Interpretation of affects: Spinozist approach to the issue of human emotionality

This paper deals with the possibilities of using the ethical considerations of Baruch Spinoza in a psychotherapeutic context. I begin the interpretation by defining the basic features of Spinoza’s ethics and their connection with the whole of his philosophical system. The core of the study is the interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of affectivity and especially his concept of the transformation of passive affects into active, and what role philosophical knowledge plays in this transformation. The third part of the study then tries to show how selected points of Spinoza’s introduced ideas can be useful for psychotherapeutic work. As much as the connection between philosophical ethics and psychotherapy seems obvious to many non-experts, most professionals on both sides are vehemently opposed to it. I believe that Spinoza’s thinking is an example of how the boundaries of these disciplines can be meaningfully bridged.

Joy and Sadness in Spiritual Life According to St. Ignatius of Loyola: A Hermeneutic Study

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to interpret human emotionality as expressed in the experiences of joy and sadness, in view of the precepts of one of the schools of Christian spirituality: Ignatius Loyola’s teachings (1491– 1556). According to this current of spiritual philosophy, which draws on the centuries-old experience of the biblical and Christian understanding of the emotional dimension of our lives, as well as the experiences and thoughts of Ignatius himself, our emotionality—often experienced as a kind of incom­prehensible “buzz”—may, in reality, constitute equally emotional, legi­ble “speech.” This “speech” becomes understandable when we can properly “read,” that is, recognize and understand, the emotional experiences we expe­rience in this sphere. The article’s reading feeling is a proposal of commonsen­sical–sapiential deciphering of both our emotional and emotional–spiritual experiences and joys and sorrows, as well as analyzing and interpreting them in the search for relevant meanings that they often carry or express.

Joy and Sadness in Spiritual Life According to St. Ignatius of Loyola. A Hermeneutic Study

The goal of this study is an interpretative attempt at human emotionality, and to be more specific, its emotional form of expression in various experiences of joy and sadness, in the light of the principles underlying one of the schools of Christian spirituality, i.e. the one proposed by Igna tius of Loyola (1491-1556). According to this movement of spiritual life, which draws on the centuriesold biblical experience and Christian conception of the emotional dimension of our lives, and which also enriches it with experiences and reflections of Ignatius himself, our emotionality – not infrequently experienced as a peculiar and often incomprehensible “babble” – may in fact be construed as equally emotional and lucid “speech.” Such “speech” becomes comprehensible the moment we are able to properly “read,” that is recognize and understand the emotional experiences that we are exposed to in this sphere.

An assemblage of avatars: Digital organization as affective intensification in the GamerGate controversy

Through a study of the so-called GamerGate controversy, this article argues that a new dynamic of affective intensification is currently instating itself in the digital organization of not only highly collaborative industries, such as that of gaming, but of society as such. This dynamic may best be understood and conceptualized through reconsiderations of the notions of affective economies and affective labour. The affective constitution of digital organization is a process of affective intensification that not only works like an economy but is directly productive of economic value, and not only involves human emotionality but technological affectivity as well. Guided by the notions of assemblage, affordance and agency, the article offers a conceptual framework for studying affective intensification in and as socio-technical processes of value production.

Kon cepcja rado ści w SumIE TeologiI św. To masza z Akwinu

The purpose of this article is to present the development of Thomas Aquinas’sconcept of joy in the subsequent parts of Summa theologiae. Beginning with thedescription of joy as simple movements of the soul, Thomas comes to present theconcept of spiritual joy, which is fundamental to the human visio beatifica. Therefore,the article is divided into three parts, which discuss Aquinas’s accounts ofjoy: Prima secundae, Secunda secundae and Tertia pars. The first part focuses onthe inclusion of joy as experience and feeling. Joy here is understood as one of thefeelings of the sensitive power is considered in the perspective of human emotionality(vis concupiscibilis). Joy that comes from satisfying the lack of sensory goodsis called pleasure (delectatio). It differs from the joy of affection (gaudium) – theintellectual and spiritual affrct, to which the second part of the article is dedicated.Spiritual joy does not include the sensory-corporal component, and it superimposesitself over purely intelligible beings. Thomas clearly emphasizes that only Godcan be the cause of spiritual joy. This perspective allows Aquinas to develop hisconcept of theology of joy in the next part of Summa (III pars), which is devotedin the last part of this text. The emotionality of Christ is the central problem forThomas here. These considerations throw a lot of light not only on the supernaturalapproach to joy, but also on the ways in which joy – the fruit of the Holy Spirit canbe experienced by a human being in hac via.

Emotion and the Economy of Aesthetics

This chapter sets forth the theoretical and epistemological frame for the book and the themes it integrates. The chapter introduces the main issues at stake in Sense and Sadness, be they intellectual, historical, political, geographic, temporal, methodological, or disciplinary. Its holistic contextualization is essential in order to understand the Suryani music experience as this book explains it: an emotional-cognitive aesthesis. The chapter explains the economy of emotion and aesthetics, proposed here as a new interpretive and analytical concept for a suggested connection between two main problems in music studies, namely mode and emotion. It thus offers theoretical frameworks for connecting mode and emotion through their mutual relation to the aesthetic. While maintaining emphasis on music modality and human emotionality in explaining Syriac chant music, the chapter draws on the cognitive capacities of metaphor and imagination, and addresses issues of liminality as positionality, dynamic method, and musical and contextual complexity.