Un ideologo sentimentale: Stendhal, Rousseau e la nascita dell’amore

This article aims to analyse Stendhal’s theory of love as formulated in "Filosofia nova" and "De l ’amour", with the objective of highlighting Henri Beyle’s complex attempt to reconcile two rival epistemological paradigms: the sensational-ideological tradition (particularly Condillac, Cabanis, and Destutt de Tracy) and the sentimental tradition (Rousseau). The cross-examination of the texts reveals how Stendhal’s phil-osophical reflection sought to refute a purely physical view of love—informed by the concept of ‘unproductive imagination’—and aimed for a middle ground between the ‘coldness of geometry’ and the ‘sentimental ardour’. Specifically, this article suggests the philosophical centrality of Rousseau’s theorization of a dynamic and subjective imagi-nation, often overlooked in critical literature on Stendhal, which emphasizes the pro-grammatic ‘scientific’ foundation of his theory of affectivity.