Affectus (A Journey on the Outside of Life)

We are constantly being influenced and acted upon by various people, creatures and things, in other words, by beings outside our bodies. Taking Spinoza’ s concept of ‘ Affectus’ as a base, this book is an attempt by fourteen specialists from various fields, including anthropology, Japanese painting, primatology, cognitive psychology and philosophy, to present their work from the perspective of Affectus. From a foray into the forest to study bonobos that lead to the author’ s experience of gradually resonating with the rhythms emitted by the forest, changing his senses to the point that he became able to identify the myriad of forest sounds, to descriptions of a large drum player showing his creativity and improvising only when he is affected by the precise rhythms that the cymbals and small drums chime in, and to the contemporary world of Japanese chess, where human players and AI interact and influence each other’ s game play, the authors of this book present a new affective world view.