Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (review)

Richard Sorabji. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 499. Cloth, $45.00.

In his latest magisterial study Richard Sorabji casts his net much wider than the title suggests, to give an overview of ancient theories on emotion, including views of the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle on catharsis, the Pyrrhonists, and the Epicureans, in addition to the material from the Stoics and Christian authors. The work also serves as a sourcebook, with many translations of key passages, and has its finger on the pulse of the most recent developments in scholarship.

Central to the book is the assessment of what Sorabji calls Chrysippus's "cognitive therapy." This is a mode of ancient therapy based on the claim that emotions in response to crises and everyday challenges--as opposed to moods such as depression--depend on rational judgments, mainly of two types: (a) that something occurring is good or bad, and (b) that it would be appropriate to react. Sorabji assesses the possibilities and limitations of this "cognitive therapy" and its concomitant doctrine of the eradication of emotions against the background of other options available in antiquity; of rival positions within the Stoa, primarily Posidonius's stance; of the physician Galen's criticism; as well as of contemporary philosophy and brain research.

"Cognitive therapy" in Chrysippus's sense involves techniques that help us reassess the validity of the judgments involved. These techniques, many of which were shared by other schools of thought besides the Stoics, can be effective, Sorabji claims, even if one were not to accept wholesale the Stoic doctrine, and they have considerable advantages over their Christian counterparts. Yet Sorabji is also careful to point out that we cannot do without philosophical analysis altogether. In this he is trying to walk a fine line between Martha Nussbaum's position, who in her works has given much weight to the value of philosophical doctrine for leading a good life, and Bernard Williams's critique of this approach. The philosophical analysis includes reflections on the notions of time, the self and the will, as well as on such topics as sex, marriage, and love.

Views recorded by Seneca are an essential link, in Sorabji's argument, between the Stoics and Christian writers. In Seneca we find the most complete and developed account of so-called "first movements." These are initial "shocks of the mind" and physical shocks (bites and contractions of the mind or bodily reactions such as flashing eyes or pallor) that are sudden and involuntary and that do not qualify as full-fledged emotions precisely because they do not yet involve judgments. Christian authors such as Origen, Evagrius, and Augustine transformed this notion of "first movements" into "bad thoughts," whereby they did blur the distinction between pre-emotions and the emotions. One small philological mistake in Aulus Gellius's paraphrase of Epictetus on the topic of first movements, by this same slide from pre-emotions to emotions, contributed to Augustine's views on lust as bad because it is independent from the will.

For the sake of discussion I will single out one issue on which I disagree with the author. His claim that the Stoics advocate an eradication of emotion is misleading because he underestimates the range and importance of the "good feelings," the eupatheiai, that are compatible with the correct use of one's reason. The range of what I would call the "good emotions," as opposed to the "passions" (as the bad kind has been traditionally called) is not limited to the strict passages of doctrine that give us lists, and gets extended considerably in later Stoic writers. Secondly, whereas it is true that good emotions are as elusive as the Stoic sage, this does not undermine their importance; on the contrary, they are as important as the very ideal...