The Classical Quarterly (New Series)

Table of Contents - 1997 - Volume 47, Issue 02  

Research Article

Saving the xs03D5αινόμενα: a note on Aristotle's definition of anger

W. V. Harrisa1

a1 Columbia University

In his Rhetoric Aristotle gives six definitions of emotions in approximately the following form, with the word S0009838800038428_inline2 S0009838800038428_inline3 S0009838800038428_inline4 (Rhetoric ii.2.137830–1). Does he mean ‘Let anger be a reaching-out, accompanied by pain, for conspicuous revenge for some conspicuous slight to oneself or one's own, the slight not having been deserved’, or should xs03D5αινομένηςίην be taken to mean ‘manifest, plain’, or (a third possibility) should it be translated ‘perceived, apparent’? Since this is his fullest definition of anger, the question deserves discussion, even though a number of scholars, including such an expert on Aristotle's philosophy of the emotions as W. W. Fortenbaugh, have previously answered the question in what I think is the right way.