passions

Many philosophers of the ancient world took a rather dim view of emotions, or “the passions,” preferring to cultivate lives of deliberate, active choice, rather than being passively buffeted about by feelings and promptings of the external world. This often leads to two opposing reactions on the part of modern readers: those that hold emotions afar (as obstacles for living) and those that identify very closely with them (as intricately linked with an ethical life). In this evening’s Zoom program led by David Nowakowski we’ll try to carve out a middle ground between these two reactions, and recover something closer to what the classical Greek philosophers were aiming at. Learn more & RSVP here!