Descartes on Love and/as Error

Journal of the History of Ideas

Volumn 58, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 429-444

  Williston, Byron ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; EMOTION; HISTORY; LOVE; PHILOSOPHY;

EMOTIONS; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; LOVE; PHILOSOPHY;

EID: 0031180067     PISSN: 00225037     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3653908     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. "Love's Growth," John Donne: The Complete English Poems, ed. A. J. Smith (London, 1986), 69.
2. Plato, Euthyphro, from Five Dialogues, tr. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis, 1981), 14. Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 1, addresses this problem as the "antinomy of objectivity," which derives from the "plausibility of both alternative answers" to the question of the Euthyphro.
3. Plato, Euthyphro, from Five Dialogues, tr. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis, 1981), 14. Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 1, addresses this problem as the "antinomy of objectivity," which derives from the "plausibility of both alternative answers" to the question of the Euthyphro.
4. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, article 49 (Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Adam and Tannery [rev. ed.; Paris, 1964-76], XI, 368; hereafter cited as AT); all references from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, tr. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge, 1985), I, II and III.
5. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, article 49 (Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Adam and Tannery [rev. ed.; Paris, 1964-76], XI, 368; hereafter cited as AT); all references from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, tr. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge, 1985), I, II and III.
6. For Descartes's reference to the notions primitives, see Letter to Elizabeth, 5.21.1643 (AT, III, 663).
7. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, article 23 (AT, XI, 346).
8. Ibid., article 24 (AT, XI, 347).
9. Ibid., article 25 (AT, XI, 348).
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., article 26 (AT, XI, 349).
12. For a succinct summary of the Cartesian perception types and their causes, cf. de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion, 29.
13. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (AT, VII, 83).
14. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul article 21 (AT, XI, 349).
15. Ibid., article 29 (AT, XI, 350).
16. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, tr. Stephen H. Voss (Indianapolis, 1989), 35, n. 30.
17. Descartes, Treatise on Man (AT, XI, 142-44).
18. Voss, The Passions of the Soul, 35, fn 30. Voss cites the Passions, articles 12, 23, and 24 (AT, XI, 337, 346 and 347).
19. Voss, The Passions of the Soul, 35, fn 30. Voss cites the Passions, articles 12, 23, and 24 (AT, XI, 337, 346 and 347).
20. For the three separate types of reference, cf. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul articles 23, 24, and 25 (AT, XI, 346-48).
21. Ibid., article 26 (AT, XI, 349).
22. Ibid., article 52 (AT, XI, 372). Cf. also articles 40 and 74 (AT, XI, 359 and 383).
23. Ibid., article 79 (AT, XI, 387).
24. Ibid., article 56 (AT, XI, 374).
25. Letter to Chanut, 1.2.1647 (AT, IV, 600).
26. Ibid.
27. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul article 142 (AT, XI, 435).
28. Irving Singer, The Nature of Love (Chicago, 1984), I, 14. We might well question Singer's extreme formulation of the theory of bestowal here. Judgments about moral objects are not made in a vacuum, and it is therefore unlikely that "anything" may be an object of love for the bestower or that the latter's bestowing activity is utterly "gratuitous." I owe this point to an anonymous reader at JHI.
29. Ibid., II, 259.
30. Ibid., 260.
31. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (AT, VII, 57).
32. Ibid.
33. Letter to Mesland, 2.9.1645 (AT, IV, 173).
34. Ibid.
35. Anthony Kenny, "Descartes on the Will," Cartesian Studies, ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford, 1972), 1-31.
36. Katherine Sherman, "Descartes' Change of Mind," Philosophical Forum, 5 (1974), 557-71.
37. Kenny, "Descartes on the Will," 18. The relevant passage from the Meditations is (AT, VII, 57). It should also be noted that Kenny disputes the 1645 dating of the letter to Mesland. His case on this point is convincing, but so long as the letter falls between the Meditations and the Passions (which it certainly does) my point here carries.
38. Kenny, "Descartes on the Will," 18. The relevant passage from the Meditations is (AT, VII, 57). It should also be noted that Kenny disputes the 1645 dating of the letter to Mesland. His case on this point is convincing, but so long as the letter falls between the Meditations and the Passions (which it certainly does) my point here carries.
39. In a paper devoted to showing that Spinoza's conception of Descartes's "absolutist" doctrine of freedom is misguided, John Cottingham is guilty of the same oversight (despite the promising title of his paper) ("The Intellect, the Will and the Passions: Spinoza's Critique of Descartes," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 26 [1988], 239-57).
40. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul article 80 (AT, XI, 387).
41. Descartes, Objections and Replies (AT, VII, 377).
42. Letter to Elizabeth, 9.15.1645 (AT, IV, 295).
43. Letter to Chanut, 6.6.1647 (AT, V, 50).
44. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul article 102 (AT, XI, 404).
45. Anthony Levi, French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions, 1585-1649 (Oxford, 1964), 280.
46. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul article 49 (AT, XI, 368), my emphasis.
47. Ibid., article 41 (AT, XI, 359).
48. Ibid., article 50 (AT, XI, 369).
49. Singer, The Nature of Love, II, 259.
50. Ibid., I, 17.
51. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, articles 1 and 2 (AT, XI, 328).
52. Letter to Chanut, 1.2.1647 (AT, IV, 600).
53. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, article 80 (AT, XI, 387).
54. Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy (AT, IXB, 317-18).
55. Descartes, Passions of the Soul, art. 81 (AT, XI, 388).