The French Moralists

In Chapter III discuss some prescient fic or, better, extrascientifk sources for the study of the emotions. I first consider Aristotle, whose account of emotions in the Rhetoric remains utterly fresh and insightful. Next, I consider the treatment of emotions by the French moralists, from Montaigne to La Bruyere. Finally, I discuss what wc can team about the emotions from a handful of novelists and playwrights Shakespeare, Racine, Mme de Lafayette, Jane Austen, Stendhal, and George Eliot. 

In Chapter V, drawing on the discussion of the French moralists in Chapter 11 and on the discussion of irrational emotions in Chapter IV, I discuss the causes and reasons that make people hide their mo-.H vat Ions from themselves and from others. On the one hand, there is the phenomenon of unconscious transmutation of one motive into another. On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of conscious misrepresentation of one s motives in front of an audience. Whereas earlier chapters address themselves mainly to philosophers, psychologists, and historians, this chapter is more oriented toward economics, political science, and law. I believe in fact that the relevance of emotion ranges across all the social sciences, the humanities, and legal studies. I hope the book can help making that relevance better appreciated. 

Alchemies of the Mind Rationality and the Emotions II.3. THE FRENCH MORALISTS... 

Ryle (1971). He relates her writings exclusively to the British moralists, notably Shaftesbury, without citing any of the French moralists. 

There is no common set of insights we can draw from these novels and plays. The French moralists have, taken collectively, something like a theory of human motivation, and a relatively coherent view of the relation between emotion, cognition, and behavior. The authors I have discussed are so diverse that no similar construction can be imputed to them. 

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