• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.144
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• pp.371-398
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• 2017

The emotions that Aristotle treats in Rhetoric II 2-11 are broadly divided into two groups: the one is the so-called basic emotions, the other the emotions that are opposed to them. The reason that he draws attention to the opposite emotions is that, for example, angry judges must be placed in an opposite state. The question is whether the calmness treated in Rhetoric II 3 is an emotion. Because it is treated in the Ethics as a virtue and thus as a trait of character. How is calmness distinguished as an emotion from that as a virtue? And in what way is it opposed to anger? In short, what is the calmness, inasmuch as it is an emotion? This is the question which is the task of this work. The thesis asserted in this paper is that calmness is the disposition to do a service for another that results from praise or some other act that enhances a belief in one's worth. To substantiate the thesis, the following questions are discussed. The first question is whether the calmness could also contain proportions of pleasure and pain. The question also arises whether it could be also treated properly according to the standard 'target person-intentional object-mental state'. Finally, there is a comparison between the concept of calmness in the Ethics and Rhetoric, so that the latter concept places itself in the foreground.