From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category

書刊名 Title	From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category
作者 Author	Tomas Dixon
出版社 Publisher	Cambridge University Press
出版年 Year	2006
語言 Language	英文
ISBN (10 / 13)	ISBN-10: 0521026695 ISBN-13: 978-0521026697
Bibliography Reference	(STC, Duff, GW . . .)
來源網址 Web Link	http://goo.gl/iY9SMf
評論者Reviewer	王明月
撰寫日期 Date	2015.04.03

Ø 書評 Review (中英文不限 Chinese or English) 

作者Tomas Dixon檢視人類情感如何在西方歷史中被視為一個顯著分明的心理現象。以心理學角度看，情緒一詞可以取代傳統神學家像 Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, 及自然學家Darwin所謂的品味、激賞、感性、熱情等稱謂。何謂情感？感性？熱情？與情緒？作者在書中提出傳統基督教的論述中並沒有將感性與理性兩者對立，只是古今用詞不同而已。情緒一詞是十九世紀非教會人士蘇格蘭作家所提出，在此之前，在基督教義裡提出情感的相關用詞很多，如品味、激賞、感性、熱情等。隨著十九世紀中葉以降基督宗教式微，一些詞彙的內涵也隨之世俗化，脫離原本宗教信仰上的表達，以情緒一詞取代舊有的用語的結果是使得情感的內涵與宗教信仰的解釋漸行漸遠，因為世俗眼光而轉型成心理健康的議題。這是西方歷史裡去基督教化或是世俗化歷史階段的產物。作者斷言以情感做為理解人類內心活動的唯一途徑卻是行不通的。
關於作者：
Thomas Dixon 現任教於倫敦大學瑪麗王后學院，專攻歷史中的情感及維多利亞時期思想與文化史，目前亦擔任歷史中的情感研究中心主持人。著有Thomas Brown: Selected Philosophical Writings (Imprint Academic, 2010), The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2008). Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008), Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears(link is external) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 等書。

本書目次如下：
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: from passions and affections to emotions
2. Passions and affections in Augustine and Aquinas
3. From movements to mechanisms: passions, sentiments and affections in the Age of Reason
4. The Scottish creation of 'the emotions': David Hume, Thomas Brown, Thomas Chalmers
5. The physicalist appropriation of Brownian emotions: Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin
6. Christian and theistic responses to the physicalist emotions paradigm
7. What was an emotion in 1884? William James and his critics
8. Conclusions: how history can help us think about 'the emotions' Bibliography
    Index.

Review:
Editorial Reviews
'In sum, this is a deeply rewarding book, backed up by detailed scholarship; it deserves a place on the bookshelves of anyone concerned with the history both of passions and emotions.' History of Political Thought

'From Passions to Emotions will be consulted for a long time ... not least because it is an important contribution to the history of several fields ... Dixon has reduced the main issues to their essences, and one cannot imagine the task having been better accomplished by others.' History of Psychiatry

'In a series of closely argued and well-documented chapters, Dixon shows that this category had no equivalent in earlier discourse ... Dixon clearly demonstrates that 'emotion' constitutes a specifically modern discursive construction rather than an analogue of some ancient psychological category ...Dixon presents a superb analysis of the interrelationship between the historical fate of the will and the passions ... Measured against the sharper, more differentiated analysis presented this book, the conventional understanding of 'emotion' begins to look like a very blunt instrument. Dixon's contribution is not 'merely' historical; it has considerable relevance for contemporary attempts to achieve a richer conceptualisation of affective life.' Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

'From Passions to Emotions offers a cogent, and I think, convincing argument on an issue of crucial public interest. It is a piece of good old-fashioned intellectual history ...'. Galton Institute Newsletter

'... a most significant and most interesting contribution both to the history of psychology and to the study of relations between the modern scientific world view and religion. ... it will substantially alter how writers refer to the history of what we loosely call the 'feelings'. ... There has been little systematic history of the 'emotions' before this book, and this book provides a new and firm reference point. ... [there] is a much-needed seriousness about the centrality, complexity and subtlety of interrelations between religion and psychology. There is no doubt that ignorance, indifference or antagonism to religion has marked the history of this field. Here we now have a model study that shows what is involved in overcoming this limitation. ... very valuable scholarship and persusasive clarity ...' British Journal of the History of Science

Book Description:
 
Emotions are everywhere today, their importance obvious to all. Yet until two centuries ago 'the emotions' did not exist. In this pathbreaking study Thomas Dixon shows how the emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category, displacing such concepts as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections, all of which had preoccupied thinkers as diverse as Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, and Darwin. From Passion to Emotion is a significant and original contribution to that debate about emotion and rationality which has preoccupied western thinkers across many disciplines in recent decades. 

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