Full Description
The word enthusiasm is derived from the Greek enthousiasmos and means
being captivated by a god. Even today, we use 'enthusiasm' to describe a
special energy that can suddenly overwhelm us: an emotional affect that
holds the glow for the subject within oneself, and which radiates
inspiration out to an audience. Yet, through the ages, the concept has
not always carried with it the positive connotations it had in ancient
Greece. Despite a few flickers on the cultural historical time line,
enthusiasm has mostly been marginalised in modern Western philosophy: as
an excessive urge or as a harmful exaggeration of emotions. In this
essay, I work towards a rehabilitation of inspiration within
intellectual thought. Is enthousiasmos the subject of any
iconographic traditions? Is enthousiasmos also an aesthetic
concept? And can enthousiasmos be part of an epistemology?
