Abstract

This critical essay explores the theme of passion through an analysis of the social and ethical importance of fear. To this aim, it preliminarily constructs a methodological picture using the philosophy of MerleauPonty, in dialogue with other thinkers, particularly Viktor von Weizsäcker. From the methodological result, through which the dualism between subject and object is exceeded in “the more radical way”, the essay proceeds to integrate feeling and thinking, the biological and the social, the real and the imaginary, the historical and the mythical. It derives from such premise that a passion such as fear is revaluated without dualisms and reductionisms. The revaluation of fear as ethical and social passion develops particularly through an historical event such as French Revolution. The result emphasizes the importance of fear as social and not reductively as private passion and its consequent contribution for social changes.