Namiętności, uczucia czy emocje? Trzy tradycje myślenia o afektach i trzy doktryny afektów w polityce

Abstract

The author proposes tools for the analysis of affects in politics. First she distinguishes three historical ways of thinking about affective phenomena: the tradition of passion, deriving from ancient Greece; the tradition of feelings, begun by the Greek and Roman stoics; and finally the tradition of emotions, which was fully shaped in the nineteenth century and which most closely corresponds to the contemporary understanding of affective phenomena. The author concentrates on the meeting of two fields—the history of emotions and the philosophy of politics. Each of the three traditions of thinking has its own specific doctrine for dealing with affects, that is, it indicates ways of managing the unusually difficult challenges presented by our emotions. The author describes and critiques these approaches. She believes that although they are often burdened with presentism and anachronism, taking them into account in analyses of the social world—especially in the sphere of contemporary politics—could help understand the nuances of political thought and actions.