The Material or Bodily Dimension of Emotions

Abstract

Abstract Part III of the book (Chapters 9–10) considers some further challenges to the interpretation thus far developed. This chapter addresses the fact that Aristotle clearly holds that emotions essentially involve a material dimension. Some have thought that the way Aristotle specifies this (esp. in De anima I.1) shows he thinks emotions cannot be adequately defined at all without explicit reference to their material aspect. Against this, it is argued that Aristotle thinks emotions can be legitimately specified simply in terms of representational pleasures/distresses (directed at apparent instantiations of the emotion’s evaluative object). The chapter shows it is plausible that Aristotle thinks such definitions are extensionally equivalent to ones that include reference to their material dimension, and are themselves explanatorily significant. And it is argued that he thinks the material aspect need only be highlighted in certain contexts—in natural science investigations or when explanatorily helpful—but is unnecessary/unhelpful to specify in many other legitimate kinds of investigation.