The Therapy of Desire [Paperback]

Martha C. Nussbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0691000522 | ISBN-13: 978-0691000527

The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engaging book, Martha Nussbaum examines texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm--including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca--and recovers a valuable source for our moral and political thought of today.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In recent years, several books have appeared whose central thrust was to demonstrate that the methodology of philosophical thought and analysis has practical application. Here, Nussbaum (philosophy, classics, and comparative literature, Brown) has concentrated on Hellenistic ethics--i.e., those of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics--arguing that these schools have been ignored in traditional historical accounts, particularly with regard to their treatment of emotion. She analyzes texts by such writers as Aristotle, Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, and Plutarch to show that their concerns regarding emotion are no different from ours and could be applied to the psychological problems, both private and public, we currently face. Nussbaum's criticisms and analyses of each writer are carefully worked out. Some professional (read "technical") philosophers may object to her approach, but it is encouraging to see philosopy viewed as having practical consequences. Recommended for all academic libraries and for public libraries with substantial philosophy collections.
- Terry Skeats, Bishop's Univ. Lib., Lennoxville, Quebec
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A scholarly and beautifully written account of late Greek and Roman thought in which Nussbaum (Philosophy, Classics, and Comparative Literature/Brown Univ.) analyzes the use of philosophical argument as a technique for enabling people to grapple with fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Her theme is the ancients' concept of philosophy as a practical art of living (analogous to medicine) that welds ethics, religion, and emotional introspection in the pursuit of truth and the removal of unsound beliefs from the soul. Omitting Plato, who has been the subject of excellent recent work by other scholars (especially Gregory Vlastos), Nussbaum begins with background chapters on Aristotle and then works her way through the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and the Stoics. Much of the book is devoted to the writings of Lucretius and Seneca, whom she treats as thinkers in their own right rather than simply users of other people's thought as a vehicle for personal poetic or dramatic expression. She questions Lucretius' view of erotic love as essentially aiming at fusion rather than intimate responsiveness. Here and elsewhere Nussbaum makes subtle but vital distinctions. As in The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (not reviewed), she writes with a mixture of passion and delicacy on the one hand, professional scholarship on the other--a blend that in itself expresses her concept of philosophy as practical, compassionate, and inclusive. She sees in the Hellenistic philosophers a basic tension between transcendence and involvement in life, and an understanding of politics and emotion that has much to teach us today. There is a useful glossary of philosophers and their schools for the nonexpert. Stimulating, solid fare, likely to appeal to classicists, philosophers, and all who are concerned with perennial human issues. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 572 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (February 16, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691000522
• ISBN-13: 978-0691000527
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #998,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity.

Author photo by Robin Holland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction to CBT and REBT, February 27, 2005

By 

D. S. Heersink "D. Stephen Heersink" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Therapy of Desire (Paperback)

"The Therapy of Desire" is without doubt one of the best written, most erudite, and exhaustive studies of Hellenistic practical philosophy available, beginning with Plato and concluding with the Stoics. Nussbaum's focus, however, is not all the philosophical concepts touched upon during this enormous stretch of time, but with human flourishing (i.e., eudaimonia) and the important ethical insights of this period. Using the medical paradigm that the philosophers themselves used, she approaches Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and finally the Stoics conception of the good life well lived. Each of these philosophical schools attempted to "treat" the disorders of the mind (i.e., psyche), particularly the emotions and how they divert the soul from health to disease.

She begins with Plato's and Aristotle's belief that the emotions are a "part" of the soul, separate and distinct from the ratiocinative part. Plato thought all emotions needed to be controlled by reason (the charioteer and the two steeds), while Aristotle thought the emotions, distinct from the appetites and reason, need to find the golden mean through the process of using the intellect to control the passions from excess or deficiency. The Epicureans, on the other hand, make no such distinction, arguing instead that all emotions are flawed if they don't have the right premises (usually the "universal" premise) of practical thinking. Change the universal premise, usually by rote memory of rules of inference, and the emotions are tamed. The Skeptics took the approach that all passionate and deliberative thought was premised on false premises; citing Sextus Empiricus and his extreme Pyrrhonism, she illustrates how their resistance to all forms of dogmatism, e.g., certainty about the truth in any form, was a ruse. (I think Nussbaum could have explored the Skeptics more thoroughly than she does.) The Skeptics insisted that no two people perceive the same thing in the same way; even emotional responses were entirely unique and based upon the "belief" that something was true, when in fact, no belief is true. Their approach was simply to "suspend" all judgments altogether, thereby not being committed to one way of thinking or another.

The Stoics, on the other hand, alight onto something Nussbaum finds both intriguing and true. The emotions are not a separate faculty of the soul, but the same faculty involved in ratiocination. Emotions are nothing more than "internal" cognitive reactions to external stimuli. Treatment of the soul, for the Stoics, was apathy (i.e., ataraxia): Don't let the soul (i.e., mind) become "disturbed" by external factors. By simply extirpating emotive reactions, the Stoic "therapy" involves the complete the annihilation of the emotions altogether. External (cf., internal) conditions are simply a matter of fate or whim, neither within nor without one's control. Why get exercised over them? It only begets anger, frustration, and depression. Only our internal reaction to them are controllable. The only way to deal with our reactions is to ignore or repress them, or else they will take control over the self -- and almost always for the worse. Anger, fear, frustration, anxiety, love,pity,compassion,grandiosity, our finitude, etc., do not come form the outside; they are emotions that cognitively react to outside events beyond the self's control. But what good do they serve? None. They only make one react to things that are outside the agent's control. The tonic: Overcome them through extirpation, and thus lead a calm, dispassionate, and equipoised life.

Nussbaum's erudite, sophisticated, and elegant evaluation of these schools of thought ought to engender the person of the twenty-first century into "current" modalities for the treatment of mental disorders. In the "Therapy of Desire" she lays the intellectual and historical foundations of current cognitive modalities. (This she explores in greater detail into her sequel "Upheavals of Thought.") But, by confining ourselves to this rich intellectual, hermeneutic, and "medical" history of the Hellenistic period, we can already anticipate the use of both Epicurean and Stoic thought in Cognitive Behavior and Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapies, and how successful both paradigms have become. (For example, see Elliot Cohen's "What Would Aristotle Do?" and Albert Ellis' "A Guide to Rational Living.") Nussbaum not only weaves a coherent, intelligent, and persuasive understanding of Hellenistic thought, she provides the ancient, and yet contemporary, underpinnings of modern cognitive psychology. Her book is rich in quotes from both periods, and is an excellent introduction into why the ancient Greek/Roman philosophers still speak to us today.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars comprehensive and relevant, February 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Therapy of Desire (Paperback)

It is rare for a survey of classical philosophy (in this case the Hellenistic period) to be both scholarly and engaging. But this is the fault of commentators, not of the ancient authors themselves, as Martha Nussbaum shows -- not by attacking other scholars but by bringing out the undying relevance of the works in question. She ranges from Aristotle through the Stoics, covering such schools as the Epicureans and the Skeptics along the way. The narrative brings each of these schools to life by imagining a female student in search of wisdom, testing out each possibility and comparing it with the others with regard to how well it answers such urgent human questions as: how should I live?; or, how am I to love without compromising my dignity or rendering myself vulnerable to suffering? Each of the Hellenistic schools has a practical answer to such questions, and in an age (ours) which (like theirs) laments the absence of guidance for the individual, the consideration of philosophical schools like these, which do not lie about the negative aspects of existence, remain a superior alternative to those in search of wisdom and frustrated with the easy oversimplifing pseudo-wisdom of the week. The statement is too often made, but in this case it applies: this book will be highly valuable to both the student of ancient philosophy and the general reader.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good textbook, but more moving, April 25, 2003

By 

John Haber (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Therapy of Desire (Paperback)

In "The Fragility of Goodness," Nussbaum structured a good introduction to Greek philosophy around a notion that had started to get attention in philosophy (thanks to Bernard Williams and Robert Nozick especially): moral luck. If we hope our acts will bring happiness, what does it say of virtue if events and attachments can bring ruin? If morality lies in our choice or character, what does it say if good people, as in Greek tragedy, are driven to terrible acts?

"The Therapy of Desire" extends the argument in two ways. First, it focuses on the part of our vulnerability we ordinarily think of as within: our attachments to ourselves and to others, with the intense emotions of anger and love these entail. Second, it moves past the major works of Plato and Aristotle to the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans. For that alone, it may well be a more useful book. She writes very clearly indeed, making the arguments of each credible, and the arrangement by school and thematic approach make it easier to follow than such well-known surveys as Annas's "Morality of Happiness," even as she responds to each one in her own way.

She continues, as in the previous book, to argue that both her themes and Greek thought forbid a separation of philosophy from literary writing (a notion that sounds contemporary now, too, with Derrida and others), and so she gives much space to Lucretius (whereas others stick to the fragments of strictly philosophical writings that are left us). It made me read him. She also again makes the case that post-Classical philosophy, concerned with moral imperatives or the greatest happiness of others, slights a key question.

I have to say that the complaint in an earlier review that she's too Marxist just has me puzzled at the red-baiting. As I say, she thinks something serious got lost starting at least with Kant, and the rare reference to Marx is dismissive. Similarly, using "he" and "she" interchangeably is pretty much the norm in such presentations these days. Perhaps just finding someone who believes in affections and human community as part of virtue annoys a neo-con.