PHI 499 – Directed Study: Philosophy and the Emotions

or

Fear and Loathing at the Frog  

 

Summer 2005

Thursdays 3:00 – 5:00

 

 Email: beiseckd@unlv.nevada.edu

Website: www.unlv.edu/faculty3/beisecker

 

 

Dave Beisecker

Department of Philosophy

CDC 429

Office Phone: 895-4038

Cell Phone: 809-4292

 

Course Description: Occasionally, one hears that philosophers through the ages have focused so exclusively upon the notion of rationality that they have ignored the emotional dimension of lived lives.  Like most sweeping generalizations about “the philosophical tradition,” this claim is palpably absurd, and as the reading list below attests, betrays a blindness that is every bit as egregious as that which it purports to identify in academic philosophy.  This summer we’ll conduct a reading group focusing on philosophical and psychological research on the emotions.  Perhaps the reason why folk aren’t so familiar with academic work on the emotions is that the topic is genuinely difficult and obscure.  Even though emotional engagement is so familiar to us (or perhaps because it’s so familiar), the emotions have proven mighty resistant to sustained and convincing inquiry.  As we’ll soon see, however, it’s not for lack of trying that our emotional lives remain somewhat puzzling.

If we have time, we’ll spend a couple of weeks on other stuff (Bullstuff?) as well.

Required Text: (Acquire ASAP!)

Robert C. Solomon, What Is an Emotion? Classic and Contemporary Readings, 2nd Edition (Oxford, 2003)

 

I have some ideas for an additional text to be read at the end of the summer (stay tuned for details).

Course Requirements:

I will expect students taking this study for credit to attend each meeting having already read the selections assigned for that day and to be prepared to jump right into discussion.  To facilitate this preparation, I am requiring students to write a paragraph or two ahead of time on each selection.  Students should aim in their paragraphs to identify what is most significant, controversial, puzzling, or distinctive about that selection, and they should attempt to pick out salient points of contrast between the assigned readings.  As the summer wears on, I might instead opt to assign particular readings to students for them to present to the rest of the group.

Finally, I will require students enrolled for credit to find and select an additional (unassigned) philosophical article on the emotions, on which they will write a brief  (2500 word) response paper (or philosophical commentary), which in turn they will present to the rest of the group at the end of the summer.  

Course Plan: Starting from the beginning, we will plow through the readings in the Solomon Anthology.

Date

Topics and Readings (tentative, stay tuned for updates and revisions)

All are from the Solomon Anthology

Week 1

(May 19)

·         Aristotle, Selections from Rhetoric, De Anima, and Nicomachean Ethics

·         The Stoics, Selections from Arius, Seneca, and Galen

·         Hume, from the Treatise

Week 2 

(May 26)

Special Guest: Dr. Tammy Nyden-Bullock

·         Descartes, from The Passions of the Soul

·         Spinoza, from Ethics

Week 3

(June 2)

·        James, from What is an Emotion?

·        Cannon, from Changes in Pain, Humger, Fear, and Rage

·        Dewey, from The Theory of Emotion

Week 4

(June 9)

·         Darwin, from The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals

·         Freud, from The Unconscious and Anxiety

·        Ekman, from Biological and Cultural Contributions to Body and Facial Movement in the Expression of Emotions

Week 5

(June 16)

 

·         Brentano, from On the Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong

·       Scheler, from Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values

Week 6

(June 23)

Special Guest: Professor Mark Rauls, CCSN

·        Heidegger, Moods in Heidegger’s Being and Time (C. Guignon)

·        Sartre, from The Emotions: A Sketch of a Theory

Week 7

(June 30)

·         Schachter and Singer, from Cognitive, Social, and Psychological Determinants of Emotional State

·         Lazarus, Appraisal: The Minimal Cognitive Prerequisites of Emotion

·         Frijda, Emotions are Functional, Most of the Time

Week 8

(July 14)

·         Lutz, from Unnatural Emotions

·         Damasio, from The Feeling of What Happens

Week 9

(July 21)

·        Ryle, from The Concept of Mind

·         Bedford, from Emotions

·        Kenny, from Action, Emotion, and Will

Week 10

(July 28)

·        Solomon, from Emotions and Choice

·        Calhoun, Cognitive Emotions?

Week 11

(August 4)

·        DeSousa, The Rationality of Emotion

·        Stocker, The Irreducibility of Affectivity

·        Greenspan, Reasons to Feel

Week 12

(August 11)

·       Nussbaum, Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance

·       Griffiths, from What Emotions Really Are

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