L’ammirazione in Cartesio e Spinoza. Classificazione degli affetti e costituzione dello spazio antropologico

The status of Admiration in Descartes and Spinoza is illustrated by F. Piro as an index of different anthropological options, concerning the relationships between emotions and rationality and the role that they play in social, political and religious behavior. The differences in metaphysical assumptions that separate the two thinkers as well as the internal evolution of their thinking are enucleated under such perspective. In the background there are at least three main philosophical issues: (i) the classic issue of the primary emotions (also in the current form of a question about the anthropological universals ); (ii) the issue of the existence and nature of moral sentiments and, at the end, (iii) that of the status of the admirable or amazing in the age of the scientific revolution.