Ontology of Faculties: Pre-legal Foundations of Law

Abstract

This article approaches the ideas of Martha Nussbaum and Gilbert Simondon regarding emotions, image, and imagination, with a view to synthesizing the thinking of these two figures, who show more similarities than incompatibilities in this regard. Both philosophers have dealt with emotions with a distinct richness of argument. For Nussbaum, good emotions enhance “aspirational societies”; for Simondon, emotions play an important role in “normative formalizations.” That being the case, Simondon's ethical “inventions,” with their metastable charge, would also enhance “aspirational societies,” in the Nussbaumian manner.