Passions Of The Soul
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Passions Of The Soul
In his final philosophical treatise, ''The Passions of the Soul'' (french: Les Passions de l'âme), completed in 1649 and dedicated to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, René Descartes contributes to a long tradition of philosophical inquiry into the nature of " the passions". The passions were experiences – now commonly called emotions in the modern period – that had been a subject of debate among philosophers and theologians since the time of Plato. Notable precursors to Descartes who articulated their own theories of the passions include St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Hobbes. Origins and organization of the text Origins of the book In 1643 Descartes began a prolific written correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, in which he answered her moral questions, especially the nature of happiness, passions, and ethics. ''Passions of the Soul'' was written as a synthesis of this exchange. Amélie Rorty asserts that the examination of the passions present i ...
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Elisabeth Of The Palatinate
Elisabeth of the Palatinate (26 December 1618 – 11 February 1680), also known as Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, or Princess-Abbess of Herford Abbey, was the eldest daughter of Frederick V, Elector Palatine (who was briefly King of Bohemia), and Elizabeth Stuart. Elisabeth of the Palatinate was a philosopher best known for her correspondence with René Descartes. She was critical of Descartes' dualistic metaphysics and her work anticipated the metaphysical concerns of later philosophers. Life Elisabeth Simmern van Pallandt was born on December 26, 1618, in Heidelberg. She was the third of thirteen children and eldest daughter of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England and sister of Charles I. Much of Elisabeth's early life outside of her familial relations is unknown. After a short, unsuccessful reign in Bohemia, Elisabeth's parents were forced into exile in the Netherlands in 1620. ...
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Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve Eudaimonia, (happiness, ): one flourishes by living an Ethics, ethical life. The Stoics identified the path to with a life spent practicing the cardinal virtues and living in accordance with nature. The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or called in themselves (''adiaphora'') but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and th ...
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Sadness
Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. An example of severe sadness is depression, a mood which can be brought on by major depressive disorder or persistent depressive disorder. Crying can be an indication of sadness. Sadness is one of the six basic emotions described by Paul Ekman, along with happiness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust. Childhood Sadness is a common experience in childhood. Sometimes, sadness can lead to depression. Some families may have a (conscious or unconscious) rule that sadness is "not allowed", but Robin Skynner has suggested that this may cause problems, arguing that with sadness "screened off", people can become shallow and manic. Pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton suggests that acknowledging sadness can make it easier f ...
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Desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs. They aim to change the world by representing how the world should be, unlike beliefs, which aim to represent how the world actually is. Desires are closely related to agency: they motivate the agent to realize them. For this to be possible, a desire has to be combined with a belief about which action would realize it. Desires present their objects in a favorable light, as something that appears to be good. Their fulfillment is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. Conscious desires are usually accompanied by some form of emotional response. While many researchers roughly agree on these general features, there is significant disagreement about how to define desires, i.e. which ...
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Hate
Hatred is an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things or ideas, usually related to opposition or revulsion toward something. Hatred is often associated with intense feelings of anger, contempt, and disgust. Hatred is sometimes seen as the opposite of love. A number of different definitions and perspectives on hatred have been put forth. Philosophers have been concerned with understanding the essence and nature of hatred, while some religions view it positively and encourage hatred toward certain outgroups. Social and psychological theorists have understood hatred in a utilitarian sense. Certain public displays of hatred are sometimes legally proscribed in the context of pluralistic cultures that value tolerance. Hatred may encompass a wide range of gradations of emotion and have very different expressions depending on the cultural context and the situation that triggers the emotional or intellectual response. Based on the context in which hatred oc ...
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Love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment.''Oxford Illustrated American Dictionary'' (1998) Love is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as "the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" and its vice representing human morality, moral flaw, akin to vanity, selfishness, amour-propre, and egotism, as potentially leading people into a type of mania, Obsessive love, obsessiveness or codependency. It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards ...
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Wonder (emotion)
Wonder is an emotion comparable to surprise that people feel when perceiving something rare or unexpected (but not threatening). It has historically been seen as an important aspect of human nature, specifically being linked with curiosity and the drive behind intellectual exploration. Wonder is also often compared to the emotion of awe but awe implies fear or respect rather than joy. Science fiction can produce a sense of wonder. Philosophical musings French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer René Descartes described admiration as one of the primary emotions because he claimed that emotions, in general, are reactions to unexpected phenomena. He noted that when people first encounter a surprising or new object that is "far different from what we knew before, or from what we supposed it should have been, we admire it, and are astonished at it." But Descartes, unlike the Greek philosophers before him, held a fundamentally negative view of admiration: "Although it i ...
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Discourse On The Method
''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation ''"Je pense, donc je suis"'' ("I think, therefore I am", or "I am thinking, therefore I exist"), which occurs in Part IV of the work. A similar argument, without this precise wording, is found in ''Meditations on First Philosophy'' (1641), and a Latin version of the same statement ''Cogito, ergo sum'' is found in ''Principles of Philosophy'' (1644). ''Discourse on the Method'' is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism, which had previously been studied by other philosophers. While addressing some ...
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Nervous System
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes that impact the body, then works in tandem with the endocrine system to respond to such events. Nervous tissue first arose in wormlike organisms about 550 to 600 million years ago. In vertebrates it consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists mainly of nerves, which are enclosed bundles of the long fibers or axons, that connect the CNS to every other part of the body. Nerves that transmit signals from the brain are called motor nerves or '' efferent'' nerves, while those nerves that transmit information from the body to the CNS are called sensory nerves or '' afferent''. Spinal nerves are mixed nerves that serve both fu ...
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Dualism (philosophy Of Mind)
Dualism most commonly refers to: * Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another ** Property dualism, a view in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics which holds that, although the world is composed of just one kind of substance—the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties * Cosmological dualism, the theological or spiritual view that there are only two fundamental concepts, such as "good" and "evil", and that these two concepts are in every way opposed to one another Dualism may also refer to: * Dualism (cybernetics), systems or problems in which an intelligent adversary attempts to exploit the weaknesses of the investigator * Dualism (Indian philosophy), the belief held by certain schools of Indian philosophy that reality is fundamentally composed of two ...
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