PHIL211 PHILOSOPHY OF EMOTIONS
| Course Code: |
2410211 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): |
3(3-0) |
| ECTS Credit: |
5.0 |
| Department: |
Philosophy |
| Language of Instruction: |
English |
| Level of Study: |
Undergraduate |
| Course Coordinator: |
Prof.Dr. ÞEREF HALÝL TURAN |
| Offered Semester: |
Fall or Spring Semesters. |
Course Content
This course is an inquiry into the role of emotion in a rational life. As an introductory course, it requires no pre-knowledge of philosophy. It tries to explore the role that emotion plays in the acquisition of beliefs and desires, the relation between them, and their transformation into actions and policies. It studies also emotions considered as a component of life and experience and investigate whether they may themselves be subject to rational assessment. For this purpose it goes to the historical roots of the problem of emotions, e.g. what role does it play in our life? What is an emotion? These questions are important in the philosophy of mind and ethics. Philosophers have not always despised the importance of emotions. Hume, for example, claimed that reason is and ought to be, the slave of passion. Nietzsche, on the other hand, insisted that emotion and reason are not really opposite but complementary to each other. In this course, the claims of important philosophers are discussed and moral, aesthetic political implications of their view of emotion are criticized.
