Sigmund Freud

This is a rudimentary paper written to claim my connection that the American and the erstwhile Indian modes of psychoanalysis are more authentic modes vis-à-vis the French mode. Some of the claims I make in this paper have been already published in Prabuddha Bharata and some are forthcoming. For instance, I have written on Ritalin which is pertinent to this discussion yet I have avoided mentioning this since my contention regarding Ritalin is pending publication in Prabuddha Bharata. Addition : 2020, (...) my comments on the efficacy of Ritalin have been published last year in Prabuddha Bharata. (shrink)

Freud introduces his dualistic theory of the life and death drives in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Much of that essay is devoted to the justification of the death drive, while little is said in defense of the introduction of “life drives” and “Eros,” which he claims are simply an extension of his libido theory from the psychological into the biological realm. In this essay, I argue that Eros is, on the contrary, fundamentally incompatible with Freud’s metapsychology. I first show that (...) Freud’s theory of society permits the production and preservation of social bonds only through the restraint of sexual aims rather than, as the theory of Eros would require, through the satisfaction of sexual drives. I then demonstrate that Eros is incompatible with three key elements of Freud’s metapsychology: the theories of the drives, the pleasure principle, and the principle of constancy. Finally, I argue that the death drive is indistinguishable from the early and late theories of the principle of constancy. Consequently, it is the death drive, and not Eros, that is merely an extension of the original libido theory. Because Eros is incompatible with the very foundations of Freud’s metapsychology, his drive theory can only consistently be interpreted as a monism of the death drive. (shrink)

Freud’s discussion of uncanny [unheimlich] experiences focuses on their peculiar ambivalence. On his view, the uncanny is a paradoxical feeling of both familiarity and alienation. While Freud’s analysis of this paradoxical feeling does succeed in explaining it away, it does little to explain it. One might expect a psychoanalytical demystification of the real experience that is hidden behind the superstitious overtones of uncanny experiences. Instead, the uncanny is attributed rather anti- climactically to the combination of a previous superstition (maintained unconsciously) (...) and an entirely coincidental verification of that superstition. The implication is that there is no uncanny per se. There is no distinctive category of experience, the unique character of which tends to cause or encourage superstitious beliefs; rather, such beliefs are prerequisite to having the experience. In other words, the experience suits the belief, and not vice-versa. The uncanny is the fantasized verification of a repressed fantasy. It involves a breakdown of the reality principle and the projection of beliefs into the external world, rather than a peculiarity of feeling that can be linked intrinsically to a specific category of experience. I do not intend to reject this analysis in its entirety. The basic structure, repression and return, is sound. However, Freud’s analysis of the uncanny, which resolves uncanny ambivalence into the separate categories of consciousness and unconsciousness, merely reinstates the problematical opposition of das heimliche and das unheimliche, familiar and unfamiliar, within the mind rather than in the external world. The coincidence of the two feelings in uncanny experience cannot be explained without an intervening stage between repression and return. I will suggest that Freud’s characterization of uncanniness as the return, in superstition, of the repressed is a misplacement of the experience of uncanniness. The aesthetical feeling is the cause of, but not identical to, the projected superstitions and ideas which surround it. An explanation of the feeling of uncanniness must fall not on the side of the repressed, but on the side of consciousness. The import of my position is that the feeling of uncanniness refers, in a manner of speaking, to something “real,” rather than merely to infantile ideas projected upon the external world. Freud’s explanation makes the unconscious a kind of scapegoat to be blamed for imposing fundamentally irrational beliefs into our interpretation of present experience, in that way preserving a model of the conscious ego as autonomous, fundamentally attuned to reality and ultimately independent of the unconscious. I will argue, on the contrary, that the experience of the uncanny is not merely a falling back into irrational or infantile beliefs, but an experience of a deep disunity in personhood that rightly causes us to question our everyday confidence in the unity, independence, and rationality of our conscious sense of self. The ambivalence of the feeling has its source in an irresolvable ambivalence that can exist in consciousness, and not simply in an analytically resolvable psychical ambivalence between consciousness and the unconscious. (shrink)

__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)

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)

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)

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)

In Sigmund Freud’s essay 'Totem and Tabu', 1913, a boldly speculative anthropological hypothesis is constructed through the weaving of his then-recently created psychoanalytic concepts. In this paper, taking that essay as an inspiration, we present an alternative way to inquire about the deepest origins of our Psychic apparatus through a tale with a mythical-like structure.

This article aims to compare notions of progress and evolution in the social theories of Freud and Spencer. It argues 1) that the two authors had similarly complex theories that contained mixed elements of positivism and teleology; 2) In its positivist elements, both authors made use of unified natural laws and, in its teleological aspect, they made use of notions of final cause in that progress and the evolution of civilization was understood as a linear path of progressive development with (...) an aim, 3) that that aim was both ethno- as well as - in Freud?s case in particular? self-centric and, finally, 4) that such understanding of natural law led to ethical commitments to the individual. (shrink)

Is the expression “unconscious phenomena” a contradiction in terms? Do psychoanalytic discoveries compel phenomenology to adapt its methods in treating inapparent phenomena? What role does the body play in the manifestation of such phenomena? In this paper, I approach these questions (1) from within the clinical context of a post-traumatic somatization and (2) by spelling out the implications of Heidegger’s critique of Freudian psychoanalysis in the Zollikon Seminars. Drawing new critical attention to Freud’s earliest theories and methods, developed in the (...) context of the investigation into hysteria, I argue that some of his fundamental insights may be read as following basic phenomenological intuitions. Following Heidegger’s reconfiguration of the field of phenomenology, the inapparent (“that which does not show itself as itself”) may be seen as taking center stage as the exhaustive model for phenomena as such. Placing particular emphasis on a set of Heidegger’s critical notions – “semblance” [Schein],” “understanding”, “motive” [Beweggrund] and “bodying-forth” [Leiben] — I argue that somatization could be conceptualized phenomenologically as a “bodying-forth” [Leiben] of an incapacity to understand or be understood, and that a similar mis-understanding may also befall practitioners who struggle to witness trauma, thus becoming the clinician’s own symptom. (shrink)

This editorial explores the overlooked, yet compelling, intersection of sport and psychoanalysis. While sport is often viewed as a realm of physicality, competition, and entertainment, psychoanalysis reveals its deeper psychological significance. Sport functions as a site where unconscious desires, fantasies, and social tensions are enacted, challenging the notion that it exists beyond critical thought. This piece introduces several key themes, including the paradox of sport’s (in)significance—its simultaneous frivolity and profound cultural weight—along with the emotional and symbolic investments that shape fan (...) devotion and identity. Sport is presented as a microcosm of broader societal contradictions, where issues like failure, transgression, and unending desire take on heightened meaning. Furthermore, the editorial argues that sport does not merely invite psychoanalytic critique but also poses challenges to psychoanalytic thought itself, particularly regarding embodiment, rule-breaking, and fandom. By recognizing sport as a concentrated form of life, this introduction calls for further scholarly inquiry into its unconscious dynamics. The Sport and Psychoanalysis section welcomes original research and critical reviews on these intersections, emphasizing the necessity of taking sport seriously—not despite its absurdities, but because of them. (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)

Is it possible to remain a sports fan when prominent sports teams and events are utilized to “sportswash” human rights abuses and other controversies? Indeed, while there is an abundance of analyses critiquing different instances of sportswashing, the exploration of the role of sportswashing and its connection to the “sports fan” presents an essential and necessary area of investigation and theoretical inquiry. To unpick this dilemma, this article proposes the concept of “fetishistic disavowal” to help theorize the impact of sportswashing, (...) as well as its relation to the sports fan and critical sports academic. This argues that, as spectators and fans of sport—and, moreover, as critical academics—we often acknowledge and accept that sport is used to perpetuate and even maintain a variety of social, economic, and political inequalities. Yet, while we are aware of such knowledge, we nonetheless remain fully capable of disavowing this very knowledge as an accepted part of sport. Given this, it is argued that the fetishization of sport can provide a suitable conduit for the fetishistic disavowal that sportswashing requires, with the concept offering a unique way of approaching sport’s inherent contradictions, while also theorizing how subjects relate to these contradictions as part of their involvement in and with sport. Where sportswashing directly implicates the fan in its implementation—relying upon a level of fetishistic disavowal between the fan and their club and proffering a disavowed acknowledgement of the effects of sportswashing and its interpellation through sport—this article outlines how applications of fetishistic disavowal provide a unique theoretical lens through which analyses of sport, and its ethical significance, can be critiqued. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud as a Critical Social Theory: Psychoanalysis and the Neurotic in Contemporary Society offers a variety of psychoanalytic, philosophical, sociological, and historical perspectives into the enduring significance of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic thought.

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)

Freud completed his last book, on Moses and Monotheism, in 1939, while in his London exile. Its publication was deemed untimely, as its two main theses could be construed as a form of Jewish self-hatred. The first claim questions Moses’ Jewish origins and contends that the founder of the Jews was in fact an Egyptian; the second suggests that the Jews killed Moses and then created his myth as a coping mechanism for concealing their terrible deed. In this article, I (...) contend that Moses and Monotheism can be read as Freud’s intervention in debates on the ‘Jewish Question’. After revisiting Freud’s original argument (I), I assess its reception among leading Jewish intellectuals of the 20th century (II). I then use Freud’s arguments to look at the two key themes of the Jewish Question: understanding the defining features of Jewish identity (III) and the pervasiveness of antisemitism in Western culture (IV). (shrink)

This article offers an account of Nietzschean decadence as a psycho-physiological condition characterized by a failure of psychic integration—a failure Nietzsche thinks precludes genuine agency, since the psychic integration the decadent fails to achieve is necessary for agency. As part of this account, this article develops an interpretation of an underexplored but crucial form of decadence: repressed decadence. Exploring this variety of Nietzschean decadence both enables us to make sense of the case of Wagner’s alleged decadence and adds nuance to (...) predominance models of Nietzschean unity. After developing this account, the article argues that Nietzsche finds decadence especially problematic when it disempowers (or obstructs the empowerment of) the individual who suffers from it, even if only in the long run. The article concludes by demonstrating that in (rare) cases in which decadence facilitates individual empowerment, Nietzsche evaluates it positively, finding such a condition worthy of affirmation. (shrink)

Este trabalho se situa na interface entre a Filosofia Política e a Psicanálise, sendo seu objetivo investigar o conceito de nacionalismo, contrapondo-o ao de pluralidade, enquanto uma condição do humano, tomando como fundo os processos identificatórios. Para desenvolver o objetivo proposto, nos debruçamos sobre a obra de Hannah Arendt, visando os conceitos de nacionalismo e pluralidade, bem como compreender o modo como tais conceitos compuseram o pensamento de sua filosofia política. Dentro deste contexto, os conceitos de massa e identificação foram (...) costurados à discussão, já que uma massa é liderada por um líder com quem os indivíduos que a compõem estabelecem uma forte relação de identificação. Neste aspecto, a teoria freudiana colaborou com os conceitos de massa e identificação. Ao longo deste trabalho, foi desenvolvida a hipótese de que o nacionalismo consiste em uma estratégia política de cunho psicológico: uma pretensa promessa de união, de pertencimento, de unidade social e interna. Esta é uma pesquisa, em sua íntegra, teórica e bibliográfica. Como resultado, vimos que a interface entre a Filosofia e a Psicanálise se revelou como um campo frutífero para a abordagem do fenômeno do nacionalismo, no contexto da atual política contemporânea nacional. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion examines the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion through the encounters of two men: the "unfaithful Jew" who founded psychoanalysis, and a pastor of profound religious faith and proven psychoanalytic conviction. Carlos Domínguez-Morano analyses the original encounters between Freud and Pfister and their respective positions, noting the incidences, impasses and progress of their discussions. The complex interactions between psychoanalysis and religion over time are considered, and Domínguez-Morano assesses the fundamental parameters of each perspective, with (...) reference to Catholicism. The book explores the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion as a rich, ongoing and unending dialogue and sheds new light on the origins of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion will be of great interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, religion, the history of psychology and the history of ideas. (shrink)

During the First World War in 1915, Sigmund Freud wrote Vergänglichkeit, a short essaythat reflects, among other themes, on the ephemerality of life and beauty. Originally published in German, the essay explores how the awareness of transitoriness influences the human psyche through a dialogue between Freud, a young poet, and a melancholicfriend. Freud discusses the fragility of beauty, the appreciation of transitoriness, mourning, libido, the impact of war, and the renewal of meaning in the face of the inevitability of decline.

Both new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient? Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions—Freudian, (...) relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian—through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice. Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy. (shrink)

Freud, the Contemporary Super ego and the West traces the origins of the relationship between the morality of the super ego and the destructive impulse of the death drive in the liberal democracies of the twenty first century. Giosue Ghisalberti begins by refuting the analysis by contemporary social theorists of the phenomenon described as the return of the religious, presenting instead a comprehensive set of ideas as outlined by Freud. Ghisalberti argues that the West has regressed to an infantile and (...) primitive present, driven by an unconscious hostility towards the Oedipus complex and, more comprehensively, the obsessional neuroses. The book reexamines Freuds early psychoanalytic ideas on the nature of obsessions, interpreted from the murder of the primal father in Totem and Taboo, and returns to his grounding ideals and a comprehensive defense of the coming to be human in modernity. Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego and the West will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training. It will also be key reading for academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, philosophy, political theory and the humanities. (shrink)

En el texto «¿Por qué la guerra?» de 1933, Einstein y Freud abordan la posibilidad de educar al hombre contra la barbarie. En él se define el proceso de civilización como un predominio progresivo de la razón que tiende a la eliminación de la crueldad de la esfera social mediante la educación de los instintos primarios. Pero la intrínseca ambigüedad de la violencia (constructora y destructora) en Freud permitiría comprender la guerra civilizada como una forma histórica de crueldad estéticamente tolerable, (...) al estar su violencia ligada a «un cierto grado de hipocresía» del Kulturmenschen necesario para mantener el orden de la civilización. En diálogo con las ideas de Adorno, Elias y Bauman, este artículo examina críticamente las contradicciones dialécticas en torno a la crueldad en el mundo moderno. En él se concluye que el ocultamiento y la negación de la violencia cruel son mecanismos necesarios para mantener la ilusión de una superioridad ética de la civilización sobre la barbarie. (shrink)

Why have so many people responded to the insecurity, exploitation, alienation, and isolation of precarity capitalism by supporting the far right? In this timely book, Claudia Leeb argues that psychoanalytic and feminist critical theory illuminates how economic and psychological factors interact to produce this extreme political shift. Contesting the Far Right examines right-wing recruitment tactics in the United States and Austria, where people discontented with the status quo have turned to far-right parties and movements that further cement capitalism’s adverse effects. (...) Leeb contends that Freudian psychoanalytic theory and early Frankfurt School Critical Theory provide analytical tools to explain this apparent contradiction in psychological terms. Living under precarity capitalism generates feelings of failure and anxiety, which people experience as non-wholeness, because it has become difficult if not impossible to live up to the fetish of economic, interpersonal, and bodily success, and the far right preys on such feelings. Its psychologically oriented propaganda tactics produce the illusion of wholeness and a positive sense of self while leaving the socioeconomic conditions that cause people’s suffering intact. At the same time, they remove the inhibitions that keep people’s repressed aggression and racist and sexist attitudes in check. To demonstrate the workings of this process, Leeb compares cases including Trump and the alt-right in the United States and the Freedom Party and the identitarian movement in Austria. At once theoretically rich and politically engaged, this book also offers ways to resist the far right and counter the psychological appeal of its propaganda techniques. (shrink)

Argues that modernism can be seen as a therapeutic project for transforming human experience, and draws from Freudian psychoanalysis, Virginia Woolf's criticism and fiction, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.

Freud propôs uma teoria da personalidade a partir do estabelecimento da psicanálise. Nosso objetivo é percorrer alguns de seus primeiros textos, os quais foram escritos em conjunto com Breuer, buscando delimitar o que Freud compreendeu a respeito de alterações da personalidade, tal como a múltipla personalidade. Este fenômeno ganhou um importante destaque no século XIX, gerando discussões no campo da psicologia e da filosofia, uma vez que implicava ruptura da unidade da personalidade. Freud, por sua vez, ofereceu uma interpretação original (...) de tais alterações à luz de suas investigações sobre a histeria. Para explicar os desdobramentos da personalidade, Freud focou numa teoria da defesa, colocando o recalque (_Verdrängung_) como um mecanismo modelo para compreender a personalidade e suas patologias. (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 paper aims at providing a side-by-side analysis of Freud’s enquiry into the historical origins and the psychological characterisation of antisemitism and Sartre’s famous 1948 essays on the topic. It is well known that after heavily criticising psychoanalysis in Being and Nothingness Sartre undertakes a process of reassessment of it culminating in Search for a Method and The Family Idiot. The first claim that this paper seeks to advance belongs to the field of Sartrean scholarship and argues that already five (...) years after publishing Being and Nothingness Sartre’s philosophy has undertaken the changes that gradually led from “pure” to Marxist existentialism. This assertion can be supported by highlighting the similarities between the Anti-Semite and Jew and Moses and Monotheism. Following from this, a more generally oriented claim can be posited: antisemitism is built around the idea that history can be constructed by deleting alterity from it. In this regard, it will be argued that Freud and Sartre’s enquiries highlight this point and agree on the necessity of asserting Jewish identity and history to counteract antisemitism. (shrink)

This article examines the ambivalence in the concept of libidinal economy, which we identify in the philosophies of Jean-François Lyotard and Samo Tomšič; they both offer radically different conceptions of libidinal economy. Although emerging from very contrasting perspectives, both theories consider the relationship between desire, the unconscious, and the capitalist economy. After defining these two approaches, we compare them, while marking differences, similarities, influences, and sociopolitical presumptions. Also, we propose a few indicative concepts, which should help to contextualize the identity (...) of the concept of libidinal economy. After critically discussing both theories, we suggest three paradoxes in Lyotard’s approach as well as some weaknesses in Tomšič’s project. It turns out that the concept of libidinal economy is a productive theoretical tool to explore the relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis, as well as the split in the materialist tradition. Based on that, we claim that the ambivalence of the concept of libidinal economy is a part of much more complex philosophical-historical conflict. (shrink)

O desamparo psíquico é um conceito fundamental na psicanálise e está presente em textos de diferentes épocas da teoria freudiana. Por meio dele, Freud nos mostra nossa completa dependência de um outro, que é capaz de nos oferecer um conforto frente a um desamparo, que é eterno e irreversível. Assim que nascemos, estamos fadados a viver em desamparo. Em paralelo com a teoria de Judith Butler, pretendemos fazer a relação do desamparo psíquico tratado por Freud com o conceito de precariedade (...) e os laços de interdependência presentes na obra da autora, que mostra como a interdependência revela o nosso estado de precariedade em comum. (shrink)

El artículo analiza el problema del comprender a partir de las nociones de des-alejamiento, partida y trauma. Mientras que la comprensión tradicionalmente ha sido abordada desde una noción clásica de representación, asociada a la presencia y la disponibilidad, aquí se explora una vía del comprender que recoge ciertos aportes del pensamiento de Werner Hamacher y Sigmund Freud, que arrancan de una reformulación de la noción predominante de representación. La lectura minuciosa, apegada al texto, de un poema de Rilke, que implica (...) además su traducción, permite poner a prueba dichos aportes y desarrollar las ideas de sustracción, partida y des-alejamiento sobre el trasfondo del célebre juego freudiano del Fort/Da. Todo esto, con el fin de esbozar las consecuencias de tal ejercicio para una comprensión detraída del comprender a partir del antecedente de los autores mencionados. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that Derrida’s account of the uncanny experience of being haunted by a specter reveals consciousness to be constitutively haunted. From Derrida’s account in Specters of Marx, we locate the cause to the possibility of haunting from the inability to complete a so-called work of mourning. We note primarily the development of Derrida’s account of specters with respect to the psychoanalytic distinction between mourning and melancholia. We go on to compare Derrida’s characterization of a haunted subject (...) to Hegel’s conception of Unhappy Consciousness to discuss the possibility for a haunted consciousness to be assimilated into a community. We present Derrida’s resistance to a community of spirit as a reminder to be aware of specters. We contend that by minding specters, we learn how to live with them in a community of both the living and the dead. (shrink)

Empowerment is a prominent ideal in health promotion. However, the exact meaning of this ideal is often not made explicit. In this paper, we outline an account of empowerment grounded in the human capacity to adapt and adjust to environmental and societal norms without being completely determined by those norms. Our account reveals a tension at the heart of empowerment between (a) the ability of self-governance and (b) the need to adapt and adjust to environmental and societal norms. We address (...) this tension by drawing from the work of Freud, Canguilhem, and Lacan. First, we clarify through a discussion of Freud’s notion of sublimation that it is difficult to assess empowerment independent of any social valuations, but also that it is no less problematic to make it dependent on social valuations alone. Second, we draw from the work of Canguilhem to show how empowerment can be understood in terms of the individual’s capacity to tolerate the aggressions of a multiplicity of environments. Third, using Lacan, we show how empowerment requires incorporation of social and symbolic norms, without necessarily rendering ourselves a mere product of these norms. Finally, we demonstrate how the views of these authors can complement one another, resulting in a more sophisticated understanding of empowerment. (shrink)

O tema do fragmento e do que é fragmentário perpassa a obra de Freud: pedaços de memórias, vestígios do passado, retalhos de textos são alguns dos elementos que figuram em sua prática empírica e em seu afazer teórico. Não somente o passado reaparece, no presente, por meio de fragmentos, mas também a verdade ou o significado (de um sonho, de um sintoma) pode emergir, na atividade interpretativa e terapêutica, em estado fragmentário. Neste texto, buscamos compreender o papel do fragmento dentro (...) da teoria freudiana; para tanto, focamos nossa atenção no caso do Homem dos Lobos, no qual os fragmentos marcam presença de forma maciça. Nota-se que eles atuam em três dimensões distintas e complementares: a) no próprio conteúdo da neurose analisada; b) no decorrer do tratamento analítico, ou melhor, no método freudiano; c) na redação do caso clínico, isto é, na passagem do tratamento para o campo das palavras escritas. Estudando as relações entre esses três campos, vê-se emergir uma _ética do fragmento _freudiana, na qual nós, enquanto leitores, estamos sempre implicados. (shrink)

Prof. Tom Donovan suggests reading Freud today for aid in thinking about the human condition and inspiration to seize one's life. Philosophy can connect us to ourselves, our world, and our best traditions while training us in excellence and usefulness, blocking out some of the ridiculous things littering the contemporary world.

Central to philosophical practice is the application of philosophers' work by philosophical practitioners to inspire, educate, and guide their clients. For example, in Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) philosophical practitioners help their clients to find an uplifting philosophy that promotes guiding virtues that counteract unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. I will present the argument that Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics can be applied as an uplifting philosophy as per LBT methodology, and therefore has utility for philosophical practice. Additionally, (...) I will propose that Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics, as an uplifting philosophy, may act as an antidote for ideological obsession and ideology addiction. I will also suggest that LBT may be a suitable intervention when challenging the unrealistic conclusions derived from illogical premises in practical reasoning that contribute to ideological obsession, because it can contest irrational beliefs in a way that could mitigate the fragmentation anxiety that often arise when individuals relinquish maladaptive self-object organizations. (shrink)