Abstract
Remembering Lucretius, Du Bos recalled that “watching a ship from the shore fighting the waves that want to swallow it up is exciting”. One of the features of Burke’s thought is to push to the limits the subjective possibilities of a spectator, who is explicitly required to bear a horror show rather than to appreciate its intrinsic mimetic-representative qualities. Mendelssohn openly admits having criticized Du Bos’s theory too hastily, and his definition of mixed feelings – pleasure and displeasure – also rejects Burke’s theory. In Mendelssohn’s view, even the appreciation of an imperfect object can increase the feeling of self-consciousness. Nowadays, the pleasure of weeping is well understood by philosophy and it has been debated since the eighteenth century. New research in empirical aesthetics has recently contributed to the field and its further development could help to productively redefine philosophical research. Unfortunately, previous research has been partially flawed by an insufficient understanding of the philosophical debate. A thorough consideration of the philosophical and theoretical frame associated with experimental research should underpin any further research on the complex ramifications of the dark side of human emotions.
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Notes
- 1.
It is worth noting that this same sentence appears in the entry Société, written by Louis de Jaucourt for the Encyclopédie.
- 2.
It is also true that to satisfy one’s inclinations, when these are positive, becomes itself a moral duty. However, Kant refuses to accept that inclinations should regulate one’s moral conduct.
- 3.
These words were addressed by Valmont to his mistress, the Présidente de Tourvel, with the intention to dismiss her attentions and under the advice of the Marquise de Merteuil. See Choderlos de Laclos (1784, 200).
- 4.
“As to us here our thoughts of every thing at home are suspended, by our astonishment at the wonderful Spectacle which is exhibited in a Neighbouring and rival Country” (“Edmund Burke to Lord Charlemont”, 9 August 1789, in Cobban and Smith 1967, 10).
- 5.
“While the following maxims of common human understanding do not properly come in here as constituent parts of the critique of taste, they may still serve to elucidate its fundamental propositions. They are these: (1) to think for oneself; (2) to think from the standpoint of everyone else; (3) always to think consistently. The first is the maxim of unprejudiced thought, the second that of broadened thought, the third that of consistent thought” (Kant 2007, 124).
- 6.
An extensive review of the first edition of Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London, 1757) appeared in Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste, in 1758.
- 7.
In Rhapsody (see Mendelssohn 1997b), Mendelssohn explicitly recognises Burke’s merit in this field. Indeed, he tends to attribute him with a more decisive role than Du Bos, for having drawn his attention to the mixed nature of human sentiments.
- 8.
The ugly, imperfect and evil generate “a mixed feeling that is composed of an element of dissatisfaction with the object and satisfaction with the representation of it” (Mendelssohn 1997b, 134).
- 9.
“So long as Nero, that budding actor who loved to sing the role of Agave in Euripides’ Bacchae, indulges in tragic weeping over the vicissitudes of life, so long is he not to be trusted with the fate of his people”. As though compassion was the cousin of cruelty (as the Stoics indeed postulated) (Nussbaum 2001, 362).
- 10.
The epistemological status of neuroaesthetics is still under development and involves many different aspects: from the neurocriticism of art to the neurohistory of art; from the studies conducted by Winfried Menninghaus at the Max Planck Institut für empirische Ästhetik – whose aim is to get an understanding of the processes, elicitors and functions of aesthetic appreciation through an investigation involving psychology, the traditional poetics of musicology, art history, literary studies, biology, sociology, and neuroscience – to the use of techniques of neuroimaging in critical-aesthetic processes, to the discovery of mirror neurons, which is part of the long history of the aesthetics of empathy. The approach of the ITT (Italian Institute of Technology, Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition – Parma) which involves the use of high-density EEG, stereo-EEG, TMS and fMRI and behavioural techniques, focuses on the neuroscientific study of the motor-cognitive processes underlying the comprehension of actions, intentions and emotions of others.
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Mazzocut-Mis, M. (2021). The Pleasure of Weeping: The Novelty of a Research. In: Giacomoni, P., Valentini, N., Dellantonio, S. (eds) The Dark Side: Philosophical Reflections on the “Negative Emotions”. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55123-0_10
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