Entre a natureza e a emoção, problemas com as lágrimas em filosofia

Abstract

Tears and weeping occupy a position that is either central or instrumental in various forms of representation, such as literature, painting, cinema or politics. Even philosophy gave them some attention. This study looks at some ancient (part 1), medieval and late medieval (part 2), or even some modern (part 3) authors who made tears and weeping the subject of reflection. There is no unified declension in these reflections, sometimes sentimental, sometimes derogatory, on tears and weeping, but they may reveal something of the tendency to welcome in the philosophical or scientific discourse cultural prejudices, social stereotypes, or even the most intimate personal aspirations, but also to think of them as the experience that par excellence reveals the human being in his condition of fragility.