The strength of tenderness. Rousseau’s "vectorial" theory of the emotions

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Marco Menin
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1 Language Italian
Pages 15 P. 5-19 File size 566 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2015-001002
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The aim of this paper is to show how tenderness (attendrissement) plays a key role in Rousseau’s conception of the dynamics of passions. The Author argues that, thanks to its authentic and spontaneous nature, tenderness is invested with a determinant moral role: it can in fact be regarded as a positive realization of self-love (amour propre), able to eliminate the pathological and competitive aspects which connote, from an historical but not constitutive point of view, the mutual interdependence of men in society.

Keywords: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, tenderness [attendrissement], passions, emotion, morality, self-love

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Marco Menin, La forza della tenerezza. La teoria "vettoriale" dell’emozione secondo Rousseau in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 1/2015, pp 5-19, DOI: 10.3280/SF2015-001002