Jacques Lacan

Sebastian Gardner's paper "Splitting the Subject: An Overview of Sartre, Lacan and Derrida" is a kind of "nonsense" paper, or significant portions of it are. For example, Gardner writes, 'The orthodox way of "taking" Freud, in analytic philosophy of mind and in philosophy of science, is something like this: we argue over whether or not a concept of selfhood that has its basis in consciousness can be stretched to cover the unconscious as Freud describes it, and we attempt to see (...) how much mentality can survive the loss of the property "potential object of consciousness." ' In philosophy of science, the orthodox way of taking Freud is actually this: we argue over whether or not Freudian psychoanalysis is a science or a pseudo-science, starting with Popper's proposal that scientific theories have to be falsifiable (i.e., if they are false, they can be proved to be false by a test) and psychoanalysis is not. "Everyone" knows this, across so many disciplines, maybe even you do. (shrink)

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan describes the right-wing intellectual as “no more than your Mr. Everyman, but your Mr. Everyman with greater strength of character.” It is tempting to apply the description to sensible English essayists, though they take up positions across the political spectrum. I shall raise two worries about this application, one of which is a puzzle for Lacan.

This paper is a pastiche of the Lacanian philosopher Renata Salecl, my fourth attempt, combined with a note. In it I present a response I anticipate from analytic philosophy to the thesis that the signifier has priority over the signified: that this thesis is either trivially true or obviously false.

In my journal publication "Are individuals a problem for British structural-functionalist anthropology?" I introduce an important idea. An organization has an official structure of roles and duties, for example this is the head of the organization, that is the cleaner, etc. But sometimes one encounters a person who officially occupies a certain role but does not fit with the expectations of that role: for example, they cannot do various things which the role requires. They seem out of place. In this (...) situation, I proposed that the anthropologist can make a radical move: they can look into whether the actual structure of the organization is different from the official structure and whether in the actual structure, the seemingly out of place individual fits. In September 2023, I was forced into the psychiatric unit of a Manchester hospital and I ended up trying my idea out. When I met the consultant psychiatrist, I asked him whether he was a doctor and, to check, I asked him to tell me what is inside a cell. He listed some items, including the cell membrane. I didn't think the cell membrane is inside the cell. So I decided to contemplate alternative organizational structures to the official structure, according to which he is a consultant doctor. I gave up after about a month and just accepted the official structure. I came to three conclusions. (i) The anthropologist in a new setting has no practical option but to accept the official structure presented to them. It just takes too long to get going otherwise and you risk looking very mad. My idea is for later at best. (ii) It took me so long to accept the official structure that I must be having a mental difficulty. I was weekly asked to accept that I had one by the medical team and I eventually did, for this reason (which is very different from their reason). (iii) The premises the psychiatrist appeals to in diagnosis are faulty in my eyes, but it is best to assume they have some way of achieving a passable level of reliability regarding their conclusions. (There is no adequate basis for me to interact with them if I don't assume this. A Lacanian psychiatrist is going to say, "The premises of British psychiatry are faulty and, consequently, the system is dangerous regarding its conclusions. And Lacan was a great doctor. He knows something." My worry is Lacan has a tantrum upon encountering other systems.). (shrink)

Okay, Lacanian psychiatry does not rely on medication. It diagnoses you on the basis of language use and confines itself to linguistic interactions. But is it actually better to take medication than enter into these interactions? According to the Lacanian system, as I understand it, the hysterical person is disposed to frustrate the desires of others. But Lacan himself seems a hysteric according to this system. So why should we place as much trust in the writings of (Nazi-loving!) Lacan as (...) a Lacanian psychiatrist does? (I would like to say that I do not think I suffer from the problem that philosopher John McDowell does. McDowell would presumably prefer to trade mainly with fellow virtuous agents. But his standard of a virtuous agent is extremely high. As I understand him, even a person who experiences certain temptations but outweighs them in their private decision-making process is not a virtuous person for McDowell. So I think McDowell's system leads to a problem of trade. How do I trade with those people, because are they good people? "Yes, you indicated this in your earlier dialogue on ethics versus specialization." I thought I would spell it out more clearly for some readers. I am not going to expand on it even further though, partly because the problem is now obvious!). (shrink)

One of Jacques Lacan's most famous and controversial contributions to psychoanalysis is his introduction of variable length sessions. A patient has a session with their psychoanalyst each week, say, but the analyst varies the length of the session. The main reason that is given for this is that with a fixed length, the patient plans the session so that they talk about all kinds of other stuff and they only present the material useful for analysis at the end (or many (...) patients do). A session with a surprise termination gets them saying useful material sooner (with some exceptions of course). If you are a functionalist anthropologist looking at Lacanian psychoanalysis, you will probably set aside this reason altogether and look at the social function that variable sessions have. There is a whole set of people who won't go in for Lacanian psychoanalysis, because they don't want to pay and then get some very short sessions. The people who still go are probably very committed to the Lacanian project: variable sessions guarantees devotees. (By the way, an excitement-craving faux-aristocrat like Lacan probably cannot stand the people attracted by regular length sessions: begone dullards!). (shrink)

This paper contains my attempt to pastiche the Lacanian philosopher and social theorist Renata Salecl. The pastiche focuses on the effects of coronavirus on liberal societies, the invasion of Ukraine, and offers a definition which I think is of interest to analytic philosophy.

This is a one page handout presenting different attempts to understand claims of the form "Everyone knows X.".

Sisyphus has no right to complain for his fate of eternal repetition. As long as he only has the boulder to worry about he enjoys the greatest life. — If in one world Odysseus has to take drastic measures to battle his temptation, there must be another world taking the course of temptation automatically grants him impunity. — The bizarre mythologization of Oedipus must be a female psychogenesis. [This is in all likelihood just a waste of your time. I apologize (...) for my awful writing. I'd be infinitely grateful for any comment.] . (shrink)

There is a SURFACE unity of a text which may be described as that which is reflected by taking for granted that the object of desire to be fulfilled in the text contributes EQUALLY to the parts constituting the text as a whole. The DEEP unity of a text on the other hand is that which is reflected by specifying that to which the object of desire underlying the text contributes the most content. The other parts while bearing some superficial (...) content have ONLY poetic (or evocative) function. They constitute FORMS serving aesthetic fortification and condensation not really condensation of content relevant to the object of desire. They are ultimately contingent in terms of the underpinning the text. The Freudian mythology is susceptible to conflating contingent forms as essential content. -/- . (shrink)

There is external reason if every action is by necessity susceptible to charitable interpretation, and the supreme charity (only asymptotically achievable) is guaranteed to excavate an external element arisen from one's desire. The desire whose object perpetually evades disclosure is the target of supreme charity. This only requires one's reason for action face the tribunal of interpretation (evaluation) not individually but as a corporate body. Though Individualistically reasons are the slaves of passions, holistically they are rebellious.

__1__ If form is present content is bound to get eclipsed. The eclipse means there is an unfulfillable task of overcoming obstacles to decipher the ultimate content. By utilizing forms they depict vastly different strands of reality tailored to circumstances, neither lying nor imitating a single strand of reality, poets obscure content and dodge criticisms of the referential aspect of work. -/- __2__A text unavoidably reflects the context under which it is produced. The direct emissaries of the underlying object of (...) desire underlying the text are disseminated in content. That is what content is. Form is there only supplementarilyto make the content inherently communicative (evocative poetic function). The text is proximally recontextualized to its original context of production if the content is deciphered in the process of reading in a such a way to signify the same object of desire. If there is nothing outside the text, the original context is free from commitment to contextual proximity and paves the road to the signification of slightly or strikingly different object by re-assigning significance to the constituents of the textual whole. (shrink)

According to Freud: the business of the analysis is to secure the best possible psychological conditions for the functions of the ego. Functional interpretation rather than veridical reconstruction of past events. Truth in an interpretation is the proximity to the apotheotic resilience of the resilience of the ego undertaking the interpretation in the face of emerging contingencies. If apotheosis implicates the critical functionality of the interpretation, then the apotheosis is the resoluteness that defies future evidence undermining the interpretation. The critical (...) interpretation is the analytic truth that overcomes defeat by the empirical evidence by which it is normally defeasible. Resoluteness amounts to acquisition of the evidence-transcendent METHOD enabling narrative truth. (shrink)

(I) According to J.L Austin all speech and all utterance is the doing of something with words and signs, challenging a metaphysics of language that would posit denotative, propositional assertion as the essence of language and meaning. -/- (II) Since doing things with words implicates authorial intention and rationalization, writing a text implies a psychogenetical origin. -/- (III) The text in the process of charitable interpretation, as a sociolinguistic outcome and practice, acquires new meaning or significance by its claims being (...) rendered true or utilizable. The original psychogenesis is incriminated into sociogenesis through the merger of horizons between the author and the interpreter by effectively bridging a historical abyss (sociogenesis of claims to truth or agreed-upon utility). In writing primarily-psychogenetical context causes and precedes its text. In reading the text causes and precedes its primarily-sociogenetical context. (shrink)

The mirror stage brings to consciousness out of the subconscious an item of knowledge p about the structure of the external reality. When the ego surpasses id at the mirror stage, it then knows that there is the other and that the other is of a newly disclosed significance for the center. Knowledge of significance (before the mirror stage) and content (after) of p are sources of causal efficacy and so p is true in both cases. After the stage p (...) is true based on empirical evidence. But before the stag, p is true by virtue of its meaning, based on semantic evidence = non-structural existential significance knowledge = that within the external reality there is something of unknown content which is the source of the aura of significance sensed by the ego.-------The ego before the stage appears to itself as a sign putatively of pure signified (pure namelessness) causing surplusage of sign. Once structural knowledge is acquired, the ego realizes it is associated with a name. The mirror stage is the process of acquisition of a method. That of understanding temporal mechanism of language. ------The physical event caused by the mirror stage is the perception of two temporally-distinct events morphing into atemporal continuity. (shrink)

Two terms, solitude and common, were chosen in order to develop some reflections on the articulation between difference and sameness in Lacan’s teaching and to tease out some political implications therefrom. In this context, an analysis of the collective experience of transmission such as is practiced and theorized in Lacan’s École de la cause enables a critical evaluation of the so-called Lacanian left.

This article demonstrates that Lacanian thought on One is narrow and does not completely cover the whole reality of One. A better understanding of One and Two could be facilitated by using the representation ‘#’, which can explain both disjunction and unity in language and thought. In addition, it presents some possibilities in abstract thinking. The first section of the paper considers Lacan’s doctrine on One and difference. The following section elaborates on the defect of this doctrine, focusing especially on (...) its onesided apprehension, and introducing the derivation of the representation ‘#’. In the last section, the representation ‘#’ and its usage are briefly explained. (shrink)

This essay posits the existence of two forms of disavowal: cynical and fetishistic. It explores how cynical disavowal involves maintaining a manipulative distance by obscuring the gap between belief and action, allowing the cynic to disavow their investment in an unattainable object and their knowledge of the Other’s lack. In contrast, fetishistic disavowal acknowledges both the objective reality of things and their subjective appearance to the fetishist. Unlike cynicism, fetishism does not rely on obscuring the gap between belief and action; (...) instead, it recognizes and embraces both aspects. In doing so, the essay highlights significant differences between the manipulative distance of the cynic and the self-awareness of the fetishist. It acknowledges the role of cynicism in maintaining the limits and prohibitions within ideology and authority, through examples of banality, while also emphasizing the unique qualities of fetishistic disavowal. (shrink)

Lacan and Capitalist Discourse explores the political and theoretical connections between the Covid-19 Pandemic and Capitalism, unravelling the direct consequences of Lacan's thesis of so-called "Capitalist Discourse". Jorge Alemán provides an account of neoliberalism, its mechanisms to produce subjectivities and the new modes of the political far Right. The book begins with the problem of a possible exit from capitalism, continuing to consider the possibilities of mourning and the active production of a new Left. Alemán engages deeply with a range (...) of thinkers: primarily Lacan, but also Heidegger, Marx, Laclau, Foucault, Butler, Badiou, Althusser, and others, in making his case. Lacan and Capitalist Discourse will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and to academics of psychoanalytic and Lacanian studies, cultural theory, philosophy and political thought. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: Diversi studi hanno posto in risalto le affinità tra la filosofia critica di Wittgenstein e la psicoanalisi di Lacan. Questo lavoro passa in rassegna alcuni aspetti comuni ai due autori, delineando una prospettiva d’incontro teoretica e concettuale. Un punto d’incontro tra questi due pensatori comprende la fondamentale attenzione per il linguaggio e un atteggiamento critico verso la concettualizzazione classica della soggettività. Questo saggio tenta di sviluppare teoreticamente questi punti di contatto introducendo il concetto di soggettività senza interiorità, un soggetto (...) senza psicologia. In effetti, l’affidamento di Wittgenstein sulla grammatica e il ricorso di Lacan al significante portano allo stesso risultato: considerare il linguaggio in sé come matrice della soggettività. Da questa prospettiva la fondazione della soggettività non risiede più in una certa supposta sostanza metafisica bensì in una esteriorità radicale, nei giochi linguistici. _Parole chiave_: Wittgenstein; Lacan; Inconscio; Linguaggio; Grammatica _A subjectivity without interiority: Wittgenstein with Lacan_ _Abstract_: Several studies highlight affinities between Wittgenstein’s critical philosophy and Lacan’s psychoanalysis. The following article revisits certain points of both authors, proposing a theoretical and conceptual encounter between them. Indeed, the common ground between these two thinkers includes a fundamental focus on language and a critical approach to classic conceptualisation of subjectivity. This contribution attempts to theoretically developing this encounter by introducing the concept of subjectivity without interiority, a subject without psychology. In fact, Wittgenstein’s reliance on grammar and Lacan’s use of the signifier yield the same result: pointing to language itself as the matrix of subjectivity. From this perspective, the foundation of subjectivity no longer resides in some supposed metaphysical substance, but rather in a radical exteriority, in linguistic games. _Keywords_: Wittgenstein; Lacan; Unconscious; Language; Grammar. (shrink)

The Unconscious in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis presents a unique and provocative approach to the assimilation of these two disciplines while offering a thorough assessment of the Unconscious from a neuropsychoanalytic and Lacanian perspective. Marco Máximo Balzarini offers a comprehensive overview of Freud's theory of the unconscious and its importance within psychoanalysis, before looking to how it has been integrated into contemporary neuropsychoanalytic work. Paying close attention to the field-defining work of neuropsychoanalysts such as Mark Solms, Francois Ansermet and Pierre Magistretti, (...) Balzarini considers the dichotomy between neuroscience and psychoanalysis, and the omnipresent debate on if and how they should be integrated when working with the unconscious. Throughout, he provides a fascinating Lacanian interpretation, showing how the work of Lacan can offer a new way of developing the dialogue and understanding around this vital topic. Part of the Routledge Neuropsychoanalysis Series, this book will be of interest to any psychoanalyst seeking to explore the foundations of the relationship between neuropsychoanalytic and Lacanian ideas in their clinical and theoretical work. (shrink)

Understandings of play are frequently tied to a sense of instinctual gratification—a something that must be completed, that all humans, young or old, should or need to partake in. Indeed, for many, play is characterised as a unique activity that stands apart from the ordinary and every day. While such assessments prefigure a clear demarcation between the fun of play and the more laborious, boring aspects of profane life, what this distinction alludes to is a greater sense of the creativity (...) that underlies play. Drawing from a Lacanian perspective, the following chapter will determine that an essential aspect of play and sport is the creativity it provides, namely, by considering how the act of creativity is intricately tied to the very lack that constitutes the Lacanian subject. To do so, the concept of sublimation is used to consider how the codified rules and regulations that sport both asserts and requires renders apparent the importance of the limit. Rather than conceiving of this limit as a barrier to creativity, what is revealed in sublimation is how this limit proves constitutive of our very creativity. That is, the ability to sublimate—to creatively perform unique displays of physical or artistic expression— lies in the mundanity and utter importance of the playful and sporting activity and, more importantly, the inherent restrictions and constraints these activities impose. It is in accordance with the limit that one’s creativity can expose an emancipatory potential in the context of play and sport. (shrink)

This article poses a simple question: can AI lie? In response to this question, the article examines, as its point of inquiry, popular AI chatbots, such as, ChatGPT. In doing so, an examination of the psychoanalytic, philosophical, and technological significance of AI and its complexities are located in relation to the dynamics of truth, falsity, and deception. That is, by critically exploring the chatbot’s capacity to engage in natural language conversations and deliver contextually relevant responses, it is argued that what (...) distinguishes the AI chatbot from anthropocentric discussions, which suggest a form of conscious awareness in AI, is the importance of the lie—an importance which a psychoanalytic approach can reveal. Indeed, while AI technologies undoubtedly blur the line between lies and truth-speaking, in the case of the AI chatbot, it is detailed how such technology remains unable to lie authentically; or, in other words, is unable to lie like a human. For psychoanalysis, the capacity to lie bears witness to the unconscious, and, thus, plays an important role in determining the subject. It is for this reason that rather than uncritically accepting the chatbot’s authority—an authority that is easily reflected in its honest responses and frank admissions—a psychoanalytic (Lacanian) perspective can highlight the significance of the unconscious as a distorting factor in determining the subject. To help elucidate this argument, specific attention is given to introducing and applying Lacan’s subject of enunciation and subject of the enunciated. This is used to assert that what continues (for now) to set us apart from AI technology is not necessarily our ‘better knowledge’, but our capability to consciously engage in acts of falsehood that function to reveal the social nuances and significances of the lie. (shrink)

It is this very contention that sits at the heart of Matthew Flisfeder’s, Algorithmic Desire: Towards a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (2021). In spite of the accusation that, today, our social media is in fact hampering democracy and subjecting us to increasing forms of online and offline surveillance, for Flisfeder (2021: 3), ‘[s]ocial media remains the correct concept for reconciling ourselves with the structural contradictions of our media, our culture, and our society’. With almost every aspect of our (...) contemporary lives now mediated through the digital, the significance of the algorithm maintains a pertinent importance in making sense of the social and psychic investments that our interactions on social media, as well as other forms of digital media, rely upon and encourage. The socio-political tensions and contradictions that such interaction prescribes remains a reoccurring theme throughout Algorithmic Desire, with Flisfeder masterfully navigating the problems and pitfalls of a burgeoning digital infrastructure that is redefining our lives as social beings. What becomes apparent from Flisfeder’s account is how debates and discussions regarding the algorithm can be couched in a number of pressing concerns, including the proliferation of online misinformation and the contradictions inherent to our freedom and security. While these debates are drawn together through the prism of the algorithm, it is mostly with regards to the medium of social media that Flisfeder examines how our desire and enjoyment are algorithmically organized. This focus is expertly followed throughout the book’s eight chapters, producing a critically engaging inquiry that continually considers the socio-political tensions and ambiguities that frame and sustain our digital media interactions. Ultimately, it is this contention that lends further support to Flisfeder’s assertion that algorithms play a key role in reading our desire. In the discussion that follows, this reading will be critically considered by tracing and outlining a number of key significances underpinning Flisfeder’s approach. Most notably, this will require a discussion of the Lacanian conception of desire; the effects of disavowal and cynical perversion; the importance of ‘maintaining appearances’; and, finally, the significance of the social media metaphor. (shrink)

Sport poses a number of important and no less significant questions, which, on the face of it, may not necessarily seem very important or significant to begin with – a peculiarity that we believe to be integral to sport itself. This article introduces, explores and outlines the psychoanalytic significance of this peculiarity. It explores how the emotions stirred by sport are intertwined with a realm of fiction and fantasy. Despite its lack of practical utility, sport carries an undeniable gravity, encapsulating (...) the aspirations of communities, nations and continents. As a result, psychoanalysis can be used to critically reflect on the purpose and meaning of sport: that is, why do we need sport, and why, for large sections of the world’s population, do we rely on it? Ultimately, while psychoanalysis maintains a unique relation to a variety of unexpected fields of study – including art, culture and neuroscience – we seek to add to this expanding list of inquiry by including sport in this critical domain. By utilising sport as a platform to elucidate psychoanalytic concepts, it is recognised that sport can also prompt questions for psychoanalysis. In so doing, theoretical discussions on the social, cultural and political dimensions of sport through psychoanalytic theory are introduced and applied. (shrink)

Les premiers Séminaires de Jacques Lacan (1953-1959) offrent une élaboration systématique des notions de l’Imaginaire et du Symbolique, mais font référence de façon seulement sporadique à la notion du Réel. Malgré la rareté des références, la conception du Réel que l’on peut en déduire est précise et cohérente, et confirmée par les séminaires successifs – au moins jusqu’au Séminaire XI (1964). Le Réel est à comprendre comme une matière indéterminée qui, tout en pâtissant du signifiant, lui résiste. Ceci constitue une (...) innovation, de la part de Lacan, par rapport au concept philosophique classique de la matière (du moins tel qu’on le trouve chez Aristote, pour qui la matière n’offre aucune résistance à sa propre mise en forme) et prépare la base pour la théorie de l’objet a en tant que signifiant de la castration du sujet opérée par le langage, telle qu’elle est élaborée à la fin du Séminaire VI (1958-1959) et dans le Séminaire X (1962-1963). (shrink)

The Unconscious as Space explores the experience of being and the practice of psychoanalysis by thinking of the unconscious in mathematical terms. Anca Carrington introduces mathematical models of space, from dimension theory to algebraic topology and knot theory, and considers their immediate psychoanalytic relevance. The hypothesis that the unconscious is structured like a space marked by impossibility is then examined. Carrington considers the clinical implications, with particular focus on the interplay between language and the unconscious as related topological spaces in (...) which movement takes place along knot-like pathways. The Unconscious as Space will be of appeal to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and mental health professionals in practice and in training. (shrink)

In an effort to complicate the human subject, this article considers the critical insights of psychoanalytic thinker Jacques Lacan, focusing in particular on his essay, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I As Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” (1949). ‘The Mirror Stage’ explains how we break from nature, differentiate ourselves from the animal and graduate from primordial subsistence as psychically folded into the first lightning strike of recognition that arrives with/as self-reflection. Curiously however, in sustaining his argument (...) about the human specificity of the mirror stage phenomenon, Lacan relies upon ethological research on nonhuman self-recognition. This reliance of his argument on the figure of the animal has largely been interpreted in two ways: as an inconsequential detail, undeserving of theoretical exploration, or, as confirmation of Lacan’s self-evident anthropocentrism. For instance, Buse (2017) and Ziser (2007) have noted the significant discrepancies within ‘The Mirror Stage’ between Lacan’s understanding of primate self-recognition, and that of his main source, Wolfgang Köhler. Although, both thinkers hold the position that Lacan’s treatment of the animal in ‘The Mirror Stage’ provides sufficient textual evidence for a reading that endorses human exceptionalism. Departing from this prior research, I focus on these same textual irregularities within ‘The Mirror Stage,’ yet see something quite different taking place in these moments. In order to preserve the complexity of Lacanian material, in a detailed examination utilising close reading, I pick apart long passages of both Lacan and his sources and conclude that Lacan’s position on the animal is both ambivalent and ambiguous in character. This culminates in a lack of clarity regarding how to understand Lacan’s position on both the animal, and correlatively the human. In turn, acknowledging this uncertainty provides a novel way to approach this seminal text, and a justification to revise accusations of anthropocentrism, alongside dominant interpretations more broadly. (shrink)

Meat is the essential object dislodged in human-animal relations: in its commonplace, everyday ubiquity and distanced violence, it defies the innocuous or protective-paternalistic stance that we ordinarily take towards animals. Through looking at meat’s status as a fundamental and visceral part of human-animal relations—particularly its commodification and consumption—this book exhibits how animals fit into human discursive practices and how this discursive position determines our perspective of animals and, subsequently, our treatment of them. By treating modernity as a distinct stage of (...) meat production, this work examines the meat-commodity in all its contemporary specificity as an economic, linguistic, philosophical, psychoanalytic, and material object. Using theoretical prisms that have been largely overlooked in animal studies, such as Marxian analysis and Lacanian-Žižekian psychoanalysis, and rejecting popular approaches, such as analogical thinking and effacement of human-animal difference, this book offers new insights into the meat-commodity—and new ways to orient ourselves towards animal life and death. (shrink)

Lacan ayna deneyiminin bizi cogito merkezli düşünme modelleriyle karşı karşıya getireceğini bildirir. Lacanyen kuramda öznenin varlık düzeni, kendini dolaysız kavrayabilen Kartezyen bilinç üzerinden değil, yanılsamalı bir benlik imgesiyle özdeşleşen bebeğin simgesel düzene kaydolma kapasitesi üzerinden temellendirilir. Bu çalışmada, ayna deneyimindeki sahte varlık imgesinin narsisistik sonuçları ile cogito’nun tekbenci sonuçları arasındaki ilişki incelenmiştir. Lacan’a göre Kartezyen argüman boyunca cisimsel dünyanın kavranışı, aslen doğru bilgiyi koşulsuz aktaran -aldatıcı olmayan- bir Tanrı’nın var olduğunun gösterilmesiyle mümkündür. Buna karşın Lacan’ın imgeselin ötesinde gerçekliğin kurucusu olarak (...) işaret ettiği simgesel Öteki, dış gerçekliğin garantörü olarak “bildiği varsayılan Tanrı’dan” kategorik olarak ayrılır. Lacan, yalnızca imgesel ben yanılsamasını narsisistik bir tuzak olarak görmez; aynı zamanda imgesel bene kendi öznelliğini verme iddiası taşıyan bir bildiği varsayılan özne fikrini de en az onun kadar tehlikeli bulur. Lacan’ın cogito’ya yönelik bu yeni yaklaşımı, aynadaki imgesel kısa devrenin, Kartezyen cogito’da bilincin kısa devresi olarak yeniden değerlendirilmesini mümkün kılmaktadır. (shrink)

This book focuses on the three main categories of Badiou's philosophy-being, truth, and subject- which are elaborated according to three encounters: structure, real, and mathematical infinity. It articulates an underlying theory, "discipline," constituted based on these encounters, which reveals the inner logic of Badiou's method.

Jacques Lacan was a notoriously difficult and idiosyncratic thinker. But is there any value in his hermetically difficult style? By highlighting certain crucial elements of his practice, I show how Lacan enlists the notion of difficulty to press home that he did not want his readers to understand directly. Instead, as Foucault and Althusser explain so well, Lacan wished for his readers and auditors to discover themselves as subjects of desire through reading him. Indeed, in miming the language of the (...) unconscious, Lacan believed he could throw into sharp relief the notion of the unconscious itself and, paradoxically, better express himself. This temporary detour through misunderstanding indicates the programmatic value of difficulty itself. By commenting on the comedic aspect of Lacan's difficult literary dandyism, I also seek to playfully remind the reader that Lacan was a master of comedy and irony and that it is only by adopting a comparative literary approach to his work that we can appreciate how his theory of misunderstanding is at the heart of his conceptualization of madness and psychosis, allowing us to see how, for Lacan, the subject is ontologically sick. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty suggests in his Nature lectures that myth provides the best way into thinking the relation of strange kinship between humanity and animality. He goes on to refigure Husserl’s paradigm of the two hands touching to extend beyond merely human-to-human relations, invoking in the process the myth of Narcissus. By carefully examining Merleau-Ponty’s late refiguration of that paradigm, alongside the revised conception of narcissism that it helps him to develop, we find that while human-animal empathy is made possible by a (...) ground of intercorporeal kinship, human-animal estrangement makes possible the emergence of an ethical relation to other animals, contingent upon the sublimation of animal desire. Holding human-animal kinship and estrangement in tension reveals a nascent ideal present implicitly in the early stages of childhood development: a vision of the possibility of interspecies harmony, rooted in the bodily reciprocity that drives the process of self-maturation. (shrink)

This article describes the conditions under which it is possible for neoliberalism to render itself invisible to the economic field that created it, allowing that field to define the discourse as a paranoid construction of the left. In addressing the issue, the text aims to extend the reach of Bourdieu’s field theory by infusing it with aspects of Lacanian psychoanalysis. This construction facilitates the use of the example of neoliberal economics to suggest wider principles of field functionality. It is suggested (...) that the main purpose of any field is not the generation of new knowledge but the preservation of its doxa, which is protected by a series of self-legitimation strategies. In the example of neoliberal economics, the strength of these systems has allowed that field to close its eyes to the catastrophic failure of its knowledge. (shrink)

Much has been written about the disagreement and even radical opposition between Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s conceptualizations and those of Jacques Lacan: for example, about desire, psychotherapy, the subject and the radically opposed political consequences that result from their approaches. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate from a Lacanian perspective that in the case of a central concept such as the body, there are rather more similarities than differences. Its main thesis is that Deleuze’s and Guattari’s body (...) without organs is very close to Lacan’s notion of the Other jouissance and that with slightly different strategies they both provide arguments to fight the same enemy: that is, the control and repression of singularity under capitalism. (shrink)

During the last decade, we can observe rising support for right-wing leaders who produce a discourse of semblance of strength. These leaders, the new masters of politics, concentrate on the performance of political charisma and manifest a disregard for the norms of the contemporary public sphere. Using Jacques Lacan’s theory of discourses, this article argues that there is a structural relation between the discontents in neoliberal forms of power and the success of these leaders performing the theatre of charisma and (...) political dominance. The key to understanding the rise of the new masters of politics is the relation between the discourse of the master and that of the university. The political prominence of the new masters of politics can be interpreted as a precise reaction to the form of power dominant in neoliberalism – bureaucracy operating according to the norms of economic rationality. The main aim of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed interpretation of discourses of semblance of strength in the broader frame of the historical moment of a crisis of neoliberal form of power. (shrink)