Cultivating Emotions

Abstract

There are extensive interactions, connections and tensions between philosophy and literature, which have been determined in different times and historical moments by the reciprocal inclusion and exclusion. This reflection is raised, among others, by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in The Knowledge of Love. Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1992), by the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in What is Philosophy? (2003), and by Alain Badiou, in Justice, Philosophy and Literature (2007). From the perspective of these authors, I will examine some antecedents and circumstances that have influenced the relationship between the philosophy and literature. I will start from the exploration of the elements that identify and differentiate them to show that the tension between them goes beyond the expression of the opposite logic and imagination, concepts and sensations, emotions and rationality; and that the separation and contradiction between them can be overcome by the understanding of their content and form, being close to the prospects of observation and judgment, and with the consideration of the cultivation of emotions as a possibility of critical reading about the world. In this way, I will highlight the role of literature in the construction of thought, the ethical character of the literary imagination as a projection on the other, and the relevance of an environment of respect between the different areas of knowledge.