Passion and reason: Notes on a contested relationship

Abstract

This note of commentary examines aspects of the relationship between passion and reason. It looks at how forms of interaction between the two have been conceptualised within different theories and at how attempts at correcting the under-recognition of emotion in deliberative activity have been a goal of recent studies. It suggests that ideas of mutuality as well as of tension with forms of rationality will continue to guide cultural analysis into the variety of passionate experience across a diversity of practices and contexts of power. This article is part of a themed issue entitled ‘Passion’.