On Intensity or Rights of the Body. Affectivity as Object and Method

Abstract

The episode of the legendary Hercules who, in an attack of blind passion, destroyed what were considered the founding principles of the social tie, introduces the issue of treatment of affectivity in anthropology. The article notes that the interest in affectivity in the human sciences implies not only the emergence of a new analytic field about an important aspect of social activity, but also a reflection on the modalities of knowledge in these disciplines. In fact, to propose the affective dimension as an analytic object has consequences in terms of how to approach knowledge, because the very existence of an affective dimension obliges us to rethink the cognitive dimension inherent in the act of knowledge. In this paper I propose some methodological elements for reflection derived from these ideas.