In the Mood for Thought: Feeling and Thinking in Philosophy

For more than a decade, emotions have been a hot topic in philosophy as well as in most other areas of the humanities. While the emotional dimension of thinking, deliberation, and behavior is more closely examined than ever before, rarely is the emotional aspect of philosophy itself the topic of philosophical inquiry. This essay argues that there is much to be gained from an investigation of the emotional aspect of philosophical texts. Drawing on two major figures in history, Descartes and Kant, it examines some of the methodological obstacles to such an investigation in the comtemporary philosophy of emotions, proposing the concept of mood as a key a point of entry into the emotional texture of philosophical thinking. The essay concludes with the suggestion that an examination of the loss of ambivalence and the obdurate quest for answers that characterizes the mood of contemporary philosophy might help explain why the curiosity of so few people outside the narrow circle of professional philosophers is aroused by the discussions going on in academic philosophy today.