JOÃO GABRIEL BORGES RIBEIRO

My aim in this research is to establish the conceptual boundaries between Aristotle’s notions of desire and emotion. Both are phenomena of the soul, are related to experiences of pleasure and pain, have a cognitive dimension and are responsible for non-rational motivation of action. Their distinction is difficult to apprehend not only in Aristotle’s philosophy, but also in the contemporary debate (Deonna, 2012, 2017). The first step to establish the Stagirite view on the topic is to understand how those concepts are framed inside the architecture of the Aristotelian soul. After that, it will be necessary to investigate how the philosopher conceives the term θυμός, a word which is employed sometimes as an example of emotion, and in others as a type of desire. That discussion is important because, for some scholars like Garver (1994) and Koziak (2000), θυμός plays an important role bridging the gap between the concept of emotion and desire in Aristotle’s thought. How to account for that? Is θυμός the key to understanding Aristotle’s distinction between desire and emotion, or should we look for another approach? Those are the main questions that have to be answered.