Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

<p><b>Shortlisted for the 2025 Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy</b></p><p>This book presents a philosophical analysis of affective polarization. It rejects the two-dimensional view of affective polarization and offers a multi-dimensional approach to it. An underlying philosophical issue throughout the book is that our political views are strongly influenced by purely contingent matters.</p><p>The widespread approach to affective polarization emphasizes the role played by two key elements: political identities and feelings toward the out-group. However, this picture is incomplete. Affectively polarized societies are also characterized by the existence of two-sided narratives drawn upon politically fraught issues, and by the increased confidence in such narratives. In this book, the author examines affective polarization as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. He carefully analyses the essential features of the phenomenon and distinguishes five dimensions of it: the identity dimension, the emotional dimension, the narrative dimension, the credence dimension, and the linguistic dimension. Along the way, he addresses questions such as: How many types of polarization can be distinguished? What are the conditions for a society to count as affectively polarized? What are political narratives and political identities? What do partisans do when they say that they dislike the outgroup?</p><p><i>The Rise of Polarization</i> will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in political and social philosophy, political and social psychology, political science, political epistemology, political philosophy of language, and political theory.</p>