Abstract

Recent writing on the expression of emotion has explored the idea that there is a symbolic dimension to many “expressive actions.” This paper aims to situate and better understand the “symbolic expression” account by exploring its position in a framework of views from the history of philosophy regarding emotion, action out of emotion, and their place in the good human life. The paper discusses a number of competing views that can be found in this tradition, ranging from irrationalism, through irenicism, self‐externalization, and cognitivism to the symbolist tradition itself. In looking specifically at the roots of symbolism, the paper departs from the common view that Aristotelianism is the central tradition, for us, of thinking about philosophy of the emotions. It suggests that we can get a better grip on the source of these ideas by looking rather at how thinkers in the post‐Kantian and Romantic tradition wrestled with the question of the freedom and rationality of behaviour out of emotion.