Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T11:51:52.866Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminist Philosophy, Pragmatism, and the “Turn to Affect”: A Genealogical Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Clara Fischer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a focus on feeling as a topic of reinvigorated scholarly concern, described by theorists in a range of disciplines in terms of a “turn to affect.” Surprisingly little has been said about this most recent shift in critical theorizing by philosophers, including feminist philosophers, despite the fact that affect theorists situate their work within feminist and related, sometimes intersectional, political projects. In this article, I redress the seeming elision of the “turn to affect” in feminist philosophy, and develop a critique of some of the claims made by affect theorists that builds upon concerns regarding the “newness” of affect and emotion in feminist theory, and the risks of erasure this may entail. To support these concerns, I present a brief genealogy of feminist philosophical work on affect and emotion. Identifying a reductive tendency within affect theory to equate affect with bodily immanence, and to preclude cognition, culture, and representation, I argue that contemporary feminist theorists would do well to follow the more holistic models espoused by the canon of feminist work on emotion. Furthermore, I propose that prominent affect theorist Brian Massumi is right to return to pragmatism as a means of redressing philosophical dualisms, such as emotion/cognition and mind/body, but suggest that such a project is better served by John Dewey's philosophy of emotion than by William James's.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 810 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

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.)

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2008. Open forum imaginary prohibitions: Some preliminary remarks on the founding gestures of the “new materialism”. European Journal of Women's Studies 15 (1): 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1987. Hume, the women's moral theorist? In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva Feder and Myers, Diana T.Savage, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bar On, Bat‐Ami, and Ferguson, Ann. 1998. Daring to be good: Essays in feminist ethico‐politics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Barbalet, J. M. 1999. William James’ theory of emotions: Filling in the picture. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 29 (3): 251–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargetz, Brigitte. 2015. The distribution of emotions: Affective politics of emancipation. Hypatia 30 (3): 580–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartky, Sandra Lee. 1990. Feeding egos and tending wounds: Deference and disaffection in women's emotional labor. In Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression, ed. Bartky, Sandra Lee. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blackman, Lisa. 2007. Feeling F.I.N.E.: Social psychology, suggestion and the problem of social influence. International Journal of Critical Psychology 21: 23–49.Google Scholar
Blackman, Lisa. 2008. Affect, relationality and the “problem of personality”. Theory, Culture & Society 25 (1): 23–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackman, Lisa. 2013. Habit and affect: Revitalizing a forgotten history. Body & Society 19 (2–3): 186–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackman, Lisa, and Venn, Couze. 2010. Affect. Body & Society 16 (1): 7–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braidotti, Rosi. 2006. Transpositions: On nomadic ethics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The posthuman. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, Teresa. 2004. The transmission of affect. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Burrow, Sylvia. 2005. The political structure of emotion: From dismissal to dialogue. Hypatia 20 (4): 27–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Sue. 1994. Being dismissed: The politics of emotional expression. Hypatia 9 (3): 46–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chodorow, Nancy. 1979. The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Clough, Patricia T., ed. 2007. The affective turn: Theorizing the social. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clough, Patricia T. 2010. The affective turn: Political economy, biomedia, and bodies. In The affect theory reader, ed. Gregg, Melissa and Seigworth, Gregory J.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Coole, Diana, and Frost, Samantha, eds. 2010. New materialisms: Ontology, agency, and politics. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, John. 1967a. The theory of emotion I: Emotional attitudes. In The early works: 1882–1898, vol. 4: 1893–1894. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1967b. The theory of emotion II: The significance of emotions. In The early works: 1882–1898, vol. 4: 1893–1894. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 2008. Art as experience, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, John, and Tufts, James. 1985. Ethics. In John Dewey: The later works, 1925–1953, vol. 7: 1932, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dickstein, M. 1998. The revival of pragmatism: New essays on social thought, law, and culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Thomas. 2003. From passions to emotions: The creation of a secular psychological category. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekman, Paul. 1980. Movement in expression of emotions. In Explaining emotions, ed. Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul, Friesen, Wallace V., and O'Sullivan, Maureen. 1987. Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53 (4): 712–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer, Clara. 2014. Gendered readings of change: A feminist‐pragmatist approach. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fridlund, Alan J. 1994. Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 1983. A note on anger. In The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. Trumansburg, N.Y.: The Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth. 2004. The nick of time: Politics, evolution, and the untimely. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Virginia. 2006. The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hemmings, Clare. 2005. Invoking affect: Cultural theory and the ontological turn. Cultural Studies 19 (5): 548–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Lili. 2008. Interpellated by affect: The move to the political in Brian Massumi's Parables for the Virtual and Eve Sedgwick's Touching Feeling. Subjectivity 23 (1): 219–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaggar, Alison. 1992. Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology. In Women and reason, ed. Harvey, Elizabeth D. and Okruhlik, Kathleen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
James, Susan. 2000. The power of Spinoza: Feminist conjunctions: Susan James interviews Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens. Hypatia 15 (2): 40–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, William. 1894/1994. The physical basis of emotion. Psychological Review 101 (2): 205–10.Google Scholar
James, William. 1981. The emotions. In The principles of psychology, vol. II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
James, William. 1985. The varieties of religious experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
James, William. 1987. Romantic love and personal beauty by Henry T. Finck. In The works of William James: Essay, comment, and reviews. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark. 2007. The meaning of the body: Aesthetics of human understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koivunen, Anu. 2010. An affective turn? Reimagining the subject of feminist theory. In Working with affect in feminist readings: Disturbing differences, ed. Liljestrom, Marianne and Paasonen, Susanna. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
La Caze, Marguerite, and Lloyd, Henry Martyn. 2011. Editors’ introduction: Philosophy and the “affective turn.” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 13: 1–13.Google Scholar
Leys, Ruth. 2011. The turn to affect: A critique. Critical Inquiry 37: 452–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, Margaret Olivia. 1995. Seeing and caring: The role of affect in feminist moral epistemology. Hypatia 10 (3): 117–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, Genevieve. 1993. The man of reason: “Male” and “female” in western philosophy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. The uses of anger: Women responding to racism. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham. N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyers, Diana Tietjens. 1997. Emotions and heterodox moral perception: An essay in moral social psychology. In Feminists rethink the self, ed. Meyers, Diana Tietjens. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma. 1988. Working together across difference: Some considerations on emotions and political practice. Hypatia 3 (2): 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noddings, Nel. 1984. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palencik, Joseph T. 2007. William James and the psychology of emotions: From 1884 to the present. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 43 (4): 769–86.Google Scholar
Papoulias, Constantina, and Callard, Felicity. 2010. Biology's gift: Interrogating the turn to affect. Body & Society 16 (1): 29–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedwell, Carolyn, and Whitehead, Anne. 2012. Affecting feminism: Questions of feeling in feminist theory. Feminist Theory 13 (2): 115–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Probyn, Elspeth. 2005. Blush: Faces of shame. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Redding, Paul. 2011. Feeling, thought and orientation: William James and the idealist anti‐Cartesian tradition. Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 13: 41–51.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sarah. 1989. Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Russell, James A. 1994. Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross‐cultural studies. Psychological Bulletin 115: 102–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schaefer, Donovan O. 2014. Embodied disbelief: Poststructural feminist atheism. Hypatia 29 (2): 371–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheman, Naomi. 1993. Anger and the politics of naming. In Engenderings: Constructions of knowledge, authority, and privilege. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, ed. 2003. Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, performativity. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, and Frank, Adam. 2003. Shame in the cybernetic fold: Reading Silvan Tomkins. In Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, performativity, ed. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seigfried, Charlene Haddock. 1991. The missing perspective: Feminist pragmatism. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 27 (4): 405–17.Google Scholar
Seigfried, Charlene Haddock. 1993. Shared communities of interest: Feminism and pragmatism. Hypatia 8 (2): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seigfried, Charlene Haddock. 1996. Pragmatism and feminism: Reweaving the social fabric. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert C. 1980. Emotions and choice. In Explaining emotions, ed. Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1989. Anger and insubordination. In Women, knowledge, and reality: Explorations in feminist philosophy, ed. Garry, Ann and Pearsall, Marilyn. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1991. The virtue of feeling and the feeling of virtue. In Feminist ethics, ed. Card, Claudia. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Shannon. 2015. James and feminist philosophy of emotion. In Feminist interpretations of William James, ed. Tarver, Erin C. and Sullivan, Shannon. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Erin N., and Wallace, Lora Ebert. 2012. For shame: Feminism, breastfeeding advocacy, and maternal guilt. Hypatia 27 (1): 76–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thrift, Nigel. 2004. Intensities of feeling: Towards a spatial politics of affect. Geografiska Annaler 86 (1): 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1993. A vindication of the rights of woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar