Source
Massumi, interviewed by McKim, Inflexions 3 (2009), LIT-1905, pp. 1–3, read in NOTE-1488. The interview is reprinted as ch. 2 of Politics of Affect (2015), LIT-1907, which was not reached.
What was actually shown
Nothing empirical. Massumi states the definition: “a power to affect and be affected governs a transition, where a body passes from one state of capacitation to a diminished or augmented state of capacitation. This comes with the corollary that the transition is felt” (p. 1). He attributes it to Spinoza as taken up by Deleuze. He then qualifies its status: “It’s not a general definition that you can apply … Rather than a definition, what you have is a proposition” (p. 3).
The record has checked that this is what Massumi says, in the form Bencherki, Brummans & Vézy (LIT-1902, p. 1353) quote. Proposed status is about the account of affect itself, which is offered without evidence.
What this does not say
- That affect augments. The transition is symmetric. Defining agency as its augmenting half, as LIT-1902 does (THEORY-1280), is a further step Massumi does not take.
- That it is Massumi’s invention. He presents it as Spinoza’s, after Deleuze.
- That it can be applied as a criterion. Massumi refuses that use. A paper that builds an operational concept on it (agency as “the affective force that governs the transition from a lesser to an augmented ability to act”) goes beyond its source and needs its own criterion.
- That affect is emotion, or a personal feeling. Emotion is “a very partial expression of affect” (LIT-1907, ch. 1, in the publisher’s sample).
Connections to the record’s own argument
Added 2026-10-31 by a pass connecting the readings of Bencherki, Brummans & Vézy 2024 and the works it leans on to the record’s lines. Analogies are marked as such.
Distributed agency and individuation
- TERM-086: Massumi’s transition is symmetric, and the paper’s halving of it leaves the target unnamed.