A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing: The Meanings of Emotion (Medicine)

Is jealousy eliminable? If so, at what cost? What are the connections between pride the sin and the pride insisted on by identity politics? How can one question an individual's understanding of their own happiness or override a society's account of its own rituals? What makes a sexual desire "perverse," or particular sexual relations (such as incestuous ones) undesirable or even unthinkable? These and other questions about what sustains and threatens our identity are pursued using the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines. The discussion throughout is informed and motivated by the Spinozist hope that understanding our lives can help change them, can help make us more free. Acknowledgments......Page 5 Contents......Page 7 1. Mill's Pig: An Introduction......Page 11 2. "A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing"......Page 22 3. Jealous Thoughts......Page 49 4. Jealous Afterthoughts......Page 76 5. Odi et Amo: On Hating the Ones We Love......Page 89 6. Boring from Within: Endogenous versus Reactive Boredom......Page 103 7. Pride and Identity......Page 116 8. Plato's Homoerotic Symposium......Page 138 9. Freud and Perversion......Page 152 10. What Is Wrong with Incest?......Page 174 11. Fantasy and Memory: The Etiological Role of Thoughts according to Freud......Page 185 12. "Does the Professor Talk to God?": Learning from Little Hans......Page 208 13. Lévi-Strauss on Shamanism......Page 237 14. "Getting Behind the Demons"......Page 247 15. Life-Lies and Pipe Dreams: Self-deception in Ibsen's The Wild Duck and O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh......Page 270 2. "A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing"......Page 297 3. Jealous Thoughts......Page 299 5. On Hating the Ones We Love......Page 303 6. Boring from Within......Page 306 8. Plato's Homoerotic Symposium......Page 307 9. Freud and Perversion......Page 310 10. What Is Wrong with Incest?......Page 315 11. Fantasy a nd Memory......Page 316 12. "Does the Professor Talk to God?"......Page 317 13. Lévi-Strauss on Shamanism......Page 318 15. Life-Lies and Pipe Dreams......Page 319 References......Page 323 Index......Page 339 "Can happiness be a self-deception? What are the connections between the sin of pride and the pride of identity politics? Is jealousy inevitable? What is the difference between a "perverse" sexual desire and an unthinkable one? Using the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines, Jerome Neu addresses these and other questions about what sustains and threatens our identity in A Tear Is an Intellectual Thing.". "Unlike other philosophical studies of emotion which look at emotions in general, Neu takes up specific emotions as the focus of his inquiry, seeing them as much more than illustrative examples within his theory. He examines the extent to which certain expressions of emotion are natural or inevitable, and articulates their political and moral implications."--BOOK JACKET. "Is it better to be Socrates dissatisfied, or a pig satisfied?" John Stuart Mill's advice on answering his question was: don't ask the pig.