This paper investigates Telesio’s conception of the passions. It is argued for the thesis that Telesio’s account of the passions can be described as ‘vitalistic’, as the passions are understood in the framework of explaining living beings. Thus, Telesio offers an interesting alternative to the mechanistic account of the passions we find, for instance, in Descartes. After a brief introduction to the topic (part 1), the paper explores three main aspects of Telesio’s conception of the passion. Firstly, it focuses on the natural foundation of the passions in the universal perception of pleasure and pain (part 2). Here it becomes evident, that the passions are not considered as a distinctive, let alone problematic, field of human experience. Secondly, it shows how the passions serve as the main evidence for Telsio’s thesis, that the soul of human beings is corporeal (part 3). Thirdly, the ethical implications are investigated (part 4). Although Telesio understands the passions as natural reactions to how we experience the world, he still allows some room for measuring and transforming the passions. The conclusion sums up the results: Firstly, Telesio devised a natural conception of the passions, which offers an alternative to a strictly mechanistic account of the passions. Secondly, Telesio’s theory of the passions also laid the foundations for an alternative way of understanding human nature and philosophical anthropology. From the viewpoint of the living organism, the capacities of thinking and feeling emotions do not contradict each other, but rather operate in a complementary way.