Introduction

INTRODUCTION
STill brainstorming stage ...

Why passions?
Our concern is to consider the sensitive appetite as distinct from the will (while passions have an “imperfect” voluntariety of themselves and are of tremendous significance in considering the human being as a voluntary creature, we do not wish to stray too far from our specialized topic by creating another treatise on “per se morality” or an analytic (?) approach, that is, morality laid out according to the linearities of voluntariety alone - our very intention is to insist upon the unique way of being which “impassioned-ness” offers us without relying too heavily on the “voluntariety” which is generally conceded to be the primary moral category.

In his work on the "passions" Thomas Aquinas “fill in the blanks” as it were - adding color to the pen-and-ink outlines to the moral sketch of volunatriety. We hope this will provide an interesting course for gleaning an account of “subjectivity” that more closely captures our experience, through the integral metaphors of the passions. In more technical terms, we can say that “passions” hold themselves with respect to the “will” as disposative, as participatory, and as perfecting or completing its operations. In our readings of passions, we will not emphasize the nature of the will in itself, but insofar as the passions can help us to shed light on its activities, how they are intimately concerned with its activities. A distinct account of passions “in their own right” will enable the reader to re-immerse them in a complex co-consideration with willing,

Why sorrow?
It is useful to begin with sorrow from a structural point of view, as it is the most “passionate of the passions” (whatever this will mean) it is from sorrow that we can build the most existential account of passion.

Concrete aims
If sorrow can be positively understood, it will mean a great achievement for those who are subjectively immersed within it or engaged with treating it. Sorrow is the most helpless of the passions - understanding its twists, turns, its remedies from within the subject (irascible and better concupiscible passions regaining balance) and to some extent how these remedies can come from “outside” - influencing the embodied, intelligent reflexivity that is the human being.
To facilitate this, we will look at both sorrow in general and then four particular kinds of sorrow which Aquinas identifies on the basis of their effects or of their objects. We will begin with the kinds of sorrow distinguishable by their effects as it is still close to our initial exploration of sorrow - more intrinsic to the general concept of sorrow itself.
The fourth chapter will look at the two kinds of evil which can trouble us apart from the proper object which is our own good - our neighbors’ good (and why this should be an object of sorrow) and our neighbor’s sorrow which is not identified as our own so as to suffer it but concerns us so deeply as to be moved to act with them or in their behalf.

The final chapter will contextualize this exploration, comparing with other stories of sorrow, and particularly centering in on mercy as a valuable social passion for intersubjective unity and solidarity, and will have an opening look at some elements which this exploration may entail.

AN EARLIER VERSION - might want to combine the two....
FINAL WORDS
What I really want from passion and I tried to find in “intensio” was DISPOSITION and PARTICIPATION. While with regard to concrete moral activities, it is necessary to have the antecedent aspect of the will, it is also possible, I think, to form an antecedent story of the passions. The sensitive/appetitive powers of the soul do not appear first on the scene, but only in primacy. We see in fact, that children (along with animals) participate in only imperfect voluntariety - what is not spelled out is that the dispositions of children with respect to passions that become qualities (and there are passions in respect of the moral genus are good ones). The “majority of men” live according to their passions (find source - probably in ‘contemplation’ thing?) and while Aquinas continually asserts the structural primacy of the “will” it is also possible to build up a disposative story of the passions, or at least to look at the passions in light of their being the material grounds in which willing is found, for all people at every moment of their lives (whether it precedes or follows willing is a matter of time -e.g.children don’t - disposition - some are young all their lives - cf. nicomachean ethics). It will be my contention that in the history of sorrow - which is the most passionate of the passions, we can have a being-towards properly human perfection, even in the experience of the negation of it - in fact, because of the experience of the negation of it. I think there is a possibility for an “ethical school/Disciplinemaybe?” of sorrow in Aquinas, that while the species of sorrow is to be the most harmful of all the passions, that in this uttermost experience of being-impassioned, moral agency can be more perfectly assumed, or even claimed for the first time. (Reasons - ‘feel more keenly the object of one’s love, work the harder, etc, sorrow shunned more than the good sought for its own sake -).
But as to whether this hypothesis will hold, it remains to be seen in the following pages.

It is keeping in view the possible offerings passio may bring to subjectivity that we have chosen to initiate our discussion with the “metaphysical” category of intensio, as a fundamental category of “being towards”.