A1 Journal article (refereed)
In hate we trust : The collectivization and habitualization of hatred (2020)

Szanto, T. (2020). In hate we trust : The collectivization and habitualization of hatred. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19(3), 453-480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9604-9

JYU authors or editors

Szanto, Tamas

Publication details

All authors or editors: Szanto, Thomas

Journal or series: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

ISSN: 1568-7759

eISSN: 1572-8676

Publication year: 2020

Volume: 19

Issue number: 3

Pages range: 453-480

Publisher: Springer Netherlands

Publication country: Netherlands

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9604-9

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access:

Abstract

In the face of longstanding philosophical debates on the nature of hatred and an ever-growing interest in the underlying social-psychological function of group-directed or genocidal hatred, the peculiar affective intentionality of hatred is still very little understood. By drawing on resources from classical phenomenology, recent social-scientific research and analytic philosophy of emotions, I shall argue that the affective intentionality of hatred is distinctive in three interrelated ways: (1) it has an overgeneralizing, indeterminate affective focus, which typically leads to a form of collectivization of the target; (2) short of a determinate affective focus, haters derive the indeed extreme affective powers of the attitude not in reaction to any specific features or actions of the targets or from some phenomenological properties of the attitude but, rather, from the commitment to the attitude itself; (3) finally, in sharing this commitment to hate with others, hatred involves a certain negative social dialectics, robustly reinforces itself and becomes entrenched as a shared habitus.

Keywords: phenomenology; emotions; hate; intentionality; social psychology

Free keywords: hatred; collective hatred; affective intentionality; philosophy of emotions; phenomenology of emotions; emotional habitus; Kolnai, Aurel; Sartre, Jean-Paul

Fields of science: