Abstract

Alphonse De Waelhens's book about the Duke of Saint-Simon is a marvellous philosophical and psychoanalytic study of the Duke's concrete existence based on the analysis of his memoirs. It is a masterpiece of hermeneutics. In the first part of this article I try to demonstrate why and how De Waelhens wrote on Saint-Simon. In his book he applies many of his philosophic and psychoanalytic insights which were elaborated in his previous works. In his conception of man the central point guiding his analysis of Saint-Simon's texts is the idea that someone's truth is always laid down in his concrete discourse („parole”). Even if truth seldom directly appears in the discourse, the search for truth always has to start with it, taking into account the unconscious dimension which is revealed by certain peculiarities ofthat discourse. De Waelhens's conception about the unconscious is a strictly freudian one. In the second part of this article I describe the most important psychological dimensions of Saint-Simon's life as shown by De Waelhens. From a psychodynamic point of view two determinants are put forward : Saint-Simon's fixation to the 'mirror-phase' (Lacan) on the one hand, and the insufficient liquidation of the oedipal complex on the other. Finally I discuss the psychopathological concepts which are used by De Waelhens : paranoia and affective perversion (Christian David). He uses these terms with great circumspection. He shows the affective perversion in Saint-Simon's human relations which are characterized by the deserotization of his contacts with women and by his passionate cultivation of friendship and hatred. The relevance of the paranoia-concept is mainly based on the affective consequences of the fixation to the ' mirror : phase' and on Saint-Simon's 'narcissistic epistemology' according to which truth is plainly and unequivocally 'visible' to him