 The reason why many philosophers regard the emotions as an obstacle to rational thought is the influence of the non-representational feeling. The fact that feelings do not seem to have objects means, according to some views, that they can interfere with rational thought. According to these views, rational thought, which is representational and therefore object-directed, is subject to disturbing interferences from the feelings. The feelings themselves, however, are non-rational because they arise due to some physical imbalance in the body, for example through an imbalance of the various “humours”. This imbalance can negatively influence rational thought. An example is the person who acts against her better judgment because she is in the grip of some feeling. This is of course also the basis for the term “passion” as something that we “suffer”, which was discussed by many philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, e.g., Descartes, Spinoza and Hume. Since rational thought is an ideal for many philosophers and the feelings can interfere with this ideal, the natural consequence seems to be to advocate for the extinction or at least the control of the feelings and, as a consequence, of the emotions. This is what many philosophers throughout the history of philosophy have done, most notably of course the Stoics. While they often recognize that the emotions contain a cognitive, and therefore potentially rational, element, they try to uncover this element by advocating its separation from the affect. Of course, if the affect were to be purged from the emotion, the resulting cognition would cease to be an emotion.