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94. - Imitation of Affects

from I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Chantal Jaquet
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Imitation of affects (imitatio affectuum) is a law of human nature for Spinoza. It is a fundamental principle of affective life and inter-individual exchanges, based on imagining a thing that is like us. Spinoza defines the imitation of affects in E3p27: “If we imagine a thing like us, towards which we have no affect, to be affected with some affect, we are thereby affected with a like affect.” This proposition does not explain how we can share (or not) the affects of those we love or hate, but how we can imitate the affects of those toward whom we have no affect. It obeys a logic of similarity. How does it happen?

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 259 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Boukouvala, A. (2017). Imitation of affects and mirror neurons: Exploring empathy in Spinoza’s theory and contemporary neuroscience. Philosophia, 45, 1007–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Rocca, M. (2004). Egoism and the imitation of affects in Spinoza. In Yovel, Y. (ed.), Spinoza on Reason and the Free Man (pp. 101–21). Little Room Press.Google Scholar
Drieux, P. (2014). Perception et sociabilité: La communication des passions chez Descartes et Spinoza. Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar
Montag, W. (2009). Imitating the affects of beasts: Interest and inhumanity in Spinoza. Differences, 20(2/3), 54–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreau, P.-F. (2011). Imitation of the affects and interhuman relations. In Hampe, M., Renz, U., and Schnepf, R. (eds.), Spinoza’s Ethics: A Collective Commentary (pp. 167–78). Brill.Google Scholar
Steinberg, J. (2013). Imitation, representation, and humanity in Spinoza’s Ethics. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 51(3), 383–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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