Affectivity as Historical Dimension of Subject.

Abstract

Affectivity is a crucial methodological concept of French phenomenology. Phenomenon
is identified with an affect, a trauma, an event that always has already occurred. The author of
this event is never the subject; the subject is not merely receptive with regards to this event,
but is passive in the absolute sense, indeed, the subject as such is constituted by the event. This
dependence of the very being of the subject on the primal trauma, and thus on the world shared
with others, creates historical dimension of subjectivity.