Passions (philosophy)

In philosophy and religion the passions are the instinctive, emotional, primitive drives in a human being (including, for example, lust, anger, aggression and jealousy) which a human being must restrain, channel, develop and sublimate in order to be possessed of wisdom. Passions in religion and philosophy have a different connotation from the popular concept of passion which is generally seen as a positive emotion. The philosophical notion of passion, in contrast, is identified with innate or biologically driven emotional states regarded in ancient philosophies and the great religions as being the basis for deadly sins and seen as leading to various social and spiritual ills such as unstable relationships, broken marriages, lack of social integration, psychological disorders and other problems. In the philosophical tradition of the west passion is often placed in opposition to reason. Reason is advocated in the control of passion, something seen as desirable and necessary for the development of a mature, civilized human being. This is achieved by the cultivation of virtue. Four virtues in particular have long been seen as of especial value in this regard.

Passions

Passions is an American soap opera which aired on NBC from July 5, 1999 to September 7, 2007 and on The 101 Network from September 17, 2007 to August 7, 2008.

Passions follows the lives and loves, and various romantic and paranormal adventures of the residents of Harmony. Story-lines center on the interactions among members of its multi-racial core families — the African American Russells, white Cranes and Bennetts, and half-Mexican half-Irish Lopez-Fitzgeralds — as well as the supernatural, including town witch Tabitha Lenox.

In January 2007, NBC canceled Passions but later handed it over to The 101 Network. The show aired its final NBC episode on September 7, 2007. Created by writer James E. Reilly and produced by NBC Studios, the series was subsequently picked up by direct broadcast satellite service DirecTV, which broadcast new episodes airing on its exclusive channel The 101. Passions aired its first DirectTV episode on September 17, 2007. In December 2007, DirecTV decided not to renew its contract for the series, and the studio was unable to sell the show elsewhere. The final episode aired on DirecTV on August 7, 2008.

Passions (Bach)

As Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach provided Passion music for Good Friday services in Leipzig. The extant St Matthew Passion and St John Passion are the best known Passion oratorios composed by Bach.

Passions composed and/or staged by Bach

According to his "Nekrolog", the 1754 obituary written by Johann Friedrich Agricola and the composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach wrote "five Passions, of which one is for double chorus". The double chorus one is easily identified as the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion is the only extant other one that is certainly composed by Bach. The libretto of the St Mark Passion was published in Bach's time, allowing reconstruction based on the pieces Bach is known to have parodied for its composition, while the extant St Luke Passion likely contains little or no music composed by Bach. Which Bach compositions, apart from the known ones, may have been meant in the obituary remains uncertain.

The St John Passion is shorter and has simpler orchestration than the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion has been described as more realistic, faster paced and more anguished than the reflective and resigned St. Matthew Passion.

Passions (C. P. E. Bach)

As Kapellmeister at Hamburg from 1768 to 1788, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed 21 settings of the Passion narrative.

History

The tradition of the German oratorio Passion began in Hamburg in 1643 with Thomas Selle’s St John Passion and continued unbroken until the death of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in 1788. The oratorio Passion, made famous by Johann Sebastian Bach in his St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, is the style that is most familiar to the modern listener. It makes use of recitative to tell the Passion narrative and initially intersperses reflective chorales but later arias and choruses as well. This is in contrast to the Passion oratorio, a genre typified by the so-called Brockes-Passion text Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus (set by Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel, among others). The Passion oratorio does away with the vocal characterization used in the oratorio Passion and is more a free, poetic retelling of the narrative, rather than a direct quote from the Gospels. Bach himself made this distinction when he wrote to Georg Michael Telemann in 1767 to clarify his duties in Hamburg: "are [Passions] presented in the historic and old manner with the Evangelist and other persons, or is it arranged in the manner of an oratorio with reflections, as is the case in Ramler's oratorio [Der Tod Jesu, arguably the most famous setting of this text is by Carl Heinrich Graun]?" As the clergy in Hamburg were rather conservative, they preserved this "old-fashioned" style until the church music reform in 1789, after Bach's death.

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of the general and fundamental nature of reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The Ancient Greek word φιλοσοφία (philosophia) was probably coined by Pythagoras and literally means "love of wisdom" or "friend of wisdom". Philosophy has been divided into many sub-fields. It has been divided chronologically (e.g., ancient and modern); by topic (the major topics being epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics); and by style (e.g., analytic philosophy).

As a method, philosophy is often distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its questioning, critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. As a noun, the term "philosophy" can refer to any body of knowledge. Historically, these bodies of knowledge were commonly divided into natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy. In casual speech, the term can refer to any of "the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group," (e.g., "Dr. Smith's philosophy of parenting").

Philosophy (album)

Philosophy is an album by the British dance music duo Coldcut released in 1993. Vocals on this album are by Janis Alexander.

Track listing

References

External links

Philosophy (journal)

Philosophy is the scholarly journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. It is designed to be intelligible to the non-specialist reader and has been in continuous publication for almost 90 years. It is published by Cambridge University Press and is currently edited by Anthony O'Hear.

The journal was established in 1926 "to build bridges between specialist philosophers and a wider educated public." Each issue contains a "New Books" section and an editorial on a topic of philosophical or public interest.

References

External links