Problematizing Aisthēsis: The Disruption of Shared Affectivity in the Ajax

summary:

This paper focuses on Sophocles' Ajax, aiming to show that the eponymous hero's "moral injury" is primarily grounded in the body: Ajax's loss of identity and sense of collectivity is evinced in the disruption of shared affectivity (the notion of sunaisthanesthai), which forms the bodily basis of the familial and social bonds of philia. I argue that evaluating Ajax's perception of a new physical and ethical reality that is impossible to bear, through the lens of aisthēsis, can help us to appreciate the social and ethical nature of the warrior hero's traumatic experience.