In Margaret R. Graver's Stoicism and Emotion, we see an analysis of the concept that "emotions are defined as certain kinds of impulses," thus containing "thought-content." Impulses (hormai) "are defined in Stoic psychology as a subset of assents: to act is to endorse a certain kind of proposition, namely the proposition that some predicate is appropriate to oneself at that moment." This involves ascribing a value to certain impulses. But to the non-Stoic, it often does not feel as if we put such thought into emotions - they just seem to well up out of nowhere. But careful reasoning allows us to see that this is in fact the case.
More analysis to follow . . .
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