Amazon.com: Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (9780521531825): Martha C. Nussbaum: Books
What is it to grieve for the death of a parent? More literary and experiential than other philosopical works on emotion, Upheavals of Thought will engage the reader who has ever stopped to ask that question. Emotions such as grief, fear, anger and love seem to be alien forces that disturb our thoughts and plans. Yet they also embody some of our deepest thoughts--about the importance of the people we love, about the vulnerability of our bodies and our plans to events beyond our control. In this wide-ranging book, based on her Gifford Lectures, philosopher Martha Nussbaum draws on philosophy, psychology, anthropology, music and literature to illuminate the role emotions play in our thoughts about important goals. Starting with an account of her own mother's death, she argues that emotions are intelligent appraisals of a world that we do not control, in the light of our own most significant goals and plans. She then investigates the implications of this idea for normative issues, analyzing the role of compassion in private and public reasoning and the attempts of authors both philosophical and literary to purify or reform the emotion of erotic love. Ultimately, she illuminates the structure of emotions and argues that once we understand the complex intelligence of emotions we will also have new reasons to value works of literature as sources of ethical education. Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago, appointed in Law School, Philosophy department, and Divinity School, and an Associate in Classics. A leading scholar in ancient Greek ethics, aesthetics and literature, her previous books include The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), Loves's Knowledge (Oxford, 1992), Poetic Justice (Beacon Press, 1997), The Therapy of Desire (Princeton, 1996), Cultivating Humanity (Harvard, 1997), and Sex and Social Justice (Oxford, 1999). Her reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, New York Review of Books, and New Republic.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Nussbaum's book raises many interesting questions and adds to the body of cognitive theories of emotion." Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal
"In this massive study, Nussbaum takes the perennial boxing match between thought and perception to a brilliant new register...This huge book has its ups and downs, but it has the feel of a major achievement." Publishers Weekly (starred)
"[Upheavals of Thought] unites in an original and altogether personal way the philosophy of the emotions with the texture of life and the experience of art...Upheavals of Thought is what Henry James, one of Nussbaum's favorite authors, would have called 'a great, glittering thing.'" Los Angeles Times Book Review
"As with any brilliant synthetic work, then, Nussbaum's book leaves us wondering whether things really fit together so neatly...Nussbaum's has taught us a lot about love, in this book and elsewhere." Chicago Tribune
"[Nussbaum] is among America's most prolific and prominent public intellectuals, with many causes to her credit, to all of which she brings extraordinary scholarly and liberal credentials...it is a brave and civilized book. And at a time when we need above all an understanding of political emotions,its subject could not be more welcome." The New Republic
"This remarkable book is really three books, written by someone who has such an extraordinarily capacious mind that she easily examines topics in ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy, as well as in literature, law, music, psychology, and religion. Her prose is lucid...Her arguments are clear. Her organizational skills allow her to introduce lenghty discussions of quite diverse topics and still offer a coherent thesis. This book instructs and delights on nearly every page." Catholic Studies Book Review
"...impressive for its breadth of learning and for imaginative speculation...she does succeed at an erudite series of contemplation, sparkling with insights." Salem Press
"[Nussbaum] is among America's most prolific and prominent public intellectuals, with many causes to her credit, to all of which she brings extraordinary scholarly and liberal credentials...it is a brave and civilized book. And at a time when we need above all an understanding of political emotions, its subject could not be more welcome." The New Republic
"[Upheavals of Thought] is a staggering feat of synthesis, reflecting not only Nussbaum's wide-ranging expertise in philosophy, law, divinity, classics, Asian studies and gender studies but recent developments in cognitive psychology, anthropology and psychanalysis as well...extraordinary achievement of this book." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Nov 2001
"Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions is impressive for breadth of learning and for imaginative speculation, rather than for careful reasoning....[Nussbaum] does succeed at an erudite series of contemplation, sparkling with insights." Salem Press
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Book Description
In this compelling new book, Martha C. Nussbaum presents a powerful argument for treating emotions not as alien forces but as highly discriminating responses to what is of value and importance. She explores and illuminates the structure of a wide range of emotions, in particular compassion and love, showing that there can be no adequate ethical theory without an adequate theory of the emotions. This involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood, and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives.
Product details
Paperback: 766 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition (April 14, 2003)
Language: English
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Biography
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity.
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Customer Reviews
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Eric
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent construction; a sharp turn from classical StoicismMarch 30, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
This book is a little slow to develop its ideas, but very interesting. As an enthusiast of classic Stoic ideas I find the possibility of neo-stoic philosophy very intriguing. Nussbaum attempts a reintegration of emotional content into a flourishing individual life where the Stoics generally marginalized emotional content. She classifies emotions as rational processes which indicate an individual's prospects of obtaining or being denied necessary resources totally or partially outside of their control. Where Stoics generally claim that things outside of our control are meaningless, Nussbaum builds the case that things outside of our control are central to our wellbeing and that emotions, rather than being empty grasping for things that matter little, are our own rational responses to our prospects in a social framework of codependency. The construction is very intentional, and, in contrast to much philosophy, deeply personal. The content is super interesting (although dry in some places), but I must say the core thesis is difficult for me to connect with mostly in that it is hard for me to identify primarily as a needy being. This probably has a lot to do with cultural definitions of masculinity in the West. The book is definitely a sharp turn away from what I would consider the 'spirit' of Stoicism, but uses a similar framework of thought to develop a very different idea with emotional neediness as one of its 'givens' regarding human condition.
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G. Bestick
4.0 out of 5 starsI Think, Therefore I FeelFebruary 14, 2004
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase
Drawing on her vast knowledge of philosophy, psychology and literature, Martha Nussbaum takes us on a tour of the emotional landscape that ranges from the agora in Athens to the world of lab rats and electrodes. Her goal is to convince us that our emotions are cognitive appraisals of the world around us. If we master this idea, we improve our chances of building a life that's ethical, passionate and compassionate.
The argument unfolds in three sections. In Need and Recognition, Nussbaum defines emotions as evaluative judgements about the world based on our ideas of what we deem important for our own flourishing. After elaborating on this definition, she refines it by sparring with the -ologists who argue for the physiological origins of emotion. She addresses in a convincing way the question of how pre-verbal beings such as infants and non-verbal beings such as animals can make sophisticated evaluative judgements. The section on infant emotions plunges the reader back into those wild storms of bliss and rage that come from having all that you need to survive exist beyond your direct control.
Part II, Compassion, describes the process of extending one's definition of self-interest beyond the boundaries of one's own skin. She is particulary good on how shame and disgust, if not mastered, distance you from other people and prevent you from being imaginatively connected to a larger world.
Ascents of Love, the third part, traces evolving views of erotic love and it's here that Nussbaum's arguments start to soar. She demonstrates how the Platonic and Christian ascents of love solve the "problem" of loving specific individuals: you render the human irrelevant by ascending to the abstractions of ideal form or love of god. Nussbaum argues brilliantly for a view of erotic love that encompasses the ideal and real people as well. Her writing peaks in the chapters on Mahler and Joyce. She depicts Mahler's second symphony as a paean to human striving as a reward in itself, and Joyce's Ulysses as a heroic reclamation of the body in all its waywardness and fecundity from the life-denying clutch of the Catholic Church.
This book is important because it convincingly places control of our emotions within our own cognitive grasp. As masters of our emotions, we just might live a better life. One wishes the prose was less plodding in places, and the text less bristly with footnotes, but persevere. The views from the peaks are magnificent.
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D. S. Heersink
4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent Case for Emotions as Cognitive Judgments of ValueFebruary 24, 2005
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
"Upheaval of Thought" is a wonderful, interdisciplinary tome on the human emotions. Approaching them primarily from a philosophical perspective, particularly a neo-Stoic view, of what the emotions are, how they function cognitively, and what problems they cause and purposes they serve, Nussbaum incorporates animal behavioralism, evolutionary psychology, philosophical paradoxes, and the humanities' expression of the emotions to (1) evaluate how they both serve and disserve the individual, and (2) how which emotions are appropriate for the person to function well in society.
She begins with the Stoic's account of the emotions, how emotions are cognitive judgment of value and neither appetitive nor a separate function of the passions (sui generis), and challenges the Stoic raison d'etre to extirpate all of them from life. She believes the Stoic view is too severe, which she became cognizant of during the death of, and the grief over, her mother. The Stoic extirpation (i.e., apathy) of the emotions may satisfy one's personal life in some limited sense, but at the expense of perverting one's personal commitments and one's social and civic life. She then proceeds to show how one's individual development, starting from infancy and advancing through adulthood, serve and disserve the individual personally and socially, arguing that emotions are appropriate to given situations in life. Her principal concern is to not extirpate the emotions, but how one ought to develop them as intrinsically given, especially the emotions of love and compassion, so that they contribute to human flourishing (i.e., eudaimonia) in a very dynamic way. Love, properly ordered, is one such emotion (cognitive judgment of value) that involves our most intimate and personal commitments and projects, while compassion (also a cognitive judgment of value) is another essential emotion to the order of our political, economic, and social commitments and projects.
Then, in a most interdisciplinary fashion, she takes the historical development of the emotions through their hermeneutic history. Using the arts, philosophy, theology, music, economics, and literature, she explores the historical development and refinement of emotions, particularly of love and compassion, as expressed and developed in such figures as Plato, Spinoza, Augustine, Dante, Adam Smith, Mahler, Bronte, Proust, and Joyce among others. Each figure contributes either positively or negatively to our ultimate understanding of how the emotions figure into our cognitive judgment of values for human flourishing in both our personal and civic lives.
This book is a rich, invigorating, multifaceted, and very satisfying exploration into a very critical aspect of the human behavior, particularly the emotions of love and compassion, in order to harness these judgments of value for our ultimate happiness (again, eduaimonia). The book's 700 pages are by no means exhaustive, which she frequently restates, nor tightly as argued as it could be. The problem, and there is one, is that the book flows much more like a lecture (which it originally was), and less like highly-disciplined argument. The argument is unquestionably made, it is simply not as concise, precise, nor as rigorous as I would have liked. There are too many extraneous diversions that distract us from her central arguments. A good editor and clearer and more ostensive articulation of her arguments would certainly be welcome in a revised edition.
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