COLLOQUIAL UNDERSTANDINGS, INHERITED TRADITIONS

The seventeenth century inherited a long and palimpsestic list of affections which served as a form of definition of the passions. No one could ignore the fact that among the principal examples were joy and distress in their many forms; hope, fear, and their variants; and desires in all their diversity. To enumerate these affections was thus one way of explaining what the category included, and interpretations of the category were in turn elaborated in the light of this canonical list. At the same time, discussions of what the passions are for, and of their part in human action, were articulated against a complex background of received assumptions. Some of these derived specifically from earlier philosophical traditions, while others were embedded in a wider range of practices such as medicine, pedagogy, and Christian meditation. Together, they formed an understanding of the passions which was sustained in relatively conventional treatments of the subject and was at the same time bound to inform any attempt at philosophical innovation.

Several threads of this loosely woven fabric stand out in discussions of the metaphysical and psychological aspects of the passions. Most striking, perhaps, is the shared presupposition that the passions are, in a broad sense, functional. Humans are endowed with instinctive drives or appetites for warmth, food, and so forth. But they also possess a less bioligically basic set of dispositions which incline them to seek out states of affairs that are conductive to their well-being, and to avoid states that are detrimental to it.