Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Editor's preface
- List of contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Affect theory
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- The quest for primary motives: Biography and autobiography of an idea
- Evolution of the affect system
- Role of the specific affects
- Modifications in the theory – 1978
- Part II Affect and ideology
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part III The face of affect
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part IV Script theory: The differential magnification of affect
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part V Human being theory: A foundation for the study of personality
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- A complete annotated bibliography of Silvan S. Tomkins's writings
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
- Titles in the series
The quest for primary motives: Biography and autobiography of an idea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Editor's preface
- List of contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Affect theory
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- The quest for primary motives: Biography and autobiography of an idea
- Evolution of the affect system
- Role of the specific affects
- Modifications in the theory – 1978
- Part II Affect and ideology
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part III The face of affect
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part IV Script theory: The differential magnification of affect
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- Part V Human being theory: A foundation for the study of personality
- Introduction
- Selections by Silvan S. Tomkins
- A complete annotated bibliography of Silvan S. Tomkins's writings
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
- Titles in the series
Summary
Behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and cognitive theory each subjected affect to the status of a dependent variable. The cognitive revolution was required to emancipate the study of cognition from its cooption and distortion by behaviorism and by psychoanalytic theory. An affect revolution is now required to emancipate this radical new development from an overly imperialistic cognitive theory. The author's theory is presented as a critique and as a remedy for affect “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.”
This is an essay about a love affair with an idea: “What do human beings really want?” and the biography of that idea in the recent history of American psychology, including the autobiography of my own idea. I offer it not only as history, but as a contribution to understanding. Understanding not only of the nature of motivation, but of motivation as a vehicle of what I have called the psychology of knowledge (Atwood & Tomkins, 1976; Tomkins, 1963b, 1965a). This is a field that would concern itself with the personal as well as social influences on the ebb and flow of affect investment in ideas and ideology, in methods and styles of investigation, and in what are considered acceptable criteria of evidence. By ideology I mean any organized set of ideas about which human beings are at once both articulate and passionate and about which they are least certain. At the growing edge of the frontier of all sciences there necessarily is a maximum of uncertainty, and what is lacking in evidence is filled by passion and faith and by hatred and scorn for the disbelievers.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Exploring AffectThe Selected Writings of Silvan S Tomkins, pp. 27 - 63Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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