Travis Anderson, “Kant’s Contribution to Affect Theory“
In the last century, contemporary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy have all engaged in radically rethinking the nature of affects, especially with regard to whether and how affects contribute to cognition and understanding. A half-century ago, cognitivism occasioned the most widely-recognized changes to historical models of affect. But the so-called cognitivist revolution of the 1970’s was preceded in the 1920’s by an even more fundamental re-conception of affects, which recent work in psychology and neuroscience is now returning to and affirming. This paper will review the recent history of affect theory, and against that background will explore a generally unrecognized but significant contribution to affect theory by Immanuel Kant, the philosopher perhaps least likely to be seen as a champion of affects. The paper will then address why Kant’s contribution is important to current thinking about affects, especially in psychology and neuroscience, and why it should be considered a historically groundbreaking philosophical insight.