Unit 5: Emotions & the Body
Week 19: Emotions and the Good Life
| Tues Feb 22 | Aspects of emotions & The divided self | Plato, Republic Context for selections Selection 1: 427c-445b (427e–439a is optional) (ch 6) Selection 2: 588b-592a (ch 12) Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, ch 1, pp. 1-5 (intro) 17-19 (Failure of self-control) 20-22 (The difficulty of winning an argument) Content warning: the Sherman selection includes descriptions of death and dying, violence, and suicide. Sherman, Afterwar (also in drive), ch. 4, pp. 77-91 Read carefully: pp. 77-81 (The wounds of shame). 84-85 (parts about Prior’s guilt), 86-91 (Recalcitrant emotions) Skip/skim: pp. 81-84 (parts about Ajax’s shame) | Answer the questions from the reading guide. (No need to post, it’s just for you.) |
| Thurs Feb 24 AM | Emotions and virtue | Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics background (video) Selection: Book II.1 (how virtue is acquired) and II.4 (objection) Confucius, The Analects background (video) Selection: 1.3, 2.4, 2.7-8, 3.12, 3.26, 12.4, 17.21 | Answer the questions from the reading guide. (No need to post, it’s just for you.) |
| Tues Feb 24 PM | Moderate or extirpate? | Stoicism background (video) Epictetus, Handbook or The Enchiridion read as much as you can; some important passages are 1, 2, 5, 8, 26, 28, 29, 34, 43, 44, 47 Optional: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn1Fe8cT0Q (Pigliucci on modern stoicism) | The assignment for this class session is here. |
Week 20: Emotions and Action—Anger
| Tuess March 1 | Against anger: Stoic and Buddhist approaches | Seneca, On Anger, Book 1, pages 41-48, 61-64 Nussbaum, Transitional Anger | Annotate Nussbaum in hypothesis. Annotation instructions: Annotate the dialogue using hypothesis. Provide one annotation: either a question about the text or one a comment on it. Aim for a short paragraph for your annotation. Be specific: don’t ask questions of the form “Can we go over …?” Don’t just say you don’t understand something, but explain exactly what. You might in the same annotation speculate on the answer. Your comment can be an objection to some claim in the reading, but it doesn’t have to be. It could instead be, say, an example to support a point in the reading, an explanation of a difficult passage, or a tie-in to something in the course, or in your life. One or both of your annotations can also be a response to someone else’s annotation. |
| Thurs Mar 3 AM | Anger and oppression | Smith, Tiffany Watt. Abhiman. In The Book of Human Emotions. Tagore, Rabindranath. Punishment. Rewatch the Anger chapter from Lemonade | |
| Thurs Mar 3 PM | Anger and oppression | Lorde, Audre. The uses of anger. Cherry, Myuisha. Anger is not a bad word (video) Frye, Marilyn. A note on anger (optional) | Annotate Lorde in hypothesis. See the instructions above. |
Week 21: Emotions Between Biology and Society
| Tues Mar 8 | Buddhist Perspectives on Anger | Buddhist approaches to anger Readings collected here.; Guest Lecturer | In Hance |
| Thurs Mar 10 AM | Evaluating Emotions | Srinivasan, Amia. The Aptness of Anger (read part III carefully) Pickard, Hanna, Stop telling me what to feel! (part III, the rest is optional) | Annotate one of the papers (of your choice) in hypothesis. |
| Thurs Mar 10 PM | Wrap Up | No new reading |
