diffhistRobert C. Solomon 15:51+538 Peter1ctalkcontribs ([Kant's attacks on sentimentalism were a reaction not only to Hume's theory of moral sentiments, but also to] the flood of popular women writers in Europe and America who were then turning out thousands of widely read pot-boilers and romances which did indeed equate virtue and goodness with gushing sentiment. It is no secret that the charge of sentimentalism has long had sexist implications.)
diffhistRobert C. Solomon 15:45+375 Peter1ctalkcontribs (The offensive epithet "sentimentalist" has not long been a term of abuse: just two hundred years ago, when Schiller referred to himself and his poetry as "sentimental" (as opposed to Goethe's "naive" style), he had in mind the elegance of emotion, not saccharine sweetness and the manipulation of mawkish passions.)
diffhistRobert C. Solomon 15:42+189 Peter1ctalkcontribs (Sentimentality ... is not an escape from reality or responsibility, but, quite to the contrary, provides the precondition for ethical engagement rather than an obstacle to it.)
diffhist N Robert C. Solomon 15:40+1,044 Peter1ctalkcontribs (It is simply not true, as more than one great cynic has claimed, that sentimentality betrays cynicism. It is rather that sentimentality betrays the cynic, for it is the cynic and not the sentimentalist who cannot abide honest emotion.)