Précis: Night Vision

Authors

• Mariana Alessandri, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 2026

Abstract

Night Vision is a book about pain in five chapters. It’s about T-shirts that say “No Bad Days” or “Be Like a Proton: Always Positive.” It's about how the attempt to shed light on our dark moods often backfires, and it suggests that learning to see in the dark would help us feel more human and less broken. Night Vision describes the metaphors we use to convey our faith in the light: “love and light,” “lighten up,” “look on the bright side,” have a “lightbulb moment,” strive to “see the light at the end of the tunnel,” and try to “shed light on” a problem. Ancient philosophers taught that emotional suffering in the forms of anger, sadness, grief, depression, and anxiety, are optional. Sometimes they are said to indicate weakness in us, and other times a kind of insanity. But all humans suffer from painful moods, and existentialist philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Miguel de Unamuno can help us recognize our dignity from within them.

Comments

Mariana Alessandri © 2026. CC-BY-NC-ND

Recommended Citation

Alessandri, Mariana. “Précis: Night Vision.” Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 8, no. 2 (2026): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.33497/2026.latesummer.1.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

First Page

1

Last Page

7

Publication Title

Journal of Philosophy of Emotion

DOI

10.33497/2026.latesummer.1