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On Feeling Good

Lieve Van Hoof

in Plutarch's Practical Ethics: The Social Dynamics of Philosophy

This chapter deals with Plutarch's On Feeling Good, which presents itself as a letter written by Plutarch, who characterizes himself as a philosopher, at the demand of a publicly active man. As this ... More

This chapter deals with Plutarch's On Feeling Good, which presents itself as a letter written by Plutarch, who characterizes himself as a philosopher, at the demand of a publicly active man. As this chapter shows, Plutarch and his addressee are both dramatic characters designed to guide the reader's responses. In contrast to what other philosophers suggest, Plutarch does not encourage Paccius to give up public activity if he is to achieve well-being, nor to devote himself to studying philosophical intricacies: the help he offers him in this practical ethical text will be enough. This advice was tailor-made for Plutarch's target readers, who often placed a high value on involvement in society, yet it also had the advantage of reserving the role of philosopher exclusively for Plutarch himself.Less

On Exile

Lieve Van Hoof

in Plutarch's Practical Ethics: The Social Dynamics of Philosophy

This chapter is, as it were, the counterpart of On Feeling Good: in a kind of open letter, Plutarch here teaches that exclusion from politics does not have to lead to unhappiness. It is noteworthy, ... More

This chapter is, as it were, the counterpart of On Feeling Good: in a kind of open letter, Plutarch here teaches that exclusion from politics does not have to lead to unhappiness. It is noteworthy, in this respect, that Plutarch exploited the theme of exile not, as other authors did, to discuss philosophy, but to discuss politics: he explicitly refuses to see exile as a turning point at which to opt for a philosophical life. At first sight, this is an altruistic project offering comfort to a man attached to politics with its concomitant honour and fame. Yet careful examination shows that Plutarch may be promoting his own life as well: if he did not make the same political career as some of his readers, he uses On Exile to present that as a sign not of weakness but of strength.Less

Alec Wilder: “That Certain Feeling” (1972)

Robert Wyatt and John Andrew Johnson

in The George Gershwin Reader

This chapter presents an excerpt from Alec Wilder's 1972 book titled American Popular Song: The Great Innovators. This book is about the successful opening the musical Tip-Toes in December 1925, ... More

This chapter presents an excerpt from Alec Wilder's 1972 book titled American Popular Song: The Great Innovators. This book is about the successful opening the musical Tip-Toes in December 1925, which was written by George and Ira Gershwin. Wilder compares the show to other musicals and suggestes that it had the most excellent opening number in the song The Certain Feeling and the most number of memorable hit songs including Looking for a Boy, Sweet and Low-Down, and Nice Baby!. He also describes the uniqueness of George's compositions.Less

Feeling Pre-columbian: Chicana Feminists' Imaginative Historiography

Suzanne Bost

in Encarnacion: Illness and Body Politics in Chicana Feminist Literature

The “Feeling Pre-Columbian” serves as a respond to Elaine Scarry's often quoted assertion that pain is world-destroying, where an argument has been made to say that pain opens up new perceptions of ... More

The “Feeling Pre-Columbian” serves as a respond to Elaine Scarry's often quoted assertion that pain is world-destroying, where an argument has been made to say that pain opens up new perceptions of the relationships between one's body and the world around it. Different insights from different people concerned with literature were used to defend this argument that gave multiple historical references that enables today's dominant culture to move outside. In particular, the indigenous Mesoamerican traditions invoke center on public displays of body manipulation. Unlike their predecessors of the Chicano movimiento, who adopted the Aztec warrior as an icon to strengthen Chicano nationalism, Anzaldúa, Moraga, and Castillo worship goddesses, saints, artists, and AIDS victims who represent shape-shifting and openness rather than defended bodily boundaries.Less

Introduction: once more, with feeling

Simon Mussell

in Critical Theory and Feeling: The Affective Politics of the Early Frankfurt School

The introduction sets out the book’s aims and objectives in relation to the predominant legacies of political philosophy. The author shows how rationalist principles have formed the backbone of ... More

The introduction sets out the book’s aims and objectives in relation to the predominant legacies of political philosophy. The author shows how rationalist principles have formed the backbone of Western philosophical thought, invariably in opposition to affect, emotion, feeling, and passion, since the latter are seen to be detrimental to or obstructive of the procedural functionality of reason. In contrast to this, taking Dialectic of Enlightenment as a starting point, it is suggested that early critical theory provides an important corrective to the excesses of formalized, rationalist, and anti-emotional modes of argumentation. The point is that reason in and of itself is not sufficient as a foundation for political theory.Less

Techniques to extend the body and its senses

Penny McCall Howard

in Environment, Labour and Capitalism at Sea: Working the Ground' in Scotland

Chapter Three begins by examining the importance of boats as technologies for living and working at sea - in contrast to a great deal of literature about the sea and fishing that focusses on ... More

Chapter Three begins by examining the importance of boats as technologies for living and working at sea - in contrast to a great deal of literature about the sea and fishing that focusses on human-environment relations only. The chapter draws on Marcel Mauss’ analysis of techniques to ethnographically and phenomenologically examine the way in which boats and other tools are used to extend people’s bodies and sensory perception deep into the sea. As a result of these extensions, the sea is treated as a familiar workspace and caring relationships of maintenance develop between people and their tools and boats. The chapter investigates how human subjectivities and bodily safety are affected by the struggle to remain in control of the extended practices often used to work at sea. This control also depends on the ownership of boats and their gear. The chapter engages with the history of the Scottish herring fishery, the anthropology of the senses, and Lucy Suchman’s and Michael Jackson’s anthropology of human-machine relations. It also draws on anthropologies of labour-action, enskilment and task-orientation by Michael Jackson, Gísli Pálsson, and Tim Ingold.Less

Strategies of Containment and Their Aporia

Katsuya Hirano

in The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan

Chapter 1 explores the ideological and socioeconomic structures constructed by the founders of the Tokugawa government as the mechanism of rule capable of sustaining the newly unified polity after ... More

Chapter 1 explores the ideological and socioeconomic structures constructed by the founders of the Tokugawa government as the mechanism of rule capable of sustaining the newly unified polity after century-long civil war and strife. It then examines the dramatic transformations of socioeconomic structures around the beginning of the eighteenth century, and how those transformations brought about popular articulations of a new sensibility or “structure of feeling,” and how it in turn led to a profound sense of dissonance with the ideological structure in place. The structure of feeling manifested itself in the word ukiyo, or the floating world, which denoted the sense of ontological indeterminacy and was often used in and to refer to the eighteenth and nineteenth-century artistic and literary genres. To examine the use of this term, ukiyo, I focus on the genre called the “story of double-suicide,” which depicted the tragedy of forbidden love between townsman and courtesan. The popularity of the genre was such that ordinary townspeople began to copy the suicides. The authorities responded by imposing bans on the performance of the genre. The chapter probes the implications of this criminalization as a case that demonstrates the crucial interface of governmental power and popular culture.Less

From emotion to feeling: The internal structure of the Feeling component

Johnny J. R. Fontaine and Klaus R. Scherer

in Components of Emotional Meaning: A sourcebook

We explain the operationalization of the feeling component, which was based on five frequently used approaches: the positive affect / negative affect model, the pleasure-arousal model, the tense ... More

We explain the operationalization of the feeling component, which was based on five frequently used approaches: the positive affect / negative affect model, the pleasure-arousal model, the tense arousal and energetic arousal model, the pleasantness-activation model, and the evaluation–potency–activation model. A dimensional analysis of the feeling features revealed a four-factor structure accounting for 90.7% of the total variance. A very strong BAD VS GOOD factor emerged followed by three smaller subsidiary factors: WEAK VS STRONG, CALM VS RESTLESS, and TIRED. BAD VS GOOD and WEAK VS STRONG were strongly related to the overall VALENCE and POWER dimensions respectively. both CALM VS RESTLESS and TIRED were strongly related to the overall AROUSAL factor. it was possible to correctly classify 47.2 % of the emotion terms across the 34 samples into one of the 24 emotion term categories on the basis of only these four feeling factors.Less

Pride is not created equal: Variations between Northern and Southern Italy1

Marcello Mortillaro, Pio E. Ricci-Bitti, Guglielmo Bellelli, and Dario Galati

in Components of Emotional Meaning: A sourcebook

Pride is one of the most culture-sensitive emotions, and cultural variations have been identified in its appraisal, expressive, and subjective feeling components. Such differences have been related ... More

Pride is one of the most culture-sensitive emotions, and cultural variations have been identified in its appraisal, expressive, and subjective feeling components. Such differences have been related to the societal values of personal achievement and honor. On the basis of the GRID questionnaire, we investigated how the prototypical meaning of pride changes between two groups of Italian speakers (one from the North and one from the South of the country). For historical, economic and linguistic reasons, indeed, Northern and Southern Italians may show slight differences with regard to their emotional cultures. Results showed that there are small variations in the meaning of pride (for the appraisal and feeling components) and that these differences are reminiscent of those found between collectivistic and individualistic cultures. Findings are discussed on the basis of the potentially different importance of the orientation towards others for Northern and Southern Italians.Less

Feeling Others

Giovanna Colombetti

in The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind

This chapter builds on existing enactive accounts of empathy and intersubjectivity to explore the affective dimension of our concrete encounters with others. I first focus on the various ways in ... More

This chapter builds on existing enactive accounts of empathy and intersubjectivity to explore the affective dimension of our concrete encounters with others. I first focus on the various ways in which we experience others when we face them, distinguishing phenomena of basic empathy, impressions, feeling close, feeling intimate, and sympathy. I then turn to empirical evidence of how our bodies respond to the bodily presence of others, in particular to our tendency to mimic others when we face them. After discussing and throwing some cold water on the idea that this evidence supports a simulationist account of how we understand others, I turn to an interpretation that has been relatively neglected, namely, that mimicking and more broadly “matching” the other plays an important role in social bonding; I also link this view to some of the phenomenological considerations raised earlier in the chapter.Less

Experience as a Precondition for Meaningful Democracy: Sensory Perception, Affect, and Materialism

Shannon L. Mariotti

in Adorno and Democracy: The American Years

This chapter begins by laying out Adorno’s materialism, by exploring his unique form of Marxism and his critique of idealism, to highlight the important role that the experience of external objects ... More

This chapter begins by laying out Adorno’s materialism, by exploring his unique form of Marxism and his critique of idealism, to highlight the important role that the experience of external objects plays in his theory. Second, I explain Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics to show how it takes the form of a specific way of thinking and, importantly, feeling against the world we are given. Third, I investigate how affect theory can enrich our understanding of Adorno, as well as how Adorno can also contribute to present-day theorizing about affect, with a particular focus on how the notion of the affects broadens our understanding of the experience of encountering the nonidentical. In analyzing the importance of experience in Adorno’s thought, and in sensing, feeling, and perceiving, this chapter reworks our conventional image of him as excessively intellectual. Additionally, I make a particularly political—and democratic—argument about the role that the senses play in his thought. Adorno draws connections between how we experience the world around us, in terms of sensing, feeling, and perception, and our capacities for engaging in the practice of critique and, in turn, our ability to act as truly democratic citizens in our everyday lives.Less

“Affective Computing” Is Not an Oxymoron

Rosalind W. Picard and Adolfo Plasencia

in Is the Universe a Hologram?: Scientists Answer the Most Provocative Questions

In this dialogue, the scientist Rosalind W. Picard from MIT Media Lab begins by explaining why the expression "Affective computing" is not an oxymoron, and describes how they are trying to bridge the ... More

In this dialogue, the scientist Rosalind W. Picard from MIT Media Lab begins by explaining why the expression "Affective computing" is not an oxymoron, and describes how they are trying to bridge the gap between information systems and human emotions in her laboratory. She details  how they are attempting to give computers and digital machines better abilities so that they can “see” the emotions of their users, and outlines what a machine would have to be like to pass the Turing ‘emotions’ test. Rosalind goes on to describe why emotion is part of all communication, even when the communication itself might not explicitly have emotion in it, arguing that consciousness also involves feelings that cannot be expressed and why emotional experience is an essential part of the normal functioning of the conscious system. Later she outlines her research in affective computing, where they managed to measure signals using a sensor that responds to some human emotion or feelings, and explains how technology can become a sort of ‘affective prosthesis’ to help the disabled, and people with difficulties, in understanding and handling emotions.Less

[5] the Heyday of Scottish Enlightenment Publishing

in The Enlightenment & the Book: Scottish Authors & Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America

This chapter explores the heyday of publishing in the Scottish Enlightenment. Aside from a number of new books that William Strahan merely printed for Thomas Cadell, as he had formerly printed books ... More

This chapter explores the heyday of publishing in the Scottish Enlightenment. Aside from a number of new books that William Strahan merely printed for Thomas Cadell, as he had formerly printed books for Andrew Millar, the two men copublished some later editions of popular titles that were initially produced by others, such as William Buchan's Domestic Medicine, as well as several first editions that did not reveal their collaboration on the title page. The first edition of Henry Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, for example, shows only Cadell's name as the publisher, even though Strahan owned half the copyright (his name was added to the imprint of the second edition). Similarly, although Cadell's name alone appeared in the imprints of David Hume's historical and philosophical works, it is clear from Hume's correspondence that Strahan was a silent copublisher of those titles.Less

What Flashes Up: Theological-Political-Scientific Fragments

Karen Barad

in Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science, and New Materialisms

In “What Flashes Up,” Karen Barad exposes a startling new sense of matter. The “agential realist” interpretation of quantum physics in her monumental Meeting the Universe Halfway had already brought ... More

In “What Flashes Up,” Karen Barad exposes a startling new sense of matter. The “agential realist” interpretation of quantum physics in her monumental Meeting the Universe Halfway had already brought the indeterminacy and relationality—the “intra-activity”—of quantum ontology into resonance with human ethics: All beings compose and partake in the responsive structure of the world. “Intra-acting responsibly as part of the world means taking account of the entangled phenomena that are intrinsic to the world’s vitality and being responsive to the possibilities that might help us flourish.” In the present discussion, Barad draws Walter Benjamin’s messianic “now-time” via Judith Butler and quantum field theory into a deep meditation on the matter of time, a time that breaks from the scientific and political modernisms of purportedly linear progress.Less

What is a Process of Individuation?

Didier Debaise

in Speculative Empiricism: Revisiting Whitehead

This chapter poses the question of “reality”. In opposition to a substantialist vision that has notably characterized modernity, Whitehead develops a processual conception of the real which is made ... More

This chapter poses the question of “reality”. In opposition to a substantialist vision that has notably characterized modernity, Whitehead develops a processual conception of the real which is made of becomings and individuations. This vision of the real is envisaged starting from three distinct questions: First of all, how to exactly define a process of individuation? This question is treated in its historical aspects (Aristotle and Leibniz) and with respect to contemporary philosophy (Simondon and Deleuze). Secondly, where do the forms, the puissances, the virtualities derive from which accompany any individuation? Starting from this question it is most notably the relation with Platonism and its heritage that is elaborated. And third, which vision of time is implied in a theory of individuation? Even though close to Bergson, Whitehead’s philosophy profoundly differs from it with respect to the status of time and builds up new links with contemporary science. Less

Introduction

Corey Kai Nelson Schultz

in Moving Figures: Class and Feeling in the Films of Jia Zhangke

The introduction examines Raymond Williams’s notion of “Structures of feeling” and how it has been theorized. Then, it reviews the history of class in China, the changes made to the Chinese class ... More

The introduction examines Raymond Williams’s notion of “Structures of feeling” and how it has been theorized. Then, it reviews the history of class in China, the changes made to the Chinese class structure during the Maoist period (1949 to 1978), and the use of class figures in Chinese visual culture to advertise political changes, criticize institutions and attitudes, and inspire the populace. It concludes by examining the effects that China’s market reforms adopted in the Reform Era (beginning 1978) has had on Chinese society.Less

The Novel of Sentiment

Patricia Meyer Spacks

in Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction

This chapter explores the aspects that form novels of sentiment in the eighteenth century. The form of consciousness encountered in the book A Sentimental Journey shot off and created a novelistic ... More

This chapter explores the aspects that form novels of sentiment in the eighteenth century. The form of consciousness encountered in the book A Sentimental Journey shot off and created a novelistic subgenre of its own: the sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility. Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1769) is the best-known example of the form. The sentimental is a type of novel that is meant to arouse as well as to render sympathetic feelings. Mackenzie, however, did not originate the form. Before him was Sarah Fielding's David Simple (1744) and its sequel, Volume the Last (1753). Both Fielding's and Mackenzie's works contain abundant satiric elements, often criticizing the greed, vanity, and selfishness in a financially oriented society. And although satire is not often associated with sentimentality—which is supposed to celebrate tender feelings—satire rejects tenderness for criticism; Fielding's work was important in creating a sense of sensitivity to the misfortunes of others, a factor that encouraged other so-called sentimentalists.Less