Philosophy of Mind Commons^™

The Education Of The Emotions, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Human emotion is, to some, an embarrassment. They regard our emotional aspect as not fully human; like some grotesque offspring, it should be hidden away in our psychic cellar or gotten rid of altogether. Our emotions (or "passions" or "affections") are powerful, but they may be kept at bay by our fair child, reason. The enmity seems natural; reason represents the orderly, the proper, the Apollonian; emotion is the disruptive, the capricious, the Dionysian. The accomplishments of cool reason may be consumed in the heat of passion. To give vent to emotion is thus to turn irrational and to reveal …