as we understand them, although it may be questioned whether the discussions in the Philebus and the Rhetoric amount to actual theories of the emotions. By contrast, there is no doubt that the Stoic doctrine of the pathe is a systematic theory in which the term pathos is given a strict technical meaning. Moreover, the class of psychic phenomena which the Stoics call pathe clearly refers to what we call emotions, but it also considerably revises commonsense beliefs - both ancient and modern - about them. It is questionable whether these pathe include everything that we or the ancient contemporaries of the Stoics recognized as emotions, and accordingly, whether all emotions are really extirpated in the Stoic ideal of apatheia. In fact, the Stoic doctrine, araund which the Hellenistic discussions of the emotions to a large extent circled, drew heavy criticism from early on. On the other hand, it has also been praised for achieving a Ievel of sophistica­ tion and precision not even matched in the modern Iiterature on the topic (see Sorabji below). Scholarly interest in the Hellenistic theories of the emotions has been lively during the last couple of decades. But even though several excellent articles on the topic have appeared and the emotions have been perceptively discussed in volumes on Hellenistic ethics and philosophy of mind, no book­ length comprehensive treatment has been available so far. This collection aims to fill this gap in the Iiterature and to give a many-sided overview of the Hellenistic theories of the emotions, their background, the main controversies, and the later developments. The idea for the volume ori­ ginated at a conference on the Hellenistic philosophy of mind organized by the Philosophical Society of Finland in Helsinki in 1994. A considerable number of papers at the conference focused on the analysis of the emotions and seemed to form a nucleus for a volume of essays. However, in order to gain comprehensiveness, several prominent scholars in the field were invited to contribute new essays to the volume. The editors are grateful to all those who accepted- or who allowed us, in a few cases, to reprint older essays. In the end, the volume turned out to be a little less complete than planned, INTRODUCTION ix with a less than wholly adequate coverage of non-Stoic views like those of Cyrenaics and Epicureans. Still, there are enough essays to balance the emphasis on the Stoics. As already noted, practically all Hellenistic thought on the emotions must be understood in relation to the early Stoic analysis of the pathe. The Chrysippean doctrine gave rise to the main controversies: What kind of background psychology, a unitary or a tripartite soul, is needed to explain the emotions? Are the emotions functions of reason or of some lower parts or Ievels of the soul? What kind of therapy is needed to modify or extirpate the emotions? What, if any, is the possible value of the emotions in a flourishing life? The intrinsic centrality of Stoic analyses of the emotions within Hellenistic thought is clearly visible in the structure and contents of this volume. The emergence of the philosophical analysis of emotions in Plato and Aristotle is outlined by Simo Knuuttila and Juha Sihvola. Their aim is to show that the Hellenistic discussions did not come out of the blue but bad deep roots in classical philosophy. They also pay attention to interesting reflections by Plato and Aristotle on the feeling aspect of emotion which was less discussed in the Hellenistic period. With the scene thus set, Tad Brennan presents a detailed introduction to the early Stoic theory of the emotions, as weil as a critical survey of a few areas of disagreement