Affectivity brings perception closer to a realistic, connected view of life [that understands] the essential meaning of facts. It enables perception of beauty, imagination and understanding. Affectivity refers to what we love, to what we subjectively experience as affection, friendship, altruism, universal love, and affinity for life. It refers to an open disposition, a permanent inclination for caring and empathy toward other humans and all living beings. |
Affective intelligence is not a special type of intelligence
Affective intelligence is not a special type of intelligence. All the different types of intelligence (bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, mechanic, linguistic, social, etc.) have a common source – affectivity. To understand this we need to examine the relationships between affective structure and perception, motricity, memory, learning, symbolic elaboration and language. (...)
The fruits of intelligence stem from love
It is not easy for humans to understand that the fruits of intelligence stem from love. I think that an essential definition of intelligence would be “the affective capacity to establish connections with life and relate personal identity with the identity of the universe.”
All human beings, be they primitive or civilised, educated or illiterate, have this capacity. However, it is deeply blocked by the affective dissociation characteristic of our societies.
Read more - Biodanza and Affective Intelligence
This is a rough idiomatic translation by Paula Jardim of an excerpt from chapter 2 of R. Toro’s book "Affective Intelligence, The unity of the mind with the universe."