Aristotle's account of anger: Narcissism and illusions of self-sufficiency

Ratio

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 23-45

  Leighton, Stephen ^a  

^a QUEEN S UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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EID: 29444433926     PISSN: 00340006     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9329.00174     Document Type: Article

References (8)

1. See Michael Stocker Elizabeth Hegeman, Valuing Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), especially chapter 10
2. The word translated as 'apparent/conspicuous' is phainomenē. Commentators such as J. Cooper take Aristotle's point to be, roughly speaking, subjective, i.e. to speak to an appearance of something without implication about belief or judgement ('An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions. In Aristotle's Rhetoric, edited by A.O. Rorty, 238-257. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)
3. Others, such as E.M. Cope, have taken it in a more emphatic, objective sense, 'conspicuous' (The 'Rhetoric' of Aristotle, with a Commentary. Edited by and Revised by J.E. Sandys. 3 vols. Vol. 2. Cambridge University, 1877.). The difference is significant, as are its ramifications. The matter, unfortunately, is too complex and delicate to pursue here. Thus I mean to leave both options open, and develop my arguments in ways that satisfy either understanding
4. See Otto Kernberg, 'Factors in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personalities'. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 18 (1970): 51-85
5. See Plato, Republic 387D-E (translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.). The passage reveals not only a particular view of self-sufficiency, but also striking views of the bonds of friendship, and the importance of death. Here I am concerned with the conception of self-sufficiency only. Accordingly, the arguments to follow do not depend upon or use the notion of friendship displayed in this passage, and do allow for cases of friendship in which one takes the death of a friend to be a terrible fate
6. According to A.W.H. Adkins, 'Self-sufficiency is the ideal for the Homeric and later Greek head of family, in so far as he considers himself agathos. The ideal is incapable of realization: the agathos is certain to need agatha, including philoi, which he does not possess; but this fact is minimized as much as possible' ('"Friendship" and "Self-Sufficiency" in Homer and Aristotle'. Classical Quarterly 13 (1963): p. 44)
7. Stocker and Hegeman, in effect, follow Adkins on this, and allege tension within the Aristotelian framework. The argument I am developing shows how these claims can make sense and might be correctly applied when using the Republic's notion of self-sufficiency. But it denies any application to Aristotle, holding that to a considerable extent Aristotle seems to have seen the problem and to have reconceptualised the ideal of self-sufficiency in order to render it a realisable goal - where its realisation allows for, indeed demands, commitments to others, including friends. Interestingly, the notion of self-sufficiency that Adkins describes and Plato deploys has had a powerful hold on theorists. For example, if G. Harris is right, then a descendant notion is to be found in the works of the Stoics, Kant and present day Kantians (see G. Harris, Dignity and Vulnerability. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997)
8. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b8-9, translated by T. Irwin (Hackett Publishing Company, 1985)