Dominik Perler over #Spinoza's emotie-theorie

 

Dominik Perler, Transformationen der Gefühle. Philosophische Emotionstheorien 1270-1670 [Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2011 - cf. blog] werd vertaald door Tony Crawford en uitgegeven als Feelings Transformed: Philosophical Theories of the Emotions, 1270-1670 bij Oxford University Press, 2018, cf. books.google of rechtstreeks naar Chapter 5, "Baruch de Spinoza. Emotions as Psychophysical Units."

Gisteren verscheen het review door Simo Knuuttila bij de NDPR. Daaruit citeer ik deze alinea:
“The metaphysical framework of Spinoza's theory of emotions includes his substance monism with universal necessitarianism and determinism. Thought and extension are regarded as the two humanly understood attributes of the infinite unitary substance. Of the numerous modes of these attributes, the human body and its mental idea are the same thing but are expressed in two ways. Referring to this view, Perler explains that Spinoza's approach to emotions cannot be characterized as simply neurobiological or representational; they have both a physical structure and a mental structure that are parallel but not reducible to each other. An important factor is the conception of a striving (conatus) according to which everything strives to remain in its present state and, in body-mind unions, to increase their power of acting. Emotions are divided into passive and active. Passive emotions include confused evaluative representations of the physical states and their causes and active emotions include adequate representations. Active emotions are always positive because they are built on the basic emotions of desire and joy that increase the perception of vitality and physical power in accordance with Spinoza's metaphysical egoism. Passive emotions may also increase vitality but they are mostly negative, the basic negative emotion being sorrow, which disturbs the vitalizing power. In discussing the therapy of emotions, Spinoza mentions the traditional idea of redirecting one's attention, but he has other suggestions based on the idea of developing adequate thoughts about causes. The evaluation of Spinoza's proposals has divided the opinions of commentators, particularly the joyful acceptance of necessitarian metaphysics as a remedy for sorrow. Perler thinks that they make more sense than some people deem, provided that one agrees with Spinoza's naturalist determinism.”