Religion plays a crucial role in the critical dimension of Pasolini’s movies. Yet the religion performed there is a thoroughly ‘pagan’ religion, a religion that is itself not critical at all. The question to be raised is why Pasolini does not refer to the ‘monotheistic’ kind of religion, which is critical – and even religion critical – in its core. The article tries to develop an answer to that question by means of patient and profound reflection upon Pasolini’s definition of (...) ‘God’ as “a dream that allows no sleep and from which one cannot waken”. (shrink)

‘Subject of one’s acts’: Lacanian reflections on a Foucauldian art of living In Les aveux de la chair, the fourth volume of his Histoire de la sexualité, Foucault explains how the still dominant idea that man is ‘subject of desire’ – and thus subjected to the law of desire – has its origin in the libido theory of Augustine. With this genealogical analysis Foucault targets, among other things, the libido theory of his contemporary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. This essay briefly (...) discusses what makes Lacan and Foucault theoretically opposed to each other. I zoom in on how both conceive the modern ‘subject’. Opposite to the subject as ‘subject to desire’, Foucault puts forward the ‘subject of one’s own actions’, the subject that is itself the ground/base of its own ‘care for oneself’ (epimileia heautou). This essay presents a critical reflection on the possibility of such a subject. It is here that Lacan’s theory of the subject can shed a light on Foucault’s understanding of a modern ‘care of oneself’ or ‘art of living’. Lacanian psychoanalysis can provide a ‘critical theory’, indispensable for what is at stake in a Foucauldian ‘art of living’. (shrink)

The author presents Gernot Böhme’s median mode of being theory, which attempts to find an anthropological middle ground between the rational and the irrational, the spiritual and the corporeal and the active and passive in human experience. Böhme’s reflections on the median mode of being are normative in character and linked to the concept of “sovereign man,” which he strongly defends and whose main characteristics Hoffmann outlines in the first part of the essay. Among others, Hoffmann argues against Böhme’s excessive (...) emphasis on the controlling/restrictive functions of awareness at the cost of those functions which serve to protect and stimulate life, his non-distinction between the distance to a cognized object and its intellectual instrumentalisation, and his rather one-sided tendency to seek the sources of European rationalism in the Socra-tean tradition. (shrink)

In his sixth seminar, Desire and Its Interpretation (1956–1957), Lacan patiently elaborates his theory of the ‘phantasm’ ($◊a), in which the object of desire (object small a) is ascribed a constitutive role in the architecture of the libidinal subject. In that seminar, Lacan shows his fascination for an aphorism of the twentieth century Christian mystic Simone Weil in her assertion: “to ascertain exactly what the miser whose treasure was stolen lost: thus we would learn much.” This is why, in his (...) theory, Lacan conceptualizes the object of desire as the unconsumed treasure—and, in that sense, the “nothing”—on which the miser’s desire is focused. But the more Lacan develops his new object theory, the more he realizes how close it is to Christian mysticism in locating the ultimate object of desire in God, in a sevenfold “nothing” (to quote the famous last step in the ascent of the Mount Carmel as described by John of the Cross). An analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet allows Lacan to escape the Christian logic and to rearticulate the object of desire in an ‘unchristian’ tragic grammar. When he replaces the miser by the lover as paradigm of the subject’s relation to its object of desire, he substitutes a strictly Greek kind of love—eros, not agape—for the miser’s relationship to his treasure. Even when, in the late Lacan, “love” becomes a proper concept, its structure remains deeply “tragic.”. (shrink)

A comprehensive examination of Lacan’s seminar on ethics.

De essays die hier zijn verzameld, gaan alle op hun manier op zoek naar wat het betekent dat wij, modernen, 'subject' zijn geworden. Voor de moderniteit, in de christelijke middeleeuwen, was God het 'subjectum', dit wil zeggen de 'drager' waarin de mens zichzelf en zijn wereld gegrondvest wist. Met de moderniteit heeft de mens die rol van 'drager' en 'subject' overgenomen: de plaats waarin hij zichzelf en zijn wereld gegrond kon weten, was voortaan enkel en alleen nog zijn eigen eindige (...) 'zelf'. De essays die Marc De Kesel hier bijeenbrengt, stellen op diverse manieren de vraag naar wat het wil zeggen dat de plaats waar wij, modernen, onszelf treffen, niet langer de plaats is waar een God ons zou hebben geschapen en evenmin de plaats waar wij zonder meer bij onszelf aanwezig zouden zijn (en onze drager, ons eigen 'subjectum' zou zijn). Aan de hand van een aantal hedendaagse (Lacaniaanse, Bataillaanse en andere) denkschema's tracht hij aan te tonen hoe die plaats ons wezenlijk vreemd blijft, omdat wij drager-subject zijn geworden van iets dat ons in laatste instantie blijft ontsnappen; alleen moet dat 'transcendente' niet langer in een of andere verre God worden gezocht, maar in de banale woordenstroom waar ons dagelijks bestaan op drijft. De Kesels essays gaan vaak rechtstreeks in op concrete situaties, wat ze dwingt hun gedachtengang dicht bij de realiteit te houden. Dit kan een denken dat onze filosofische traditie niet schuwt, alleen maar ten goede komen. (shrink)

Without the support of imagination, one would not have the slightest idea of the cruel ‘real’ that has occurred in the Nazi extermination camps. Yet, in documentaries imaging the events of the Shoah, one runs the risk of missing their most basic property, namely their unimaginability. The mere idea that one is able to imagine the unimaginable comes down to a denial of the Shoah’s status as an event that defies our understanding. The unimaginable ‘real’ of the Shoah, however, is (...) not simply located in its object, in the cruelty of what happened in the camp. The Shoah makes us at the same time facing the unimaginable ‘real’ of the modern subject—the blind spot in our own identity. If we need imagination to deal with the Shoah, it is also because of an ungraspable ‘real’ in ourselves. This is why adequate Shoah representations, acknowledging their object as being beyond representation, include the same ‘beyond’ concerning the subject of the Holocaust memory. The essay makes this clear in an elaborated comparison of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 film, Shoah, with some conceptual works of art from the late nineties—all of this ‘fine-tuned’ in a reflection upon Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. (shrink)

In spirituality and mysticism, many seek a counterbalance to the strong emphasis on the self that modernity demands of us: We desire a fixed self on the one hand and are fascinated by selflessness on the other. But is our fascination with selflessness not a ruse to make that self of ours even stronger? And is that self-critical question not the kernel of even traditional mysticism? Marc De Kesel investigates some dark rooms of the mystical tradition to clarify this. This (...) is a book for all who want to free themselves from the conceptual frameworks and rigid dogmas of late-modern religiosity. The first part of the volume deals directly with early modern Christian mysticism, and more specifically with the French spiritualité and discussions centered around the problem of what it means to love God in a pure, radically unselfish way. The second part explores the paradoxical dialectics between self and selflessness in relation to the way Christian religion deals with its own identity. If Christian love is selfless, why has Christianity in the end not given up its own self, its own identity? The third and last part of the volume discusses the dialectics between self and selflessness in three other domains: popular spirituality, politics, and modern science. It makes clear that "selflessness" is not limited to mysticism but is both a fascination and a problem/paradox for modernity in many fields. (shrink)

Psychoanalytical theory's main axiom tells that drive does not function in a 'natural', but in a distorted and 'perverted' way. Drive's most basic purpose is not the organism's self-preservation, but its 'pleasure' . That is why life, being natural and biological, is not lived naturally and biologically: the organism takes a'polymorph perverse' distance towards its natural, biological functioning and, in that very distance, 'enjoins' it. On the most fundamental level, it lives from that very 'pleasure'. Lacan's theory of desire is (...) an elaboration of that Freudian thesis on the polymorph perverse pleasure principle. The Lacanian 'ethics of desire', elaborated in his sixth and seventh seminar, is built upon that thesis as well. That is why, at the very end of his sixth seminar , he defines sublimation as 'perverse' and therefore of ethical value: in a non-repressing way, sublimation opens up desire to its polymorph perverse ground. However, in the next seminar , Lacan changes his theory on both sublimation and perversion. Now, sublimation is defined as the cultural gesture by which we put a desired object on the level of 'das Ding' . Here, perversion gets an ethically negative meaning: for, so Lacan argues, when we put ourselves as subject at the position of that Thing, we act like a pervert, and abuse the ethical rule for immoral purposes. The article follows in detail thisshift in Lacan's theory and discusses its important impact on his thesis on ethics. (shrink)

The field of modern logic is too extensive to be worked through by open cast mining. To open it up, we need to sink shafts and construct adits. This is the method of most text books: a systematic exposition of a number of main topics, supplemented by exercises to teach skill in the appurtenant techniques, lays a secure foundation for subsequent dis cussion of selected questions. Compared with this, the present treatment is more like a network of exploratory drillings to (...) show that it would be worthwhile to start mining operations, or to work the existing shafts and adits, as the case may be. Within this metaphor we may also describe the inherent weakness of this conception: once a cavity is pierced, the duct's capacity will in general not be sufficient to carry away the discovered riches. But whether we are concerned with a new or an already worked mine - at any rate, the experience should stimulate us into either reviving an existing system of shafts or even, in particularly fortunate cases, designing a new ap proach. (shrink)

Agamben’s thought gives us an interesting set of tools and references to critically analyse the logic of sovereignty haunting even the best intentions of Western biopolitics. As an alternative to the inherently disastrous logic of inclusive exclusion, he puts forward a strong vitalist, ontological way of thinking. This paper is an enquiry into whether that alternative is really valid. As far as his publications allow, the answer to this question must be negative. A careful reading of the passages on language (...) in both Homo Sacer I and III, is illuminating in this regard. This is because the passages on language in which Agamben develops his alternative logic do not overcome the logic of sovereignty denounced in the usual – representationalist – way of thinking the biopolitical. Those passages give no adequate answer to the representationalist way of treating the same problems, saying that the logic of sovereignty – of inclusive exclusion – is the logic we have to deal with even to find solutions for the disaster that logic has provoked and is still able to provoke. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, when the modern Self emerged in the shape of a self-assured Cartesian cogito, a radically opposite movement of ‘emptying’ or ‘deconstructing’ that Self took place. The religious subject, having become modern, understood its ultimate aim as becoming selfless. The battlefield on which the new subject fought the fight with its own modern condition was the issue of ‘love’. ‘What is the status of his Self when it is involved in the act of love?’ was the central (...) question in seventeenth century religiosity. This essay examines the early modern idea of pur amour and focuses only on two voices in the Querelle Du Quiétisme, François de Fénelon (1651–1715) and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). Fénelon vehemently defended the pur amour, a concept he adopted from a century-long tradition of spirituality in France and which he tried to explain and legitimize in a systematic and theoretical way. Malebranche was highly critical of that tradition, but refused neither to use the term nor to refer to the ideal of pur amour. His interpretation of the Self, however, forced him to draw different conclusions on the nature of pure love. (shrink)

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Without the support of imagination, one would not have the slightest idea of the cruel ‘real’ that has occurred in the Nazi extermination camps. Yet, in documentaries imaging the events of the Shoah, one runs the risk of missing their most basic property, namely their unimaginability. The mere idea that one is able to imagine the unimaginable comes down to a denial of the Shoah’s status as an event that defies our understanding. The unimaginable ‘real’ of the Shoah, however, is (...) not simply located in its object, in the cruelty of what happened in the camp. The Shoah makes us at the same time facing the unimaginable ‘real’ of the modern subject—the blind spot in our own identity. If we need imagination to deal with the Shoah, it is also because of an ungraspable ‘real’ in ourselves. This is why adequate Shoah representations, acknowledging their object as being beyond representation, include the same ‘beyond’ concerning the subject of the Holocaust memory. The essay makes this clear in an elaborated comparison of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 film, Shoah, with some conceptual works of art from the late nineties—all of this ‘fine-tuned’ in a reflection upon Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. (shrink)

§ 1. Prolegomena 1. Die Logik, die in diesem Lehrbuch entwickelt wird, ist bestimmt durch die folgenden Kennzeichen: (1) Sie fuBt auf derselben Ontologie wie die von erkennbaren Wider­ sprlichen befreite und in diesem Sinne vertretbare klassische Mathe­ matik. Flir diese Ontologie ist charakteristisch die Grundvoraussetzung, daB die Objekte der Mathematik und mit ihnen die mathematischen Bereiche an sich existieren, wie die platonischen Ideen. Mit Bezug auf diesen An-sich-Charakter sprechen wir von einer platonischen Ontologie. Flir diese Ontologie existieren die unendlichen (...) Bereiche beliebig hoher Machtigkeit als fertig vorliegende Objekte in derselben Art wie die durch Aufzahlung ihrer Elemente erfaBbaren endlichen Mengen und in gleichem Range mit ihnen. Die weittragenden Folgen dieser Auffassung sind in zwei Haupt­ punkten konzentriert. Erster Hauptpunkt: die Beurteilung der Potenz­ mengen. Mit den abzahlbaren Mengen existieren, genauso wie im end­ lichen Falle, auch ihre Potenzmengen, mit dem ihnen zukommenden Charakter der Uberabziihlbarkeit. Das Uberabzahlbare steht also gleich­ berechtigt neben dem Abzahlbaren. Zweiter Hauptpunkt: der flir den Platonismus charakteristische Gehalt des ausgeschlossenen Dritten. Es genligt hier, die mengentheoretische Formulierung dieses Prinzips ins Auge zu fassen. Sie besagt, daB eine flir die Elemente einer beliebigen Menge, also mit EinschlieBung der unendlichen Mengen von einer be­ liebigen Machtigkeit erklarte Eigenschaft allen Elementen der Menge zukommt oder es gibt (wenigstens) ein Mengenelement, dem sie nicht zukommt, unabhangig davon, ob ein solches Element angegeben werden kann oder nicht. Ein Anwendungsfall ist das der elementaren Zahlen­ theorie angeh6rige Prinzip der kleinsten Zahl. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s philosophy is an attempt to re-establish truth in modern thought. The main – and indeed sole – criterion for truth is universality, he argues in all of his works, including the one on Saint Paul on which this essay focuses. In this book, Badiou argues that most of Saint Paul’s doctrinal topics can be related to the main concerns of his own thought. Thus Paul’s belief in Christ’s resurrection illustrates his own theory of the ‘event’; Paul’s characterization of (...) the church is linked with his own theory of the subject; and, finally, Paul’s entire intervention can be seen as one of the first affirmations in history of truth’s main criterion: universality. This article demonstrates how an unarticulated assumption secretly sustains Badiou’s entire theoretical framework: his belief in universal truth is supported by a belief in being’s inherent goodness. Badiou’s ‘ontology’ thus appears not so exclusively formal as he claims. Through a confrontation between Badiou’s interpretation of Paul and a reading of chapter eleven in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the essay shows how the universality that Paul’s text claims contains an important element that Badiou’s reading – and his entire philosophy – neglects. This element involves a distorted dialectics that has resonances with both the Derridean concept of the ‘originary supplement’ and Lacan’s notion of ‘objet petit a’. The essay closes with some critical reflections on the way Badiou connects truth with time. (shrink)

iek's thinking departs from the Lacanian claim that we live in a symbolic order, not a real world, and that the Real is what we desire, but can never know or grasp. There is a fundamental virtuality of reality that points to the lie in every truth-claim, and there are two ways of dealing with this:repression and denial. An ideology, a system or a regime becomes totalitarian when it denies the virtual character of both its world and its subject (democracy (...) represses truth's basic lie, which makes it possible for the repressed to return). iek's analysis of totalitarianism, particularly Stalinism, shows how a totalitarian system denies its subject, which, being desire for the Real, cannot act in the name of truth but must acknowledge the contingency of its action (a political act can fail to reach its goal), whereas an established system can no longer fail and has to deny its flaws. Any political act disrupts the (evolution of) the symbolic order and thus is revolutionary, creating an event ex nihilo. An act is a jump into the inconsistency of the symbolic order, i.e. into das Ding, a jump both into and out of the nihil in which our world is grounded. Politics therefore can never be Realpolitik. The realization that politics is a symbolic phenomenon, supported not by the real, but by signifiers, is the Lacanian foundation of iek's political theory. (shrink)