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Philosophy of desire
In philosophy, desire has been identified as a recurring philosophical problem. It has been variously interpreted as what compels someone towards the highest state of human nature or consciousness, as well as being posited as either something to be eliminated or a powerful source of potential.
In Plato's The Republic, Socrates argued that individual desires must be postponed in the name of a higher ideal. Similarly, within the teachings of Buddhism, craving, identified as the most potent form of desire, is thought to be the cause of all suffering, which can be eliminated to attain greater happiness (Nirvana). While on the path to liberation, a practitioner is advised to "generate desire" for skillful ends.
Plato uses the term epithumia to refer to both desire as a broad category and as a specific kind of desire. Aristotle clarifies the varying notions by specifying that overarching category is orexis. Within that category, epithumia is a type of desire along with boulêsis (wish) and thumos (spirited thinking).
In Aristotle's De Anima the soul is seen to be involved in motion, because animals desire things and in their desire, they acquire locomotion. Aristotle argued that desire is implicated in animal interactions and the propensity of animals to motion. But Aristotle acknowledges that desire cannot account for all purposive movement towards a goal. He brackets the problem by positing that perhaps reason, in conjunction with desire and by way of the imagination, makes it possible for one to apprehend an object of desire, to see it as desirable. In this way reason and desire work together to determine what is a good object of desire. This resonates with desire in the chariots of Plato's Phaedrus, for in the Phaedrus the soul is guided by two horses, a dark horse of passion and a white horse of reason. Here passion and reason, as in Aristotle, are also together. Socrates does not suggest the dark horse be done away with, since its passions make possible a movement towards the objects of desire, but he qualifies desire and places it in a relation to reason so that the object of desire can be discerned correctly, so that we may have the right desire. Aristotle distinguishes desire into two aspects of appetition, and volition. Appetition, or appetite, is a longing for or seeking after something; a craving.
Aristotle makes the distinction as follows:
In Passions of the Soul, René Descartes writes of the passion of desire as an agitation of the soul that projects desire, for what it represents as agreeable, into the future. Desire in Immanuel Kant can represent things that are absent and not only objects at hand. Desire is also the preservation of objects already present, as well as the desire that certain effects not appear, that what affects one adversely be curtailed and prevented in the future. Moral and temporal values attach to desire in that objects which enhance one's future are considered more desirable than those that do not, and it introduces the possibility, or even necessity, of postponing desire in anticipation of some future event, anticipating Sigmund Freud's text Beyond the Pleasure Principle. See also, the pleasure principle in psychology.
In his Ethics, Baruch Spinoza declares desire to be "the very essence of man," in the "Definitions of the Affects" at the end of Part III. An early example of desire as an ontological principle, it applies to all things or "modes" in the world, each of which has a particular vital "striving" (sometimes expressed with the Latin "conatus") to persist in existence (Part III, Proposition 7). Different striving beings have different levels of power, depending on their capacity to persevere in being. Affects, or emotions which are divided into the joyful and the sad, alter our level of power or striving: joy is a passage "from a lesser to a greater perfection" or degree of power (III Prop. 11 Schol.), just as sadness is the opposite. Desire, qualified by the imagination and the intellect, is an attempt to maximize power, to "strive to imagine those things that increase or aid the body's power of acting." (III Prop. 12). Spinoza ends the Ethics by a proposition that both moral virtue and spiritual blessedness are a direct result of essential power to exist, i.e. desire (Part V Prop. 42).
In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume suggests that reason is subject to passion. Motion is put into effect by desire, passions, and inclinations. It is desire, along with belief, that motivates action. Immanuel Kant establishes a relation between the beautiful and pleasure in Critique of Judgment. He says "I can say of every representation that it is at least possible (as a cognition) it should be bound up with a pleasure. Of representation that I call pleasant I say that it actually excites pleasure in me. But the beautiful we think as having a necessary reference to satisfaction." Desire is found in the representation of the object.
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Philosophy of desire
In philosophy, desire has been identified as a recurring philosophical problem. It has been variously interpreted as what compels someone towards the highest state of human nature or consciousness, as well as being posited as either something to be eliminated or a powerful source of potential.
In Plato's The Republic, Socrates argued that individual desires must be postponed in the name of a higher ideal. Similarly, within the teachings of Buddhism, craving, identified as the most potent form of desire, is thought to be the cause of all suffering, which can be eliminated to attain greater happiness (Nirvana). While on the path to liberation, a practitioner is advised to "generate desire" for skillful ends.
Plato uses the term epithumia to refer to both desire as a broad category and as a specific kind of desire. Aristotle clarifies the varying notions by specifying that overarching category is orexis. Within that category, epithumia is a type of desire along with boulêsis (wish) and thumos (spirited thinking).
In Aristotle's De Anima the soul is seen to be involved in motion, because animals desire things and in their desire, they acquire locomotion. Aristotle argued that desire is implicated in animal interactions and the propensity of animals to motion. But Aristotle acknowledges that desire cannot account for all purposive movement towards a goal. He brackets the problem by positing that perhaps reason, in conjunction with desire and by way of the imagination, makes it possible for one to apprehend an object of desire, to see it as desirable. In this way reason and desire work together to determine what is a good object of desire. This resonates with desire in the chariots of Plato's Phaedrus, for in the Phaedrus the soul is guided by two horses, a dark horse of passion and a white horse of reason. Here passion and reason, as in Aristotle, are also together. Socrates does not suggest the dark horse be done away with, since its passions make possible a movement towards the objects of desire, but he qualifies desire and places it in a relation to reason so that the object of desire can be discerned correctly, so that we may have the right desire. Aristotle distinguishes desire into two aspects of appetition, and volition. Appetition, or appetite, is a longing for or seeking after something; a craving.
Aristotle makes the distinction as follows:
In Passions of the Soul, René Descartes writes of the passion of desire as an agitation of the soul that projects desire, for what it represents as agreeable, into the future. Desire in Immanuel Kant can represent things that are absent and not only objects at hand. Desire is also the preservation of objects already present, as well as the desire that certain effects not appear, that what affects one adversely be curtailed and prevented in the future. Moral and temporal values attach to desire in that objects which enhance one's future are considered more desirable than those that do not, and it introduces the possibility, or even necessity, of postponing desire in anticipation of some future event, anticipating Sigmund Freud's text Beyond the Pleasure Principle. See also, the pleasure principle in psychology.
In his Ethics, Baruch Spinoza declares desire to be "the very essence of man," in the "Definitions of the Affects" at the end of Part III. An early example of desire as an ontological principle, it applies to all things or "modes" in the world, each of which has a particular vital "striving" (sometimes expressed with the Latin "conatus") to persist in existence (Part III, Proposition 7). Different striving beings have different levels of power, depending on their capacity to persevere in being. Affects, or emotions which are divided into the joyful and the sad, alter our level of power or striving: joy is a passage "from a lesser to a greater perfection" or degree of power (III Prop. 11 Schol.), just as sadness is the opposite. Desire, qualified by the imagination and the intellect, is an attempt to maximize power, to "strive to imagine those things that increase or aid the body's power of acting." (III Prop. 12). Spinoza ends the Ethics by a proposition that both moral virtue and spiritual blessedness are a direct result of essential power to exist, i.e. desire (Part V Prop. 42).
In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume suggests that reason is subject to passion. Motion is put into effect by desire, passions, and inclinations. It is desire, along with belief, that motivates action. Immanuel Kant establishes a relation between the beautiful and pleasure in Critique of Judgment. He says "I can say of every representation that it is at least possible (as a cognition) it should be bound up with a pleasure. Of representation that I call pleasant I say that it actually excites pleasure in me. But the beautiful we think as having a necessary reference to satisfaction." Desire is found in the representation of the object.