Socrates on the Emotions

Authors

  • Thomas C. Brickhouse Lynchburg College
  • Nicholas D. Smith Lewis & Clark College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_15_1

Keywords:

Socrates, Emotions, Protagoras, Cognitivism, Intellectualism

Abstract

In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates clearly indicates that he is a cognitivist about the emotions—in other words, he believes that emotions are in some way constituted by cognitive states. It is perhaps because of this that some scholars have claimed that Socrates believes that the only way to change how others feel about things is to engage them in rational discourse, since that is the only way, such scholars claim, to change another’s beliefs. But in this paper we show that Socrates is also responsive to, and has various non-rational strategies for dealing with, the many ways in which emotions can cloud our judgment and lead us into poor decision-making. We provide an account of how Socrates can consistently be a cognitivist about emotion and also have more than purely rational strategies for dealing with emotions.

http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_15_1

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Thomas C. Brickhouse, Lynchburg College

Professor, Department of Philosophy

Nicholas D. Smith, Lewis & Clark College

James F. Miller Professor of Humanities
Departments of Classics and Philosophy

Downloads

Published

2015-12-30

How to Cite

Brickhouse, T. C., & Smith, N. D. (2015). Socrates on the Emotions. PLATO JOURNAL, 15, 9-28. https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_15_1