The history of philosophical understanding and study of emotions

The article provides a historical overview of the development of ideas about the forms of expression of human emotions from antiquity through the Middle Ages to Modern times, when the initial, mainly empirical, ideas about the nature of emotions are replaced by their gradually forming philosophical understanding, and an interdisciplinary psychological and philosophical methodology for their study and research arises. Special attention is paid to comparing and analyzing the features of various approaches to explaining and understanding the nature of emotions not only from the point of view of various types of human spiritual activity - science, culture, philosophy -but also their brightest, outstanding representatives, whose activities have most influenced the formation and consolidation of modern ideas about the meaning and role of emotions a person in the processes of cognition and transformation of the external world by him.