Abstract
In “Emotion Concepts for Virtue Theory: From Epistemic and Moral to Aesthetic,” Lisa Widdison addresses a meta-philosophical issue in virtue theory, the historically problematic role of emotions in moral judgement, and in motivating virtue. Contemporary virtue epistemologists look to character traits that are relevant to inquiry, such as intellectual courage, carefulness and open-mindedness as marks of intellectual virtue. Both virtue ethicists and virtue epistemologists may also construe emotions as embodied judgements which express moral and epistemic value. However, the cognitive language of emotions as ‘self-interested judgments of value’ leaves a gap aesthetic judgment may fill. In contrast with egotistical or deterministic emotions, a path to empathy, harmony and compassion is affectively regulated by judgments of taste. By following Bharatamuni (Nāṭyaśāstra, 200 CE) and Abhinavagupta (950 CE) through a paradigmatic model of fully graded aesthetic emotion-type distinctions, the discourse around bhavas and rasas (ordinary and universalized emotion, respectively) provides a basis to link the aesthetic stance to free will, agentive responsibility and an infusion of pathos required to motivate a character trait of harmony. Lisa maintains that in processing aesthetic judgments, emotions become reflective, or operate without a settled objective, and so can harmonize actions with moral interests. It is possible to make a fine-tuned analysis of cognitive, occurrent states of personal emotion, and open-ended, universalized emotions, which constitute aesthetic experiences. The finely graded distinctions of affect in Śaiva non-dualism reveal an emotional agency which presupposes the unity of cognition with affect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Vidyākara, and Daniel Henry Holmes. Ingalls, trans., Kosambi and Gokhale, eds. (1957). Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa: Sanskrit Poetry, from Vidyākara’s Treasurȳ. Cambridge Harvard Oriental Series.
In the original Sanskrit page 226: khlānāṃ kharjūrakṣitaruhakaṭhoraṃ kva ca manaḥ / kva conmīlanmallīkusumasukumārāḥ kavigiraḥ / itīmaṃ vyāmohaṃ parihara vicitrāḥ śṛṇu kathā / yathāyaṃ pīyūṣadyutirupalakhaṇḍaṃ dravayati //. Translated in Sanskrit Poetry from Vidyākara’s Treasury, by Daniel H. Ingalls (1965) 1278/page 253.
- 2.
Quoted from the Gītā II:70.
- 3.
See Lawrence McCrea on the theistic teleological progression of poetic theory into the established aesthetic theory of aesthetic emotion in 11th CE Kashmir. McCrea (2009)
- 4.
ibid., (2004, 70).
- 5.
Boris Marjanovic trans. Abhinavagupta, Gitartha Samgraha, (2004, 78).
- 6.
Pluhar trans. 2010, 87,238§.
- 7.
Boruah remarks, the paradox of emotion in fiction disappears by taking existential and evaluative beliefs as separate (1988, 125).
- 8.
(NS 7.7) tatrāṣṭau bāvāḥ sthāyinaḥ / trayastriṃśadvyabhicāriṇaḥ / aṣṭau sātvikā iti bhedāḥ / evamete kāvyarasabhivyaktihetava ekonapañcāśadbhāvāḥ pratyavagantavyāḥ / ebhyaśca sāmānyaguṇayogena rasā niṣpadyante //.
- 9.
bhavati cātra ślokaḥ— yo’artho hṛdayasaṃvādi tasya bhāvo rasodbhavaḥ / śarīraṃ vyāpyate tena śuṣkaṃ kāṣṭhabhivāgninā (NS 7.7).
- 10.
Aristotle, Poetics, IX.
- 11.
Gnoli, (1956, 60).
- 12.
Abh. VI, See Gnoli (1956, 26).
- 13.
CJ §59, 229.
- 14.
Plato (1997), in the Ion reveals the poets to be more of a conduit of divine transmission than divinely inspired visionaries, in part because Ion has no idea what it is his poetry actually means himself.
- 15.
Beginning with a cognitive theory of emotions defended by the Stoic philosopher, Seneca, affective response or feeling in aesthetic experience is not necessarily considered to be an emotion, mainly because it is not construed as an evaluative judgment to which the agent assents. In a stoic cognitivism of ‘emotions,’ ‘first movements,’ or embodied affective responses, abide on a non-cognitive lower level. “Real” emotions are taken as higher order cognitive evaluations reaching assent to judgment. This is not the case for Posidonius, for whom the irrational nature of affect is attuned in aesthetic experience precisely because both poetics and affect function through harmonization of a distinct part of the soul. On Seneca’s picture, what one names aestheticized-emotions are merely a first-order responses, which abide below the threshold of cognitive evaluation, and are thereby insufficient to constitute the paradigmatic minimally two-tiered structure of real ‘emotions.’ Seneca’s own argument rests on the non-propositional nature of wordless music, and the lack of a determinate object on which to base a judgment of it. See Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind.
- 16.
The process of imaginative role-play is a (āvaraṇa-bhaṅga) breaking of obscurity, see Chakrabarti (2009, 197).
- 17.
The Stoics linked emotion’s place in moral dispositions to naturally follow from emotion’s role in epistemic dispositions. Stoics naturally advocate disciplining emotional dispositions for an agent’s benefit. Sorabji, 7.
- 18.
Nussbaum (1993) follows Galen on this: “Posidonius ‘completely departed’ (telos apechorisen), both from Chrysippus’ view that they are identical with judgments and from Zeno’s view that they supervene on and are necessarily produced by judgments: Nor he does not regard the passions either as judgments or as supervening upon judgments, but as coming about through the thumoeidetic and epithumetic power” (Passions and Perceptions, 110).
- 19.
Seneca, De Ira, Book II.
- 20.
It is worth differentiating the view of Posidonius from Chrysiuppus and Zeno on this point, the latter of whom Seneca follows. For Chrysiuppus, all emotions are faulty judgments and should be eradicated. If emotions are construed as irrational then they make us epistemically vulnerable. For the sake of explaining why the Stoics take up poetry as a practice, given the call for attacking it beginning with the rationalist, Plato, Martha Nussbaum has the positions mapped out: “The paradox of Stoic poetry,” according to Nussbaum, is about the consensus of Hellenistic philosophers: “that poetry makes its impact on the soul above all by altering its passions” but ironically, many influential Stoics were themselves marvels of poetic erudition. (Passions and Perceptions, 98).
- 21.
Seneca 2010. “The Pumpkinification of Claudius the God” (Apocolocyntosis). See: Seneca: Anger, Mercy, Revenge. Martha Nussbaum, trans.
- 22.
Ibid., p. 202.
- 23.
Seneca, in particular prescribes a program of discipline in his counsel to extirpate all practices leading to anger.
- 24.
Ibid., 219, pp. 63.
- 25.
CJ 187 Pluhar, 26 [This cryptic phrasing might be one reason to suppose that aesthetic pleasure precedes the process of judging, but logically, as we shall see this thought should be avoided.]
- 26.
209 Kant, CJ 268, Pluhar, pp. 127210 Kant, OBS 47–8.
- 27.
Zagzebski, Linda. Virtues of the Mind. 2002, 243.
- 28.
Kant’s theory of reflective judging is integral to this account, but up to this point we could just as well consider David Hume’s of the Standard of Taste. The key feature of Kant’s theory here, is that the judgment of taste must be theoretically communicable. The aesthetic experience is one in which we can imagine others would likely feel the same way in similar circumstances, even if embodied responses, such as trembling or crying differ between members of the audience. The judgment of taste is communicable in a way that is unlike lower-order affective responses.
- 29.
CJ Pluhar, 186/318.
- 30.
Sen Aesthetic Enjoyment, XXI.
- 31.
Pluhar, 2010, 91 §241.
- 32.
Abhinavagupta (2014), Jaideva Singh trans, 2014, 39.
- 33.
Wittgenstein & Kolak 1998, 48.
- 34.
Chatterjee. Trans. Śrī Tantrāloka 2008, 55–56.
- 35.
Ibid., 49.
- 36.
Kant, Pluhar trans. 2010, 91.
- 37.
Kṣemdra (1964), Aucityavicārcarcā 118, Aucitya is literally a concept of propriety, fitness, and appropriateness, but could be translated as aptness.
References
Abhinavagupta. 2014. Singh, J., Joo, L., & Bäumer, B. Parā-Trīśikā-vivaraṇa: The secret of tantric mysticism. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Abhinavagupta. 2004. Marjanovic, Boris. Trans. Gītārthasaṁgraha. Varanasi: Indica Books.
Abhinavagupta. 2008. Chatterjee, Gautam. Trans. Śrī Tantrālokaḥ. Indian Mind, Varanasi.
Abhinavagupta and Bharatamuni. 1992. The Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata, with the Abhinavabhāratī of Abhinavagupta, Vol. 1, 4th ed. Ed. K. Krishnamoorthy. Baroda: Oriental Institute.
Aristotle. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol. 2. Jonathan Barnes, trans. Princeton University Press: 2316–40.
Bhattacharyya, K. C. 2011. “The Concept of Rasa (1930).” Indian Philosophy in English from Renaissance to Independence. edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay L. Garfield. Oxford University Press.
Boruah, Bijoy. 2016. Arindam Chakrabarti, ed. “The impersonal Subjectivity of Aesthetic Emotion” in Bloomsbury research handbook of Indian aesthetics and the philosophy of art. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Chakrabarti, Arindam. 2009. “Play, Pleasure, Pain: Ownerless Emotions in Rasa- Aesthetics.” In History of Science, Philosophy, and Culture in Indian Civilization. Vol. XV Part III. ed. D.P. Chattopadhyaya and Amiya Dev (New Delhi: Center for Study in Civilizations). pp. 189–202.
Chakrabarti, Arindam. 2005.“Heart of Repose, The Repose of the Heart: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Concept of Viśrānti” in Samarasya: Studies in Indian Arts, Philosophy, and Interreligious Dialogue: in Honour of Bettina Bäumer. Edited by Sadananda Das and Ernst Fürlinger. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.
Chakravarti, Sitansu Sekhar. 2019. “Tagore-Wittgenstein Interface: The poet’s activism and virtue ethics.” Tagore, Einstein and the Nature of Reality: Literary and Philosophical Reflections. Partha Ghose (ed.) London: Routledge.
Dās, Bhagavan. 1953. The science of emotions. Madras, India: Theosophical Pub. House.
Gnoli, Raniero. 1956. The aesthetic experience according to Abhinavagupta. Roma: Is. M.E.O.
Guyer, Paul. “Alva Noë, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. XCIV No. 1, January 2017.
Hanfling, Oswald. “Five Kinds of Distance” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 2000 p 89–102
Kant, Immanuel. 2010. Werner S. Pluhar. trans. Critique of Judgment. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Keltner, Dacher. 2023 Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder. Penguin.
Kṣemendra. 1964. Ācārya Śri Brajmohan Jhā. Ed. Aucityavicārcarcā. Vidyabhawan Sanskrit Granthamala, Chowkhamba.
Lyotard, Jean François. 1991. Lessons on the Analytic of the sublime Kant’s Critique of judgment, sections §23–29. Translated by Elizaberh Ronenberg. Meridian.
McCrea, L. J. (2009). The teleology of poetics in medieval Kashmir. Published by the Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University.
Noë, Alva “Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature: A Precis” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol. XCIV No. 1, January 2017.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2008. Upheavals of thought: the intelligence of emotions. Indianapolis, Hackett
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1993. “Poetry and the Passions: two Stoic views” in Passions and Perceptions: studies in Hellenistic philosophy of mind. Edited by Jacques Brunschwig, and Martha C. Nussbaum. Cambridge University Press.
Plato. 1997 John M. Cooper Ed., Paul Woodruff trans. “Ion” in Complete Works. Cambridge; Hackett.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. 2010. Nussbaum, Martha. Trans. “The Pumpkinification of Claudius the God”. and “On Anger” trans. Kaster. In Anger, Mercy, Revenge. Chicago University Press.
Schaper, Eva. Pleasure, preference and value: studies in philosophical aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2009.
Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation To Christian Temptation The Gifford Lectures. Oxford University Press
Vidyākara, and Daniel Henry Holmes. Ingalls, trans., Kosambi and Gokhale, eds. (1957). Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa: Sanskrit Poetry, from Vidyākara’s Treasury. Cambridge Harvard Oriental Series.
Williams, Bernard. Spring 2001 “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline” The Three penny Review.
Wittgenstein, L., & Kolak, D. (1998). Wittgenstein’s tractatus. Mayfield Publishing Company.
Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 2002. Virtues of the mind: an inquiry into the nature of virtue and the ethical foundations of knowledge. Cambridge University Press.
Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 2001. “Rediscovering Understanding” in Knowledge, Truth and Duty, edited by Matthias Steup. Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Widdison, L. (2024). Emotion Concepts for Virtue Theory: From Aesthetic to Epistemic and Moral. In: Chakravarti, S.S., Chatterjee, A., Chakravarti, A., Widdison, L. (eds) Traditional Indian Virtue Ethics for Today. Palgrave Studies in Comparative East-West Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47972-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47972-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-47971-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-47972-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)