Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

179494

Cultural psychology of desire

Sergio Salvatore

pp. 33-49

Abstract

This paper provides a semiotic theory of the desire, as the core of the general view of sensemaking as the process producing the mind—rather than the process produced by the mind. As one can find in a dictionary, the desire is usually meant as the sense of passionate search or of waiting something, for the sake of acquiring, fulfilling, and accomplishing what is felt as required for satisfying our preferences and needs. I propose a different definition. According to it, the desire is not germane to seeking, willing, commitment, need, and so forth—rather, it is the embodied semiotic dynamic providing the condition for making the object being the target of the tension we are used to consider desire (and that in this article I will denote with the term "appetite"): we do not desire what we see; rather, we see what we desire. My thesis is that such a turn of focus enables the cultural psychology to better understand the micro-genesis of the appetite towards the object.

Publication details

Published in:

Valsiner Jaan, Marsico Giuseppina, Chaudhary Nandita, Dazzani Virgínia (2016) Psychology as the science of human being: the Yokohama manifesto. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 33-49

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-21094-0_3

Full citation:

Salvatore Sergio (2016) „Cultural psychology of desire“, In: J. Valsiner, G. Marsico, N. Chaudhary & V. Dazzani (eds.), Psychology as the science of human being, Dordrecht, Springer, 33–49.