Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind Book 1)

As with almost all books, this one took much longer to complete than we thought when we started. It began within the research project "Actions and Passions of the Mind from 1200-1700" which was financed by the Nordic Research Council in the Humanities (NOS-H) between 1999 and 2001, but as the topic became clearer the book grew and the final product involves several people outside the original group in the NOS-H project. Many of the papers published here started as talks given at meetings of the project, but no meeting resembles the finished book. Indeed, all the articles are, in the end, written just for this volume. One of the overarching aims of the NOS-H project was to highlight the continuity between medieval and modem philosophy of mind, and, as edi­ tors, we also took this perspective when planning the volume. The individual articles pertain to give an accurate and philosophically interesting treatment of the thinker or period they discuss, but nonetheless the overall picture is one of continuity between not only medieval and early modem psychology of action, but also between late ancient and medieval thinking on emotions and choice. Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, Volume 1) Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Contributors Abbreviations Preface Introduction Goodness and Rational Choice in the Early Middle Ages Medieval Theories of the Passions of the Soul Weakness of Will: The Plurality of Medieval Explanations Free Will and Self-Control in Peter Olivi Reflections on John Duns Scotus on the Will A Nominalist Ontology of the Passions Buridan's Theory of Free Choice and Its Influence Emotions in Renaissance Humanism: Juan Luis Vives' De Anima et Vita Late Scholastic Theories of the Passions: Controversies in the Thomist Tradition The Rationality of Cartesian Passions Descartes on the Will and the Power to Do Otherwise Bibliography Name Index Subject Index The essays in this book give the first comprehensive picture of the medieval development of philosophical theories concerning the nature of emotions and the influence they have on human choice. The historical span reaches from the late ancient to the early modern philosophy, showing in detail how old and new ideas were bred and brought into the Middle Ages, and how they resulted in a genuinely modern perspective in the thought of Descartes. The essays are original contributions by a mixture of established senior scholars and promising young researchers writing on their own specialties. Since the essays look at the medieval theories of the emotions and the will with full awareness of contemporary philosophy of mind, they open up a whole new perspective on medieval philosophy The aim of the series is to foster historical research into the nature of thinking and the workings of the mind. The volumes address topics of intellectual history that would nowadays fall into different disciplines like philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, etc. The monographs and collections of articles in the series are historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader. They provide original insights into central contemporary prohlems by looking at them in historical contexts, addressing iss lies like consciollsness, representation and intentionality, mind and body, the self and the emotions. In this way, the books open up new perspectives for research on these topics.

Scholars of philosophy, primarily from Nordic countries, but also North America and Australia, explore the continuity between medieval and modern philosophy of the mind, medieval and early modern psychology of action, and ancient and medieval thinking on emotions and choice. Many have written articles and delivered talks on the same topics during the past few years, but these 12 essays were written specifically for the volume. Among the topics are the plurality of medieval explanations for the weakness of will, a nominalist ontology of the passions, and late scholastic theories of the passions as revealed by controversies in the Thomist tradition. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR