Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:37:09.062Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 23 - Cartesian Affect

from III - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

Alex Houen
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

In the widespread affective turn, with all its diverse claims for distributed cognition, embodiment, emergence, emotion, feeling, connectedness and shared animality or companionship with non-humans, there would seem to be one point of consensus: we are not Cartesian. We are not minds contingently or unfortunately housed in bodies; we are not brains in a vat, or ghosts in a body that is nothing more than a machine. If there is any ‘we’ or unity today it is perhaps defined by one point of consensus; there is no such thing as mind that is not an emergent property of a broader milieu of affect. In this chapter I want to make three claims. This broad consensus derives from Heidegger’s criticism of Descartes, and his argument that logic and subjectivity are effects of a comportment to the world. Second, what has not been so well discussed is that Heidegger’s criticism of Descartes nevertheless argues that there is a certain Cartesian comportment, or mood. Finally, it is the sense of loss of this Cartesian comportment – the fragility of Cartesian feeling – that typifies many twenty-first-century expressions of preliminary post-human mourning.

Type
Chapter
Information
Affect and Literature , pp. 425 - 443
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×