JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PRIZE for the best published book in the history of philosophy [Awarded in 2010] _______________ -/- Although it is widely recognized that David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) belongs among the greatest works of philosophy, there is little agreement about the correct way to interpret his fundamental intentions. It is an established orthodoxy among almost all commentators that skepticism and naturalism are the two dominant themes in this work. The difficulty has been, (...) however, that Hume's skeptical arguments and commitments appear to undermine and discredit his naturalistic ambition to contribute to "the science of man". This schism appears to leave his entire project broken-backed. The solution to this riddle depends on challenging another, closely related, point of orthodoxy: namely, that before Hume published the Treatise he removed almost all material concerned with problems of religion. Russell argues, contrary to this view, that irreligious aims and objectives are fundamental to the Treatise and account for its underlying unity and coherence. It is Hume's basic anti-Christian aims and objectives that serve to shape and direct both his skeptical and naturalistic commitments. When Hume's arguments are viewed from this perspective we can solve, not only puzzles arising from his discussion of various specific issues, we can also explain the intimate and intricate connections that hold his entire project together. This "irreligious" interpretation provides a comprehensive fresh account of the nature of Hume's fundamental aims and ambitions in the Treatise. It also presents a radically different picture of the way in which Hume's project was rooted in the debates and controversies of his own time, placing the Treatise in an irreligious or anti-Chrisitan philosophical tradition that includes Hobbes, Spinoza and freethinking followers. Considered in these terms, Hume's Treatise constitutes the crowning achievement of the Radical Enlightenment. (shrink)

This volume brings together for the first time a significant number of Reid's manuscript papers on natural history, physiology and materialist metaphysics. An important contribution not only to Reid studies but also to our understanding of eighteenth-century science and its context.

In this chapter, I make three main points. First, I argue that, on Locke’s view, the power of human freedom is good because it allows us to be determined by the goods we have chosen for ourselves. Under ideal conditions, this power allows intellectual beings to attain happiness. There is, however, ample evidence that many intellectual beings are unhappy. This observation leads me to my second point. For Locke, bad choices are no less freely made than good ones. This is (...) because bad decisions come from bad judgments about the intrinsic value of things, not from weakness of will. I next pose the question of how Locke understands the mechanism of our evaluation of the intrinsic value of things. I advance my third point by noting that while Locke thinks that many of our inclinations are engrained in childhood, it is possible for even the most inveterate sinners to change the way they perceive value, thereby changing their behavior. (shrink)

This chapter presents a general account of the speculative and practical moral philosophy of eighteenth-century Scotland. It gives particular attention to three topics: the Scottish insistence that moral philosophy is an empirical, or ‘experimental’, science, grounded in what might now be called a phenomenology of the moral life, and intimately connected with the other elements of the ‘science of man’; the project of combining Hutchesonian moral sense theory with a Butlerian faculty of conscience; and the attempt to combine an empirical (...) and broadly anti-rationalist moral philosophy—a moral philosophy that had a central place for the concept of virtue, with a natural jurisprudence taken from Grotius and, especially, Pufendorf. Particular attention is paid to the practical moral philosophy which was the focus of much of the teaching of moral philosophy in Scotland. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by David Hume. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

James Moore states that "some of the most distinctive and central arguments of Hutcheson's philosophy - the importance of ideas brought to mind by the internal senses, the presence in human nature of calm desires, of generous and benevolent instincts - will be found to emerge in the course of these writings.""--Jacket.

David Hume’s theory of action is well known for several provocative theses, including that passion and reason cannot be opposed over the direction of action. In Hume, Passion, and Action, the author defends an original interpretation of Hume’s views on passion, reason and motivation that is consistent with other theses in Hume’s philosophy, loyal to his texts, and historically situated. This book challenges the now orthodox interpretation of Hume on motivation, presenting an alternative that situates Hume closer to “Humeans” than (...) many recent interpreters have. Part of the strategy is to examine the thinking of the early modern intellectuals to whom Hume responds. Most of these thinkers insisted that passions lead us to pursue harmful objects unless regulated by reason; and most regarded passions as representations of good and evil, which can be false. Understanding Hume’s response to these claims requires appreciating his respective characterizations of reason and passion. The author argues that Hume’s thesis that reason is practically impotent apart from passion is about beliefs generated by reason, rather than about the capacity of reason. Furthermore, the argument makes sense of Hume’s sometimes-ridiculed description of passions as “original existences” having no reference to objects. The author also shows how Hume understood morality as intrinsically motivating, while holding that moral beliefs are not themselves motives, and why he thought of passions as self-regulating, contrary to the admonitions of the rationalists. (shrink)

ESSAY I. Of our Attachment to Objects of Distress. A Noted French critic, treating of poetry and painting, undertakes a subject attempted by others unsuccessfully, which is, to account for the strong attachment we have to objects of ...

Are human beings linked by a common nature, one that makes them see the world in the same moral way? Or are they fragmented by different cultural practices and values? These fundamental questions of our existence were debated in the Enlightenment by Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson. Daniel Carey provides an important new historical perspective on their discussion. At the same time, he explores the relationship between these founding arguments and contemporary disputes over cultural diversity and multiculturalism. Our own conflicting positions (...) today reflect long-standing differences that emerged during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world of one of the most important and traditionally under-appreciated philosophers of the 18th century: Thomas Reid. For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely remote products (...) of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all and only those events that spring from active power and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, of endowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour and the progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behavior. (shrink)

I examine Hume’s ‘construal of the basic structure of human agency’ and his ‘analysis of human agency’ as they arise in his investigation of causal power. Hume’s construal holds both that volition is separable from action and that the causal mechanism of voluntary action is incomprehensible. Hume’s analysis argues, on the basis of these two claims, that we cannot draw the concept of causal power from human agency. Some commentators suggest that Hume’s construal of human agency is untenable, unduly skeptical, (...) or uniquely entailed by the limits of empiricism. However, as I argue, these criticisms depend either on a misunderstanding of Hume’s analysis of human agency or on a neglect of the historical context of his view. (shrink)

This book provides an overview of key features of (philosophical) materialism, in historical perspective. It is, thus, a study in the history and philosophy of materialism, with a particular focus on the early modern and Enlightenment periods, leading into the 19th and 20th centuries. For it was in the 18th century that the word was first used by a philosopher (La Mettrie) to refer to himself. Prior to that, ‘materialism’ was a pejorative term, used for wicked thinkers, as a near-synonym (...) to ‘atheist’, ‘Spinozist’ or the delightful ‘Hobbist’. The book provides the different forms of materialism, particularly distinguished into claims about the material nature of the world and about the material nature of the mind, and then focus on materialist approaches to body and embodiment, selfhood, ethics, laws of nature, reductionism and determinism, and overall, its relationship to science. For materialism is often understood as a kind of philosophical facilitator of the sciences, and the author want to suggest that is not always the case. Materialism takes on different forms and guises in different historical, ideological and scientific contexts as well, and the author wants to do justice to that diversity. Figures discussed include Lucretius, Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, Toland, Collins, La Mettrie, Diderot, d’Holbach and Priestley; Büchner, Bergson, J.J.C. Smart and D.M. Armstrong. (shrink)

Even philosophers who believe there is a single “problem of personal identity” conceive of that problem in different ways. They differ not only in their ways of stating the problem, but in the parts of philosophy to which they assign it, and in the resources they feel entitled to call upon in their attempts to deal with it. My topic in this paper is an eighteenth-century uncertainty about the place within philosophy of the problem of personal identity. Is it a (...) problem in metaphysics, or a problem in ethics? Here I try to show that the boundary between ethics and metaphysics was—for a line of philosophers beginning with Locke, continuing with Shaftesbury, and ending with Hume—a shifting and sometimes disputed one. I hope what I have to say will help to clarify a longstanding problem in the interpretation of Hume: his motive for repudiating, in the Appendix to the Treatise, the account of judgments of personal identity and simplicity he had provided in Book I. (shrink)

Hume holds that sympathy is both crucial for making moral judgments and a distorting influence that prevents us from assessing the virtue of characters impartially. He writes, When any quality, or character, has a tendency to the good of mankind, we are pleas’d with it, and approve of it; because it presents the lively idea of pleasure; which idea affects us by sympathy, and is itself a kind of pleasure. But as this sympathy is very variable, it may be thought, (...) that our sentiments of morals must admit of all the same variations. We sympathize more with persons contiguous to us, than with strangers: With our countrymen, than with foreigners. This essay will argue that Humean sympathy can play a .. (shrink)

David Hume and Adam Smith are usually, and understandably, seen as developing very similar sentimentalist accounts of moral thought and practice. As similar as Hume's and Smith's accounts of moral thought are, they differ in telling ways. This essay is an attempt primarily to get clear on the important differences. They are worth identifying and exploring, in part, because of the great extent to which Hume and Smith share not just an overall approach to moral theory but also a conception (...) of what the key components of an adequate account of moral thought will be. In the process, I hope to bring out the extent to which they both worked to make sense of the fact that we do not merely have affective reactions but also, importantly, make moral judgments. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is now recognized as one of the towering figures of the Enlightenment. Best known for his published writings on epistemology and moral theory, he was also an accomplished mathematician and natural philosopher, as an earlier volume of his manuscripts edited by Paul Wood for the Edinburgh Reid Edition, Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation, has shown. The Correspondence of Thomas Reid collects all of the known letters to and from Reid in a fully annotated form. Letters already published (...) by Sir William Hamilton and others have been reedited, and roughly half of the letters included appear in print for the first time. Writing in 1802, Reid's disciple and biographer Dugald Stewart doubted that Reid's correspondence &"would be generally interesting.&" This collection proves otherwise, for the letters illuminate virtually every aspect of Reid's life and career and, in some instances, provide us with invaluable evidence about activities otherwise undocumented in his manuscripts or published works. Through his correspondence we can trace Reid's relations with contemporaries such as David Hume and his colleagues at both King's College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow, as well as his engagement with the most controversial philosophical, scientific, and political issues of his day. If anything, the letters assembled here serve as the starting point for understanding Reid and his place in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

The chapter begins with early eighteenth-century descriptions of the use of reason, properly supplemented by faith and grace, in the government of the passions. Next the familiar figures of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are presented, with emphasis laid upon their insistence that government of the passions is work that the individual has to do for himself. The question is then raised whether all people can be conceived as able to do the work necessary to self-government, and Mandeville is introduced as an (...) advocate of the view that the answer to this question is plainly No. The next section of the chapter provides examples of texts which give the faculty of conscience a governing role, as well texts which see in the formations of associations of ideas the possibility of gradual reform and correction of the passions. In conclusion the chapter makes brief mention of two trends that would prove important in the first decades of the next century: religious revivalism, and the advocacy of physiological cures to mental disorders. (shrink)

The eighteenth century was a time of brilliant philosophical innovation in Britain. In Of Liberty and Necessity James A. Harris presents the first comprehensive account of the period's discussion of what remains a central problem of philosophy, the question of the freedom of the will. He offers new interpretations of contributions to the free will debate made by canonical figures such as Locke, Hume, Edwards, and Reid, and also discusses in detail the arguments of some less familiar writers. Harris puts (...) the eighteenth-century debate about the will and its freedom in the context of the period's concern with applying what Hume calls the "experimental method of reasoning" to the human mind. His book will be of substantial interest to historians of philosophy and anyone concerned with the free will problem. (shrink)

The Introduction sets the contributions to this special issue in the context of existing scholarship on Dugald Stewart. The main points are the great advance in our understanding of Stewart's intellectual development, his complicated relationship to his predecessors and contemporaries in Scottish philosophy, and his important role in the European republic of letters.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 1, April 1996, pp. 23-48 Fantastick Associations and Addictive General Rules: A Fundamental Difference between Hutcheson and Hume MICHAEL B. GILL The belief that God created human beings for some moral purpose underlies nearly all the moral philosophy written in Great Britain in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. David Hume attacks this theological conception of human nature on all fronts. It is out (...) of these attacks that Hume develops his own "science of man" based solely on "experience and observation."1 Francis Hutcheson is often taken to be the most important positive influence on Hume. And there can be no doubt that Hume does take on board several crucial Hutchesonian elements. But Hutcheson's moral theory, like that of most of his contemporaries, is grounded in a theological conception of human nature to which Hume is adamantly opposed.2 In this paper I will examine how Hume's disagreements with Hutcheson embody the anti-theological purpose that defines Hume's work as a whole. I will look, in particular, at Hume's and Hutcheson's different positions on the principles of association. I hope to show how Hume's use of these principles in the Treatise advances his larger goal of placing "the science of man" on "a foundation almost entirely new" (T xvi). I will proceed, first, by explaining Hutcheson's conception of human nature and his use of the principles of association; second, by sketching in broad outline how Hume's accounts of the origins of justice and natural virtue undermine crucial components of Hutcheson's conception of human nature; and third, by elucidating in more detail an aspect of Hume's associationism that is particularly revealing of his distance from Hutcheson. Michael B. Gill is at the Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 1360 Liberal Arts and Education Building, West Lafayette IN 47907 USA. email: [email protected]. 24 Michael B. Gill I. Hutcheson and Association Hutcheson discusses the mind's tendency to associate in all of his writings, but his most extensive treatment of the matter comes in his Essay on the Passions.3 Hutcheson begins the Essay by telling us that something is good if and only if the perception of it "Causes, or Occasions" a pleasurable feeling, and that something is evil if and only if the perception of it causes or occasions a painful feeling (EP 2). Crucially, Hutcheson denies that all of our pleasures and pains are of the same type (EP 1-8).4 He holds, rather, that there are at least five distinct types of pleasures and pains and that each of them grounds a different irreducible type of good and evil. There are, first, the pleasures and pains caused by things we perceive through the external senses of taste, touch, smell, etc.; things that cause such pleasures are called naturally good, while things that cause such pains are called naturally evil. Second, there are the "Pleasant Perceptions, arising from regular, harmonious, uniform Objects" (EP 5); the things that cause these pleasures are called beautiful.5 Third, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving the happiness or misery of other human beings; the things that cause these pleasures are called public goods while those that cause the corresponding pains are called public evils. Fourth, there are pleasures and pains, usually called approval and disapproval, that we feel upon perceiving the actions of others; the actions that cause approval are called virtuous or morally good, while those that cause disapproval are called vicious or morally evil. Finally, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving others' moral perceptions of our own actions; the pleasure of perceiving others' approval of one's actions is called the feeling of honor, while the pain of perceiving others' disapproval is called the feeling of shame. For Hutcheson, then, natural goodness, beauty, the public good, virtue and honor are all defined by our pleasures and pains. He does not think, however, that these are defined by just any of our actual or occurrent pleasures and pains. He holds, rather, that they are defined by the pleasures and pains we feel under certain privileged... (shrink)

This paper argues that Hume can account for character traits as lasting mental qualities without violating his reductionist account of the mind as a changing bundle of ideas and impressions. It argues that a trait is a disposition to act according to certain passions or motivations, explained entirely with reference to the ideas and impressions constituting one's current self. This account is consistent with Hume's view of the mind, and relies solely on his accounts of the association of impressions and (...) ideas, and of the relationship between belief and passion, to establish relations that can properly be called lasting mental qualities. (shrink)

The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major (...) problem, because he does not resolve certain conflicts that arise between what action a duty prescribes and what action a natural affection, associated to that duty, inclines us to do. (shrink)

The word “emotion” has named a psychological category and a subject for systematic enquiry only since the 19th century. Before then, relevant mental states were categorised variously as “appetites,” “passions,” “affections,” or “sentiments.” The word “emotion” has existed in English since the 17th century, originating as a translation of the French émotion, meaning a physical disturbance. It came into much wider use in 18th-century English, often to refer to mental experiences, becoming a fully fledged theoretical term in the following century, (...) especially through the influence of two Scottish philosopher-physicians, Thomas Brown and Charles Bell. This article relates this intellectual and semantic history to contemporary debates about the usefulness and meaning of “emotion” as a scientific term. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Shaftesbury’s thinking about liberty is best understood in terms of self-mastery. To examine his understanding of liberty, I turn to a painting that he commissioned on the ancient theme of the choice of Hercules and the notes that he prepared for the artist. Questions of human choice are also present in the so-called story of an amour, which addresses the difficulties of controlling human passions. Jaffro distinguishes three notions of self-control that (...) are present in the story of an amour. Although I agree with many aspects of Jaffro’s interpretation, I question his conclusion that self- control in the Stoic sense is best reserved for ‘moral heroes.’ I propose an alternative developmental interpretation, according to which all human beings are on an intellectual journey aimed at personal and moral improvement. My interpretation takes seriously that for Shaftesbury philosophy is meant to be practical and help improve our lives. I end by arguing that rather than trying to situate Shaftesbury’s concept of liberty within debates among compatibilists and incompatibilists it is more promising to understand it in terms of self- mastery and thus regard it as a version of positive liberty. (shrink)

Shaftesbury’s major work Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was one of the most influential English works in the eighteenth century. This paper focuses on his contributions to debates about persons and personal identity and shows that Shaftesbury regards metaphysical questions of personal identity as closely connected with normative questions of character development. I argue that he is willing to accept that persons are substances and that he takes their continued existence for granted. He sees the need to supplement metaphysical (...) debates of personal identity and believes that we have to turn to the character that is realized by a substance if we want to understand who we are. For Shaftesbury persons have a particular character, can act, and govern themselves. I propose that Shaftesbury’s approach to persons has a developmental dimension, which is meant to encourage personal development and improvement of character. The developmental dimension can be understood as an intellectual journey that invites us to search for our true self, to develop our character, and to seek happiness, which ultimately involves understanding our place as persons in the order of the universe. I show that my developmental interpretation is preferable to other existing interpretations. (shrink)

This paper aims to reconstruct Francis Hutcheson's thinking about liberty. Since he does not offer a detailed treatment of philosophical questions concerning liberty in his mature philosophical writings I turn to a textbook on metaphysics. We can assume that he prepared the textbook during the 1720s in Dublin. This textbook deserves more attention. First, it sheds light on Hutcheson's role as a teacher in Ireland and Scotland. Second, Hutcheson's contributions to metaphysical disputes are more original than sometimes assumed. To appreciate (...) his independent thinking, I argue, it is helpful to take the intellectual debates in Ireland into consideration, including William King's defence of free will and discussions of Shaftesbury's views in Robert Molesworth's intellectual circle. Rather than taking a stance on the philosophical disputes about liberty, I argue that Hutcheson aims to shift the focus of the debates towards practical questions concerning control of desire, cultivation of habits, and character development. (shrink)

v. 1. The principles of moral philosophy -- v. 2. Christian philosophy.

Stephen Gaukroger presents an original account of the development of empirical science and the understanding of human behaviour from the mid-eighteenth century. During this period science was cut loose from the legitimating culture in which it had had a public rationale as a fruitful and worthwhile form of enquiry. An abrupt but fundamental shift in how the tasks of scientific enquiry were conceived is at the centre of this development, and at its core lies the naturalization of the human: attempts (...) to understand human behaviour and motivations no longer in theological and metaphysical terms, but in empirical terms. Gaukroger explores the variety of forms that this took, in anthropological medicine, philosophical anthropology, the 'natural history of man', and social arithmetic. Each of these disciplines re-formulated basic questions so that empirical investigation could be drawn upon in answering them, but the empirical dimension was conceived very differently in each case, with the result that the naturalization of the human took the form of competing, and in some respects mutually exclusive, projects. (shrink)

In this book, Russell examines Hume's notion of free will and moral responsibility. It is widely held that Hume presents us with a classic statement of a compatibilist position--that freedom and responsibility can be reconciled with causation and, indeed, actually require it. Russell argues that this is a distortion of Hume's view, because it overlooks the crucial role of moral sentiment in Hume's picture of human nature. Hume was concerned to describe the regular mechanisms which generate moral sentiments such as (...) responsibility, and Russell argues that his conception of free will must be interprted within this naturalistic framework. He goes on to discuss Hume's views about the nature and character of moral sentiment; the extent to which we have control over our moral character; and the justification of punishment. Throughout, Russell argues that the naturalistic avenue of interpretation of Hume's thought, far from draining it of its contemporary interest and significance, reveals it to be of great relevance to the ongoing contemporary debate - particuarly in relation to the views of P.F. Strawson and his influential paper "Freedom and Resentment". (shrink)

Jacqueline Taylor presents an original reconstruction of Hume's social theory, which examines the passions and imagination in relation to institutions such as government and the economy. She goes on to examine Hume's system of ethics, and argues that the principle of humanity is the central concept of Hume's Enlightenment philosophy.

In a focused assessment of one of the founding members of the liberal tradition in philosophy and a self-proclaimed “Under-Labourer” working to support the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the author maps the full range of John Locke’s highly influential ideas, which even today remain at the heart of debates about the nature of reality and our knowledge of it, as well as our moral and political rights and duties. Comprehensive introduction to the full range of Locke’s ideas, providing (...) an up-to-date account that acknowledges issues raised by recent scholarship over the past decade A well-rounded perspective on one of the intellectual giants of the western philosophical tradition Provides detailed coverage of Locke’s two key works, _An Essay Concerning Human Understanding_ and _The Two Treatises of Government_. A sophisticated analysis by a highly respected academic A vital addition to the _Blackwell_ _Great Minds_ series. (shrink)

Matthew Stuart offers a fresh interpretation of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, arguing for the work's profound contribution to metaphysics. He presents new readings of Locke's accounts of personal identity and the primary/secondary quality distinction, and explores Locke's case against materialism and his philosophy of action.

Henry Home (1696-1782) has been called "perhaps the most complete 'Enlightenment man' among the eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers." Kinsman and friend of David Hume, mentor and patron of Adam Smith, John Millar, and Thomas Reid, he was a key figure in that circle of luminaries. He read law, was called to the bar in 1723, was raised to the Bench of the Court of Session in 1752, with the title Lord Kames (the name of his family estate), and joined the High (...) Court of the Justiciary in 1763. Publishing broadly in law, history, philosophy, and criticism, Kames made significant contributions to the Enlightenment's science of human nature. The Essays is commonly considered Kames's most important philosophical work. In the first part, he sets forth the principles and foundations of morality and justice, attacking Hume's moral skepticism and addressing the controversial issue of the freedom of human will. In the second part, Kames focuses on questions of metaphysics and epistemology to offer a natural theology in which the authority of the external senses is an important basis for belief in the Deity. The text of this volume is based on the third edition of 1779, while the appendix presents substantial variant readings in the first and second editions. (shrink)

It is widely believed that Hume often wrote carelessly and contradicted himself, and that no unified, sound philosophy emerges from his writings. Don Garrett demonstrates that such criticisms of Hume are without basis. Offering fresh and trenchant solutions to longstanding problems in Hume studies, Garrett's penetrating analysis also makes clear the continuing relevance of Hume's philosophy.

Today there is a thriving 'emotions industry' to which philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists are contributing. Yet until two centuries ago 'the emotions' did not exist. In this path-breaking study Thomas Dixon shows how, during the nineteenth century, the emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category, replacing existing categories such as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections. By examining medieval and eighteenth-century theological psychologies and placing Charles Darwin and William James within a broader and more complex nineteenth-century setting, Thomas Dixon (...) argues that this domination by one single descriptive category is not healthy. Overinclusivity of 'the emotions' hampers attempts to argue with any subtlety about the enormous range of mental states and stances of which humans are capable. This book is an important contribution to the debate about emotion and rationality which has preoccupied western thinkers throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and has implications for contemporary debates. (shrink)