Mind, Understanding and Passions. La mente emotivo-passionale di John Locke

My paper aims to highlight that, in the general context of the phenomenological approach to the examination of psychic contents, Locke’s analysis of the ‘emotions’ or ‘passions’ (to use his lexicon), which is proposed in the Second Book of the Essay concerning humane Understanding (1690), shows to have particular features and assigns to the passions an original place within the taxonomy of ideas. At the same time, if the passions, with regard to the central issue of every moral theory, that of the willing and self-determination, has been extensively studied by Lockean scholars, my research proposal intends to underline the value of the passions in relation to the human being and the knowledge according to the Essay (as well as in the associated texts, such as the pedagogical work, Some Thoughts concerning Education, and the short essay, Of the Conduct of the Understanding). I will demonstrate that passions play a key role in both the ‘physiological’ functioning of the understanding and the ‘pathological’ one (the theory of error and association).

Nel contesto generale dell’approccio fenomenologico all’analisi dei contenuti psichici, lo studio delle ‘emozioni’ o passions (per usare la terminologia dell’Autore), proposto nel Second Book dell’Essay concerning humane Understanding (1690) assume caratteri specifici e dà luogo a un’originale collocazione delle passioni nella tassonomia delle idee, che il presente lavoro intende evidenziare. Al contempo, se il ruolo delle passioni in relazione alla questione centrale di ogni morale, quella dell’atto del volere e dell’auto-determinazione, è stato ampiamente esaminato dalla critica lockiana, la presente proposta di ricerca intende far emergere il peso specifico delle passioni nella teoria del soggetto e della conoscenza dell’Essay (nonché delle opere a esso connesse, quali lo scritto pe- dagogico, Some Thoughts concerning Education, e il breve saggio Of the Conduct of the Understanding), sia in relazione al funzionamento ‘fisiologico’ dell’intelletto umano, sia in quello ‘patologico’ (la teoria dell’errore e dell’associazione).