Emotion and Virtue in Xenophon

Keywords:

emotion, virtue, anger, Xenophon, despondency

Abstract

This work distinguishes between three types of psychological experience: desires that are stimulated by pleasure; emotions such as anger, gratitude, shame, and also fear, which involve valuations, whether pragmatic or ethical; and despondency or athumia, which is induced by a sense of helplessness and aporia. The first of these is governed by self-control, enkrateia or sôphrosunê, as the corresponding virtue. Emotions are subject to a different psychic mechanism, involving a proper evaluation of the conditions that provoke them. Finally, despondency or athumia constitutes yet another category, as a state of passivity, of loss of agency.

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Author Biography

David Konstan, New York University

Catedrático de Filología Clásica en la Universidad de Nueva York (NYU). Ha publicado libros sobre gran cantidad de temas, entre ellos, las emociones de los griegos en la antigüedad clásica, la misericordia, la belleza, la amistad, la novela, la comedia, el epicureísmo, y más recientemente, el pecado. Es miembro de la American Academy of Arts and Sciences, y miembro asociado de la Australian Academy of the Humanities. Es ex Presidente de la American Philological Association (ahora the Society for Classical Studies). Entre sus publicaciones, se destacan Greek Comedy and Ideology; Friendship in the Classical World; Pity Transformed; The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks; Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea; Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea; In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome y The Origin of Sin: Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity.

Published

2022-11-17