Emozioni naturalmente culturali. Un recupero dell’eredità pragmatista

Abstract

This article aims to show how the ideas of pragmatists can dialogue with some approaches in the domain of sociology of emotions, integrating some possible shortcomings on the theoretical level. Differently from Arlie Hochschild’s dramaturgical approach and Randal Collins’ ritual approach to emotions, the pragmatists’ non-reductionist naturalism, which advocates the thesis of the continuity between organic and social, nature and culture, offers a solid conceptual framework to support a theory of emotions alternative to constructivism. The thesis of the pragmatists is that there is no pure, pre-social level of emotions, precisely because emotions are themselves the tools of social interaction, through which conducts regulate each other in a cooperative and/or conflictual sense. John Dewey’s and George Herbert Mead’s approach to emotions therefore allows us to address the question of the ways in which the social dimension of the human environment affects the configuration of emotions. Moreover, their approach helps us to abandon the dichotomy between feeling and expressing that seems to plague much of the sociology of emotions.

Affective Ruptures: A Pragmatist Approach

“…Although it is misleading to speak of "a" pragmatist theory of emotions, as compact and unitary, there are enough commonalities to speak at least of a pragmatist approach to emotions (Dreon & Santarelli, 2021). The perspective of Dewey and Mead in particular approaches emotions as phenomena emerging from the interaction between organism and environment, and therefore as evaluative, communicative, and regulatory behavioral forms of social conduct.…”

Between Anger and Hope

“…More generally, in Art and Experience, Dewey presents an idea of emotions as not only subjective entities, but as qualifications of complex experiential and transformative processes. Unfortunately, I cannot dive here into pragmatist and Deweyan conceptions of emotions, and consider to which extent they might contribute to the reflections I am sketching; see anywayDreon 2015Dreon , 2019Dreon & Santarelli 2021. 6. My paper seems to suggest that transformative emotions are good news, while blocking ones are bad news.…”