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Abstract
Neither the term ‘emotion’, nor its current meaning, can be found in Kant’s writings. In this chapter I identify one strategy for exploring the realm of emotions by delineating the German notion of Erregung, its German-Latin counterpart Motion, and its semantic field. I argue that there is a link between the embodied aspect of emotions and the classic question of pathos, and that the Kantian approach to emotions is related to the stoic idea of ataraxia. Following the subsequent discussion of akrasia, I turn to its neuroscientific implications, in order to show that weakness of will in general, and especially its role within Kantian philosophy, can be understood from a naturalised model of causation.
