Emotions in Renaissance Humanism: Juan Luis Vives’De Anima Et Vita

Abstract

Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540) is perhaps best known as an educational and social theorist, and for his spirited attack on scholastic logic. His contribution to philosophical psychology is however also worthy of consideration. For his insights on human nature and conduct the Valencian humanist has occasionally even been called “the father of modern psychology”. Vives’ philosophical reflections on the human soul are mainly concentrated inDe anima et vita(1538). The treatise, which belongs to the late and philosophically more interesting and mature stage of his intellectual career, is divided into three books: on the soul of the brutes, on the rational soul, and on the emotions(de anima brutorum,de rationaliet de affectionibus).The enormous importance Vives attached to the exploration of the emotions, to which almost half of the treatise is devoted, is reflected in the fact that he considers “that philosophy which provides remedy for the severe diseases of the soul” not only “the foundation of the whole moral discipline, private as well as public”, but also “the supreme form of learning and knowledge”.