Belén Pueyo-Ibáñez Postdoctoral Fellow Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: October 2023 – July 2024 Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: »The Democratic Sentiment: Rethinking Politics through the Lens of Affect« Project outline: Overly intellectualistic conceptions of democracy—which, for much of the last century, have been predominant both inside and outside academia—have emphasized its rational character while overlooking, if not explicitly rejecting, the possibility of its connection to the emotional dimension of human experience. The false dichotomy between reason and emotion on which approaches of this sort rely is responsible for the distorted account according to which democratic attitudes and actions are fundamentally governed by the intellect—understood as devoid of any sentimental component—whereas anti-democratic ones are primarily moved by the passions. However, are not the former as emotionally driven as the latter? My contention is that they certainly are, although not by sentiments of indifference or hostility, of course, but of care and compassion. In my project, I intend to defend the hypothesis that the democratic sentiment—the term under which I group a variety of affiliative emotions—precedes both logically and temporally the democratic order, which means that the former is required for the possibility of the latter. Elaborating on some of the themes I explored in my doctoral dissertation, I thus aim to delve into the emotional depths of social and political life and thereby make a significant contribution to a much-needed affective turn in democratic theory. (Belén Pueyo-Ibáñez) Research partner: Belén Pueyo-Ibáñez follows the invitation of Rainer Forst, Professor of Political theory at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, and the Justitia Centre for Advanced Studies funded by the Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation. Scholarly profile of Belén Pueyo-IbáñezBelén Pueyo-Ibáñez received her PhD in Philosophy at Emory University, Atlanta, in Spring 2023 with the dissertation (Im)possible Communities: The Cooperative Structure of Moral Thinking. Before starting her doctoral program, she obtained a MA in Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, an advanced degree in Contemporary Art History, and Bachelor’s Degrees in Music and Journalism. Her work has been supported by Emory University, The New School for Social Research, The Fulbright Program, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among other institutions.Website: Main areas of research: Moral, social, and political thought, philosophical psychology, critical theory (especially Habermas), and American pragmatism (especially Dewey). Selected publications:
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