Affect and Revolution

Abstract

There is a famous section of The Contest of Faculties in which Kant discusses the affect that accompanied the (French) revolution in the souls of its spectators. He takes this affect – enthusiasm – to be the sign of that which, in the revolution, belongs to the dimension of the Event. Kant’s essay constitutes the starting point of this paper, which then develops a broader discussion of what connects the concept of the Event and the concept of the affect. The discussion leads to the conceptualization of anxiety as proposed by Lacan, who also takes this affect to be the sign of an event. What is the relationship between anxiety and enthusiasm? What is the articulation of causality at work in them? What does this imply for the concept of the event? – These are the principal issues that this article addresses.