Abstract

›Anger‹ and ›shame‹ are exemplary emotions in the ancient refl ections concerning the relation between emotions, the good and the just as well as the relationbetween emotions and reason. It is shown that these emotions have a regulative function for the community in the ancient world. But they have also quite animportant function for becoming an autonomous self and even for the change in character of a self. It is then shown in interpreting the notions of anger andshame in Augustine’s writings in how far this changes for late antiquity. Emotions have still a function in relation to the just but only a marginal one to thegood, and none for the developing of a self or for reasonable actions. They also do regain a cognitive function in the Middle Ages as is shown in an exemplaryway in Thomas Aquinas’ writings on emotions, the function they had in relation to the just is of no great importance anymore. It is then interesting to see thatalso a theory of emotions, as Thomas Aquinas developed is a theory that might be compared with modern theories of emotions, one has to look back to the ancient reflections on shame and the good in order to understand more fully what an author like Imre Kertész being a survivor of German concentration campswrites on shame and the good in his novels.