thumb| [[Frederick Goodall's Passionate Encounter]]

Passion (Greek "to suffer, to be acted on" and Late Latin (chiefly Christian) passio "passion; suffering") denotes strong and intractable or barely controllable emotion or inclination with respect to a particular person or thing. Passion can range from eager interest in, or admiration for, an idea, proposal, or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity; to strong attraction, excitement, or emotion towards a person. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire, though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust, often incorporating ideas of ecstasy and/or suffering.

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) describes passions as <blockquote>"penchants, inclinations, desires and aversions carried to a certain degree of intensity, combined with an indistinct sensation of pleasure or pain, occasioned or accompanied by some irregular movement of the blood and animal spirits, are what we call passions. They can be so strong as to inhibit all practice of personal freedom, a state in which the soul is in some sense rendered passive; whence the name passions. This inclination or so-called disposition of the soul, is born of the opinion we hold that a great good or a great evil is contained in an object which in and of itself arouses passion".

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Diderot further breaks down pleasure and pain, which he sees as the guiding principles of passion, into four major categories:

  1. Pleasures and pains of the senses
  2. Pleasures of the mind or of the imagination
  3. Our perfection or our imperfection of virtues or vices
  4. Pleasures and pains in the happiness or misfortunes of others

Modern pop-psychologies and employers tend to favor and even encourage the expression of a "passion"; previous generations sometimes expressed more nuanced viewpoints.

Emotion

The standard definition for emotion is a "Natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others". William James describes emotions as "corporeal reverberations such as surprise, curiosity, rapture, fear, anger, lust, greed and the like." These are all feelings that affect our mental perception. Our body is placed into this latter state, which is caused by one's mental affection. This state gives signals to our body which cause bodily expressions.

The philosopher Robert Solomon developed his own theory and definition of emotion. His view is that emotion is not a bodily state, but instead a type of judgment. "It is necessary that we choose our emotions, in much the same way that we choose our actions" With regard to the relationship between emotion and our rational will, Solomon believes that people are responsible for their emotions. Emotions are rational and purposive, just as actions are. "We choose an emotion much as we choose a course of action." Recent studies have placed emotions to be a physiological disturbance. William James takes such consciousness of emotion to be not a choice but a physical occurrence rather than a disturbance. It is an occurrence that happens outside of our control, and our bodies are just affected by these emotions. We produce these actions based on the instinctive state that these feelings lead us towards.

This concept of emotion was derived from passion. Emotions were created as a category within passion.

Reason

In his wake, Stoics like Epictetus emphasized that "the most important and especially pressing field of study is that which has to do with the stronger emotions...sorrows, lamentations, envies...passions which make it impossible for us even to listen to reason". The Stoic tradition still lay behind Hamlet's plea to "Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core", or Erasmus's lament that "Jupiter has bestowed far more passion than reason&nbsp;– you could calculate the ratio as 24 to one". It was only with the Romantic movement that a valorisation of passion over reason took hold in the Western tradition: "the more Passion there is, the better the Poetry".

The recent concerns of emotional intelligence have been to find a synthesis of the two forces—something that "turns the old understanding of the tension between reason and feeling on its head: it is not that we want to do away with emotion and put reason in its place, as Erasmus had it, but instead find the intelligent balance of the two".

"Descartes' Error"

Antonio Damasio studied what ensued when something "severed ties between the lower centres of the emotional brain...and the thinking abilities of the neocortex". He found that while "emotions and feelings can cause havoc in the processes of reasoning...the absence of emotion and feeling is no less damaging"; and was led to "the counter-intuitive position that feelings are typically indispensable for rational decisions". The passions, he concluded, "have a say on how the rest of the brain and cognition go about their business. Their influence is immense...[providing] a frame of reference&nbsp;– as opposed to Descartes' error...the Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind".

In marriage

A tension or dialectic between marriage and passion can be traced back in Western society at least as far as the Middle Ages, and the emergence of the cult of courtly love. Denis de Rougemont has argued that 'since its origins in the twelfth century, passionate love was constituted in opposition to marriage'. Stacey Oliker writes that while "Puritanism prepared the ground for a marital love ideology by prescribing love in marriage", only from the eighteenth century has "romantic love ideology resolved the Puritan antagonism between passion and reason" in a marital context.

Intellectual passions

George Bernard Shaw "insists that there are passions far more exciting than the physical ones...'intellectual passion, mathematical passion, passion for discovery and exploration: the mightiest of all passions'". His contemporary, Sigmund Freud, argued for a continuity (not a contrast) between the two, physical and intellectual, and commended the way Leonardo da Vinci "had energetically sublimated his sexual passions into the passion for independent scientific research".

As a motivation in an occupation

There are different reasons individuals are motivated in an occupation. These may include a passion for the occupation, for a firm, or for an activity. When Canadian managers or professionals score as passionate about their occupation they tend to be less obsessive about their behavior while on their job, resulting in more work being done and more work satisfaction. These same individuals have higher levels of psychological well-being. When people genuinely enjoy their profession and are motivated by their passion, they tend to be more satisfied with their work and more psychologically healthy. When managers or professionals are unsatisfied with their profession they tend to also be dissatisfied with their family relationships and to experience psychological distress. Other reasons people are more satisfied when they are motivated by their passion for their occupation include the effects of intrinsic and external motivations. When Canadian managers or professionals do a job to satisfy others, they tend to have lower levels of satisfaction and psychological health. Also, these same individuals have shown they are motivated by several beliefs and fears concerning other people.

As a motivation for hobbies

Hobbies require a certain level of passion in order to continue engaging in the hobby. Singers, athletes, dancers, artists, and many others describe their emotion for their hobby as a passion. Although this might be the emotion they're feeling, passion is serving as a motivation for them to continue their hobby. Recently there has been a model to explain different types of passion that contribute to engaging in an activity.

Dualistic model

According to researchers who have tested this model, "A dualistic model in which passion is defined as a strong inclination or desire toward a self-defining activity that one likes (or even loves), that one finds important (high valuation), and in which one invests time and energy." It is proposed that there exist two types of passion. The first type of passion is harmonious passion.

"A harmonious passion refers to a strong desire to engage in the activity that remains under the person's control." Certain abilities and hobbies can be developed early and the innate motivation is also something that comes early in life. Although someone might know how to engage in a hobby, this does not necessarily mean they are motivated to do it. Christine Robinson makes the point in her article that, " ...knowledge of your innate motivation can help guide action toward what will be fulfilling." When the couple do finally reunite, however, the heroine is less than impressed. "'If you ask me, it was a very childish gesture. You're not twenty-one now, you know'. 'No, I know. It was my last fling'".

In Alberto Moravia's 1934, the revolutionary double-agent, faced with the girl he is betraying, "was seized by violent desire...he never took his eyes off my bosom...I believe those two dark spots at the end of my breasts were enough to make him forget tsarism, revolution, political faith, ideology, and betrayal".

See also

References

Footnotes

Sources

  • Diderot's Encyclopédie

Further reading

  • René Descartes, Passions of the Soul in J. Cottingham et al. eds., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Vol I (Cambridge 1985)
  • Sophie de Mijolla-Mellor, "Passion"