Passions of the Soul
The passions were experiences – now commonly called emotions in the modern period – that had been a subject of debate among philosophers and theologians since the time of Plato.
In 1643 Descartes began a prolific written correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, in which he answered her moral questions, especially the nature of happiness, passions, and ethics.
Amélie Rorty asserts that the examination of the passions present in Descartes' work plays a significant role in illustrating the development of the perception of the cognitive mind in western society.
[1] In the context of the development of scientific thought in the seventeenth century which was abandoning the idea of the cosmos in favor of an open universe guided by inviolable laws of nature (see Alexandre Koyré), human actions no longer depended on understanding the order and mechanism of the universe (as had been the philosophy of the Greeks), but instead on understanding the essential workings of nature.
It was only in this context that Descartes wished to speak of the passions, neither as a moralist nor from a psychological perspective, but as a method of exploring a fundamental aspect of natural science.
[3] In the context of the mechanistic view of life which was gaining popularity in seventeenth century science, Descartes perceived the body as an autonomous machine, capable of moving independently of the soul.
The principle of these is that passions, as is suggested by the word’s etymology, are by nature suffered and endured, and are therefore the result of an external cause acting upon a subject.
Descartes explains that these animal spirits are produced in the blood and are responsible for the physical stimulation which causes the body to move.
Thus, "[e]ven those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if they worked hard enough at training and guiding them" (art.
Applying his famous method to moral philosophy, Descartes represented the problem of the passions of the soul in terms of its simplest integral components.
[8] Descartes wrote the treatise in response to an acute philosophical anxiety, and yet in doing so, he risked destroying the entirety of his previous work and the Cartesian system.
Additionally, a further distinction between Descartes' writings on physics and those on human nature such as can be found in Passions is their relationship to Aristotelian teleology.
In the manner by which Descartes explains the human body, the animal spirits stimulate the pineal gland and cause many troubles (or strong emotions) in the soul.
Even while outlining the passions and their effect, he never issues an overarching interdiction against them as fatal human defects to be avoided at all costs.
To protect the independence of the thoughts and guarantee a man’s understanding of reality, however, he indicated that it is necessary to know the passions, and learn to control them in order to put them to the best possible use.
[10] According to Alanen, Ryle describes the true man as the "ghost in the machine", completely separating the physical body and from the metaphysical "mind" which actually encapsulates the spirit as well.
