Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions
Cambridge University Press
Edition: New Ed, 7/3/2003
EAN 9780521531825, ISBN10: 0521531829
Paperback, 766 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 4.9 cm
Language: English
Emotions shape the landscape of our mental and social lives. Like geological upheavals in a landscape, they mark our lives as uneven, uncertain and prone to reversal. Are they simply, as some have claimed, animal energies or impulses with no connection to our thoughts? Or are they rather suffused with intelligence and discernment, and thus a source of deep awareness and understanding? In this compelling book, Martha C. Nussbaum presents a powerful argument for treating emotions not as alien forces but as highly discriminating responses to what is of value and importance. She explores and illuminates the structure of a wide range of emotions, in particular compassion and love, showing that there can be no adequate ethical theory without an adequate theory of the emotions. This involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood, and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives.
Part I. Need and Recognition
1. Emotions as judgments of value
2. Humans and other animals
the neo-stoic view revised
3. Emotions and human societies
4. Emotions and infancy
Interlude
'things such as might happen'
5. Music and emotion
Part II. Compassion
6. Tragic predicaments
7. Compassion
the philosophical debate
8. Compassion and public life
Part III. Ascents of Love
9. Ladders of love
an introduction
10. Contemplative creativity
Plato, Spinoza, Proust
11. The Christian ascent
Augustine
12. The Christian ascent
Dante
13. The Romantic ascent
Emily Brontë
14. The Romantic ascent
Mahler
15. Democratic desire
Walt Whitman
16. The transfiguration of everyday life
Joyce.