ABSTRACT
It has become commonplace to study the ubiquity of emotions in many areas of contemporary culture. However contemporary the inquiry may seem, the role of emotions in social life was highlighted long ago by the Greeks. Plato, for example, criticized poetry and plays that present false ethical conduct and models because of the emotions and feelings that their plots and characters arouse in the viewer. He emphasized that poetry’s emotional force has the ability to master the audience through imitation to the point of obscuring truth. Also Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, largely attributes the power of persuasion to the emotions, a power that should be taken into account in public affairs. Partly because of the influence of the stoics, medieval ethics pays attention to the power of passion and emotion in human behavior. Still, not until late modernity does an explanation of contemporary “panemotivism” emerge. The purpose of this chapter is to provide such an explanation.
