Relation to the world· Mind and consciousnessnamed middle
Educating the emotions
Axis: Status of emotions — Are emotions an obstacle to thought or a source of knowledge?
Emotions are neither a mere disturbance nor an oracle: they are trainable dispositions. Ill-tuned, they lead us astray; shaped by habit and reason, they become an accurate perception, sensing danger, injustice, or grief at the right time and in the right measure. Wisdom lies neither in extirpating them nor in following them blindly, but in tuning them: this is Aristotle's path, for whom the well-raised person feels the right emotion toward the right person, to the right degree.
Philosophers 1
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Millinferable
Trained by his father in the cult of analysis and reasoning, Mill realises after his crisis that intellect alone withers: one must also cultivate the feelings and sensibility, which poetry and art nourish. Without denying reason's primacy in knowledge, he gives the emotions their due as an irreducible part of a good life, hence a near-central position.
Autobiography, ch. 5 (the cultivation of the feelings and the debt to Wordsworth)