Pour un structuralisme des passions

Abstract

Could there be a way out of the long lasting antinomy opposing “the structures” and “agency”? If any, restoring the indivuals’ place within the structures would be its first move. But where to find a proper concept of the individual which would not be oblivious of all that stands beyond the individual and determines its actions? Spinoza’s concept of conatus is especially fit to this task as it is defined as an individual pole of power of acting but whose concrete strivings are determined through affections by external things – among which social things: institutions, structures. As a generic desiring energy, the conatus is shaped within the structures and finds his particular objects of desire through their affections. However structures and institutions can also affect the conatuses in a way that makes themselves loathable, and thus no longer determine the conatuses to comply with their norms but instead to rebel against them. Poles of power of acting within the structures, if most of the time normalized through the structural affections, can also be determined – by the structures themselves – to rock the structures. Passions, which are the determining middle term between structures and individuals can thus play a way or another, always leaving open the possibility of the crisis.

Keywords

• institutions
• structures
• conatus
• affects
• crisis