Releasing Affects or the Release from Affects. The Case of Freud and Spinoza

Abstract

In this paper, the author is questioning the very concept of “indifference
of thinking”. The author also asks: in what sense thinking
leads to “overall indifference”? What, indeed, is indifference? Carefully
reading the philosophical texts on affects, mainly Spinoza, Freud,
Bergson and Deleuze, the author argues, that indifference is not a
kind of non-affection, beside-affection, post-affection, but rather, it
is a trace of affect – just as cinders are remnants of fire. Indifference
is not abnegation either, which is a kind of statement that we could
not care less. On the contrary, it is in indifference where we find a
profound commitment to bringing back the things of this world to
their natural position.