The Passions
The strong emotions — fear, desire, grief, delight — that the Stoics sought to uproot entirely and Aristotle only to moderate.
The passions (pathē) are the powerful, often disturbing emotions, and how to handle them split the Greek schools. Aristotle (4th c. BCE) held that they should be trained to the right mean — neither suppressed nor indulged. The Stoics (3rd c. BCE onward) judged them to be mistaken value-judgments, to be uprooted altogether in favor of calm 'good feelings' (eupatheiai). This debate over reason versus emotion shaped Western moral psychology, medicine, and theories of the will for two thousand years.
How it traveled
- RhetoricChalcis · -335explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Eudemian EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Tusculanae DisputationesFormiae · -43explains
- Institutio OratoriaRome · 95explains
- DiscoursesNicopolis · 108explains
- Ad Se IpsumVindobona (Vienna) · 170explains
- DeipnosophistaeNaucratis · 230explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- Midrash TanchumaTiberias · 600
- Duties of the HeartZaragoza (Saragossa) · 1080
- Yalkut Shimoni on NachTiberias · 1250
- Yalkut Shimoni on TorahTiberias · 1250
- Sha'arei TeshuvahGirona · 1260
- ZoharGuadalajara · 1280
- Sefer HaIkkarimSoria · 1425
- Akeidat YitzchakTarragona · 1490
- Abarbanel on TorahNaples · 1505
- Ketem Paz on ZoharTzfat · 1561
- Sha'arei KedushaDamascus · 1572
- Reshit ChokhmahTzfat · 1575
- Ohr HaChammah on ZoharTzfat · 1620
- Mesillat YesharimAmsterdam · 1738
- TanyaLiadi · 1797
- Likutei MoharanBreslov (Ukraine) · 1802
- Maor VaShemeshKrakow (Cracow) · 1817
- Sha'arei AvodahStrashelye · 1820
- Likutei HalakhotBreslov (Ukraine) · 1840
- Malbim on ProverbsBucharest · 1860
- Malbim on PsalmsBucharest · 1860
- Torah Temimah on TorahPinsk · 1904
- De Ira—explains
- Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III—explains
- Fragmenta MoraliaAthensexplains
- De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv)—explains
- Epistulae—explains
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
- De Somniis (lib. i-ii)—explains
- Stromata—explains
- De Ebrietate—explains
Key passages(20)
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium · Anonymi in Aristotelis Artem Rhetoricam
In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium · Anonymi in Aristotelis Artem Rhetoricam
By the emotions, I mean desire, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendship, hatred, longing, jealousy, pity; and generally those states of consciousness which are accompanied by pleasure or pain.
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Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus