Plato's concept of passion as a virtue: opposites and essence

PLATO & PLATONIC

Lists of Opposites for the Virtue "Passion" (part #3)

The intensity of emotions and sensations in passion is directly linked to its ability to allow one to experience pleasure and fulfillment. Likewise, the way in which it heightens experience is directly related to its ability to make one more aware of truth -- of the attributes and virtues of the world, and the nature of beauty. The concern which passion has with appetite, sensation, and truth, make it pursue action and experience, and it is in this way that it becomes generative, creative, and inspirational.

So it is obvious that all the manifestations of passion are closely knit together.

All of these qualities of passion surround its core essence, which is a powerful and emotional attraction of one's inner life-force towards an ideal -- be that ideal another human, an activity, or a cause. I use the word "life-force" because it acknowledges the sexuality of passion; the fierce animal instinctualness of this virtue as it relates towards another being. That physicalism is even sublimated into passion towards "higher" causes, so that saints who speak of their passion for God may refer to Him as a lover. It is this activation of the sleeping animal life-force, and its conjugation with the higher human intellect which idealizes aspects of life, which gives passion its unique power and generativity.