Table of contents for Issue 48 - June/August 2025 in New Philosopher

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”–David Hume David Hume’s declaration that reason ought to be “the slave of the passions” might, to modern ears, sound like an invitation to chaos. Yet Hume’s insight has found allies among neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio, who argues that emotions are not vestigial remnants of a primitive past, but essential guides for decision-making and consciousness itself. Without emotion, Damasio tells us, our reasoning grows strangely detached, severed from the very human concerns that give our lives meaning. They’re hardly the first (nor the last) to grapple with the complexity of emotional states. Two millennia ago, Epictetus insisted that while we can’t control what happens…

Why do we get angry, fearful, joyful, anxious? What’s the point in having emotions? In many instances in life we wish we could do away with emotions altogether, particularly the unpleasant ones like fear, anxiety, and anger. Remaining calm and peaceful often feels preferable to experiencing extreme ups and downs. But what if we regard emotions as key to decision making – and start to see that without them we’d start to make some truly unwise choices? Emotions then become more than childlike yelps (joy) and screams (anger); instead, they are bodily processes that signal value, influence risk assessment, and speed up judgements in uncertain situations. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio developed the ‘somatic marker hypothesis’ in response to observations made in neurological patients who had suffered damage to the brain’s frontal…

When we ask people how they are, we are, in essence, asking them about their mood because moods are how we orientate ourselves in the world. When we’re in a good mood, the world feels full of opportunity. When we’re in a bad mood, the same reality can seem overwhelming, even hostile. Heidegger’s concept of Befindlichkeit refers to the German phrase, “How are you?” Or, more literally, “How do you find yourself in the world?” Are you joyful, bored, melancholic, despairing? Your answer to that question shapes how the world reveals itself to you in that moment. Moods are mysterious because they aren’t necessarily tied to anything specific, nor can we reliably predict which mood will show up. You might wake up to a beautiful sunny day – it’s Sunday,…

How happy are you? In the realm of positive psychology, there are plenty of tests and techniques to help you answer this question. You can quantify past and present contentment across a variety of scales – or download a range of apps to do so for you. The app ‘Happify’ offers a range of “science-based activities” to reduce stress and build resilience. ‘MoodKit’ borrows from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help you track and challenge negative thoughts. Hapday is an AI-powered Life Coach “built to help you create a powerful daily routine to bring you closer to the life you truly deserve”. And there’s more where these came from – always at your fingertips and ready to send a cheery push notification. Two assumptions underlie approaches like this. First, that happiness…

Everyday it’s the same. Before I can properly open my eyes and take in the day I am mugged by my own brain, whirring mechanically over all the household chores that need doing and won’t get done unless I do them. Not just washing, cooking, cleaning, shopping, but checking in with the offspring and checking up on my 92-year-old mum, making sure the wheels of family life remain oiled. Downstairs, the dog paws my legs, wanting to play, the breakfast table is a Jackson Pollock canvas, and I’m still, somehow, in my dressing gown. If I’m not careful I’ll sink beneath the mud, drowning before the immanence of daily life and its non-stop holler. Few feminist issues have proved as vexing or insoluble as the politics of domestic labour. The…

My first task as a trainee lawyer at a community legal centre with clients who were seeking asylum was to conduct their in-take interviews. Which is a technical way of saying that I sat down with them and filled out a form. The purpose of the form was to get the basic facts of their story so that we could then help them make their claim for asylum. I asked them for their date and place of birth, their family members, their occupation. And then I would get into their reasons for fleeing – and always I would ask for the same details: names, dates, places. For the purposes of the form, I needed facts. Very often, however, what people wanted to talk about was their feelings. They wanted to…

Lisa Feldman Barrett is among the top 0.1% most cited scientists in the world for her research in psychology and neuroscience. She is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She also holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to the books Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain and How Emotions are Made, Barrett has published over 275 peer-reviewed, scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience, and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as six academic volumes. She received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the APS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Psychology in 2021. She has testified before Congress, presented her…

I. You have demanded of me, Novatus, that I should write how anger may be soothed, and it appears to me that you are right in feeling especial fear of this passion, which is above all others hideous and wild: for the others have some alloy of peace and quiet, but this consists wholly in action and the impulse of grief, raging with an utterly inhuman lust for arms, blood and tortures, careless of itself provided it hurts another, rushing upon the very point of the sword, and greedy for revenge even when it drags the avenger to ruin with itself. Some of the wisest of men have in consequence of this called anger a short madness: for it is equally devoid of self control, regardless of decorum, forgetful of…

newphilosopher.com Deep distraction In February 2023, Australia’s corporate regulator came under fire for hiring a bunch of robots. You might be envisioning a Robocop-type scenario or an army of droid soldiers right now... Work less, live more Why do we work so much? Why do we even work at all? For a great chunk of human history it was a simple matter of survival. We needed every able-bodied person working every day... Online store Visit the online store for previous issues of New Philosopher magazine, subscriptions, and gift ideas. newphilosopher.com/shop/ New Philosopher China The Chinese version joins the Arabic, Korean, and English language versions of New Philosopher magazine, the world’s most widely-distributed philosophy magazine. New Philosopher & Womankind Missing any New Philosopher or Womankind back issues? Get your copy of…

Margaret Graver Margaret Graver is the Aaron Lawrence Professor in Classics. Her area of specialisation is Hellenistic and Roman philosophy, especially the philosophy of mind and emotion. She is the author of Seneca: The Literary Philosopher and Power and Persuasion in Cicero’s Philosophy. Her other major publications include Cicero on the Emotions and Stoicism and Emotion. Numerous article-length pieces have appeared in scholarly journals and collections. Lisa Feldman Barrett Lisa Feldman Barrett is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University and she holds an appointment at Harvard Medical School. In addition to the books Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain and How Emotions are Made, Barrett has published over 275 peer-reviewed scientific papers, as well as six academic volumes. She received a NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, a Guggenheim…

There are between 6 and 8 basic human emotions, or so most theories suggest. Psychologist Paul Ekman lists joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise, while psychologist Robert Plutchik adds trust and anticipation to the mix. These basic emotions can be combined in multiple ways – for example, fear plus joy, the blending of two contrasting emotions, creates excitement. Consider the feeling of waiting in line for a roller coaster ride: your heart races with fear and joy simultaneously. The blending and contrasting of emotions has intriguing parallels to colour theory. In art, primary colours (red, yellow, blue) mix to produce secondary colours (orange, green, purple), while tertiary colours arise from mixing a primary with a neighbouring secondary colour, creating hues like red-orange or yellow-orange. Paint manufacturers often give these…

Emotions as judgements: Emotions ( pathē ) are evaluative and play a crucial role in virtue ethics. Balance and moderation are key. Aristotle ~350 BCE Rationalism, divided soul: Emotions arise from different parts of the soul (rational, spirited, appetitive). Philosophy should train reason to rule over emotional impulses. Plato ~400 BCE Tranquillity, fear of death: Fear, especially of death and the gods, is irrational. True happiness is freedom from disturbance (ataraxia). Epicurus ~300 BCE Emotional control : Emotions are harmful unless controlled by reason. Advocated cultivating equanimity and self-mastery. Seneca ~4 BCE Detachment from emotion: Emotions result from mistaken beliefs. Rationality and acceptance lead to freedom. Epictetus ~100 CE Love, inner conflict: Emotions reflect the will’s orientation toward or away from God. Explored the depth of grief, longing, and divine…

In the school of self-optimisation, there are many classrooms. In the self-care room they’ve hung signs saying “Forgive Yourself ” and “Talk Nicer to Yourself.” The self-help authors next door lecture on themes like “Unf*ck your Brain” and “You Are the Answer.” The Health and Wellness lab reminds students to take time for themselves, and the contemporary Stoic therapists across the hall repeat the fifth tip from Epictetus’s Enchiridion, “It’s not things that upset us but our judgements about things.” This school offers extracurriculars in self-compassion, yoga, somatics, meditation, and breathwork, and they have an outdoor area that is ideal for tree-hugging and sound baths. I know all this because I’ve been enrolled here my entire adult life, trying to become the best version of myself. Mia, an A+ student…

Margaret Graver is the Aaron Lawrence Professor in Classics. Her area of specialisation is Hellenistic and Roman philosophy, especially the philosophy of mind and emotion. She regularly lectures and gives seminars at institutions throughout the US and Europe, including two short-term appointments at French universities. Her book Seneca: The Literary Philosopher was recently published, as was Power and Persuasion in Cicero’s Philosophy, which is a volume of essays co-edited with Nathan Gilbert and Sean McConnell. Her other major publications include Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4; Stoicism and Emotion; and, in collaboration with A.A. Long, Seneca: Letters on Ethics. A quicker introduction to Seneca’s letters can be found in Seneca: Fifty Letters of a Roman Stoic. Numerous article-length pieces have appeared in scholarly journals and collections. Zan…

noun: 1. an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness; 2. any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, etc.; 3. any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking; 4. an instance of this; 5. something that causes such a reaction. Origin: Mid 16th cent. (denoting a public disturbance): from French émotion, from émouvoir ‘excite’, based on Latin emovere, from e- (variant of ex-) ‘out’ + movere ‘move’. The current sense dates from the early 19th century. Source: Oxford English Dictionary/Dictionary.com…

Hundreds of papers in psychology, medicine, marketing, management, and many other fields begin by asserting that emotions are ubiquitous to human life. But exactly how ‘ubiquitous’ are they? A tremendous body of work has established that various stimuli and situations can cause emotions and that once people experience emotions, it guides their thoughts and behaviours. However, despite decades of research establishing the causes and consequences of emotions in the laboratory, we know surprisingly little about emotions in real life. That is, how many hours a day do we feel happy, in love, fearful, or disgusted? What specific emotional state should we seek to offset a burst of anger? Is gratitude really an antidote for sadness? Answering these fundamental questions about the frequency and centrality (i.e., interconnectedness) of emotions in everyday…

Laozi – Tao Te Ching When the Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality. When morality is lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos. The wise person stays centred and rooted in the Tao, not in emotion. The master does not seek fulfilment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things. She lets things come and go, without clinging or fear. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excess, and complacency. To yield is to be whole. Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more…

The physiologists who, during the past few years, have been so industriously exploring the functions of the brain, have limited their attempts at explanation to its cognitive and volitional performances. Dividing the brain into sensorial and motor centres, they have found their division to be exactly paralleled by the analysis made by empirical psychology, of the perceptive and volitional parts of the mind into their simplest elements. But the aesthetic sphere of the mind, its longings, its pleasures and pains, and its emotions, have been so ignored in all these researches that one is tempted to suppose that if either Dr. Ferrier or Dr. Munk were asked for a theory in brain-terms of the latter mental facts, they might both reply, either that they had as yet bestowed no thought…

A great tradition of immemorial Wisdom has it that man must adapt his desires to reality, rather than wish to adapt reality to his desire. In this vision, there is something like a fa-tum of the real, and the highest happiness of which humanity is capable resides in the serene acceptance of the inevitable. Stoic philosophy provides the form for this consistently prevailing ‘wisdom’, including today, where it claims: the small domestic happiness, the consumer, connectivity and the holiday-maker that capitalism and its ‘democracy’ offer the privileged citizens of the West, may not be exceptionally intense, but desiring something else, communism for example, inevitably leads to the worst. In this propaganda, the ‘realities’, essentially economic, impose on us private property and the concentration of Capital as the Destiny to which…

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Imagine two people watching a friend succeed. One feels pride in their friend’s success, whereas another feels envy. The same situation has produced two vastly different emotional perspectives, or ways of seeing. Emotions, in this sense, are not mere disturbances or bursts of feeling, but filters or lenses that colour how we see the world and interpret events around us. In his book The Rationality of Emotion, Ronald de Sousa argues that emotions are frameworks through which we interpret situations. Emotions shape what we notice, what we care about, and how we evaluate events. When we’re angry, we notice slights and insults; when we’re afraid, we see threats everywhere; when we’re feeling joyful, we focus on opportunities and connections. Emotions determine what stands out in a situation and which details…

It’s rarely a good idea to take advice from a philosopher. (And yes, I’m a philosopher offering you that advice.) But when your brother is a leading public intellectual at the heart of the biggest empire the world has ever seen, perhaps it’s OK to make an exception. Or so Lucius Annaeus Novatus might have thought when, sometime after 41 CE, he writes to his brother Seneca the Younger to ask for a spot of philosophical guidance. Novatus is a public official whose duties include judging those who break the laws of Rome. (Under his adopted name Gallio he later pops up in the New Testament, dismissing a religious charge against Saint Paul). But lately, the stream of wrongdoers he has to deal with is making him excessively angry. Wrath,…

“The need for sharing deep feeling is a human need.”– Audre Lorde “Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.”Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts: the less you know the hotter you get.”Bertrand Russell “I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.”Albert Einstein “Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry.”Henry Ward Beecher “‘Trust your feelings!’ – But feelings are nothing final or original; behind the feelings there stand judgements and evaluations.”Friedrich Nietzsche “Every reality is there for…

In the mid-19th century, the French physician Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne de Boulogne pursued an idea both simple and unsettling: that human emotion might be traced in the fibres of muscle and measured in the language of anatomy. His experiments were meticulous. He applied small electrical currents to precise points on the face, observing how each muscle contributed to the shifting topography of human expression. In the photographs from his 1862 work Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine, faces appear caught between the human and the mechanical. A man’s eyes stretch wide as if startled. A woman’s lips curve into a smile untouched by genuine delight. Wires cling to skin like fragile scaffolding, the body transformed into a map of impulses and reactions. It would be easy to dismiss Duchenne’s experiments as Victorian…

Art has something to do with emotion. Or it seems that it should do. But what exactly? When conceptual art gets too far removed from feeling, there’s a sense in which it has become an intellectual game and ceased to be worthy of the name ‘art’. When art is nothing more than a confessional outpouring of emotion, mere autobiography of the heart, it ceases to be art. The sweet spot for art lies somewhere between the arid and the gushing, or that’s how it seems to me. The Oxford philosopher R.G. Collingwood (1889 – 1943) had some very interesting things to say about art and emotion, far more interesting than most. That is in part because he understood painting, music, and literature in a deeper way than many other philosophers…

When we consider the role of emotions in protest and resistance, love and anger stand out as the most prominent. Anger is a reaction to injustice in the world, driving us to take meaningful action to create a more just society. As Audre Lorde writes, it is directed towards “a radical transformation of the world”. Love, as argued for by Martin Luther King, Jr., wasn’t just an emotion but an ethic that he believed should guide our perspectives of one another and our actions in the fight against racism, imperialism, and poverty. But what about fear? Does it have a positive role in protest and resistance? Or should we avoid it altogether? It’s hard to believe it does. Martin Luther King, in his 1961 essay ‘Antidotes for Fear’, believed that…

How Emotions Are Made Lisa Feldman Barrett Core systems The classical view of emotion says that every human being comes prewired with a standard set of emotions, each with its own dedicated brain circuit. According to this view, we all have an ‘anger circuit,’ a ‘fear circuit,’ and so on. When something in the world triggers an emotion, the corresponding circuit activates, and you experience the emotion and its physical effects. This view seems intuitive and is deeply embedded in our culture, but it’s wrong. Emotions are not built into your brain at birth. They are constructed. They are not triggered; they are made. Each instance of emotion is a unique event constructed by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by your life experience and the specifics…

What is the most important part of your education? For me, the most important role of education is really about shaping character. Which thinker has had the greatest influence on your life? If I had to name a thinker who really shaped the way I see things, it would be Ovid – yes, the Roman poet. What do you doubt most? What I probably doubt most is the justice of our world. If you could change one thing about the world, what would that be? We talk a lot about fairness and merit, but in reality, things are rarely that straightforward. It makes me think about how much work there’s still to do not just in changing policies, but in shifting mindsets. Which ones rules you: emotion or reason? You…