Nous étudions ici l’une des figures les plus originales et les plus complexes de l’univers du dernier Merleau-Ponty, l’une des moins bien comprises aussi : la « promiscuité ». Aussi polymorphe que la célèbre figure de l’«empiétement », la «promiscuité » appartient en propre au complexe de la psychanalyse ontologique de Merleau-Ponty. Elle décrit d’abord la logique des rapports archaïques avec autrui, et se situe en cela dans la ligne du travail sur l’intercorporéité. Elle désigne aussi la modalité connaissante de (...) la chair, tout en indiquant notre résistance à celle-ci, notre ignorance naturelle de la chair comme être de promiscuité. Elle habite bientôt le cœur de la conception merleau-pontienne de l’inconscient, dans le prolongement des travaux de Paul Schilder sur l’image du corps. Enfin, elle vient renouveler dans les derniers manuscrits l’idée même de mystère ontologique. La chair, être de promiscuité, vit dans la promiscuité de l’être. Et la philosophie, d’après Merleau-Ponty, devrait être le savoir cohérent des visages apparemment si divers de cette ultime figure du lien. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to discuss an essay written by the French psychoanalyst André Green on occasion of the publication in 1964 of The Visible and the Invisible, in order to frame it within the context of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy for the sake of letting emerge both the critical importance and some structural issues implied in Green’s reading.Green’s study clearly points out that the question concerning Merleau-Ponty’s notion of “flesh” represents a fundamental theme for psychoanalysis, in connection with Lacan’s interpretation (...) of the unconscious as “structured as a language.” As Green would more widely stress in further works, he disagrees with Lacan and follows Merleau-Ponty on this point.At the same time, Green remarks that in Merleau-Ponty’s perspective there still remain two unsolved issues: his conceiving of the unconscious basically as “other side” and not, like in Freud, in terms of “other scene;” and the question concerning affects, seen as not sufficiently worked out within Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective. Yet, even if it is possible to accept some of the critical remarks made by Green, it is nevertheless also necessary to reformulate them within a wider and deeper reading of the ontology of the flesh.Le but de cet article est de discuter un essai écrit par le psychanalyste André Green à l’occasion de la publication en 1964 du Visible et l’Invisible, afin de le questionner dans le contexte de la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty et de laisser émerger à la fois l’importance critique et quelque problèmes implicites de la lecture de Green.L’étude de Green montre clairement que la question concernant la notion merleau-pontienne de « chair » représente un thème fondamental pour la psychanalyse, en rapport avec l’interprétation lacanienne de l’inconscient, selon lui, « structuré comme un langage ». Dans ses travaux suivants, Green insistera sur son désaccord avec Lacan et suivra Merleau-Ponty sur ce point. Au même moment, Green remarque que dans la perspective merleau-pontienne, il demeure deux problèmes non résolus : sa conception de l’inconscient en termes d’« autre côté » et non, comme chez Freud, d’« autre scène » ; et la question concernant les affects, qui n’est pas suffisamment travaillée au sein de la perspective phénoménologique de Merleau-Ponty. Cependant, bien qu’il soit possible d’accepter certaines remarques critiques de Green, il est néanmoins nécessaire de les reformuler au sein d’une lecture plus vaste et plus profonde de l’ontologie de la chair. In questo saggio ci si propone di discutere un saggio dello psicoanalista André Green, scritto in occasione della pubblicazione di Il visibile e l’invisibile in Francia nel 1964, e contenente alcune notazioni molto importanti per comprendere un determinato modo di ricezione dell’ontologia fenomenologica di Merleau-Ponty da parte di uno psicoanalista originale e competente sia in materia di fenomenologia sia di psicoanalisi.Lo studio di Green mostra un significato particolare sia in quanto segnala molto per tempo l’importanza dell’opera di Merleau-Ponty per la psicoanalisi, sia perché indica chiaramente alcuni snodi problematici che in seguito sarebbero stati spesso rielaborati da parte di lettori dell’opera di Merleau-Ponty appartenenti al movimento psicoanalitico. In questo saggio ci si propone dunque di esaminare le notazioni di Green e di metterle nel contesto del pensiero di Merleau-Ponty al fine di farne emergere sia l’importanza critica sia però anche alcuni problemi di fondo.Lo studio di Green indica con chiarezza come la questione della carne costituisca un tema fondamentale anche per la ricerca psicoanalitica, in particolare in relazione all’interpretazione data da Lacan al concetto di inconscio “strutturato come un linguaggio”. Come avrebbe in seguito più ampiamente mostrato, Green non è d’accordo con Lacan e in questo segue alcune indicazioni di Merleau-Ponty. Al contempo, non manca di far notare due problematiche irrisolte nell’ottica di Merleau-Ponty: il concepire fondamentalmente l’inconscio come “altro lato” e non, come in Freud, in termini di “altra scena”; in secondo luogo il problema dell’affetto, come tema irrisolto all’interno della prospettiva fenomenologica di Merleau-Ponty.Seguendo lo snodo di questo studio è possibile così far emergere con chiarezza il significato innovativo del concetto merleau-pontyano di carne, anche al di là dell’interpretazione di Green, quale possibile sfondo ontologico di una indagine categoriale sui concetti portanti della psicoanalisi. In definitiva se è lecito recepire alcune delle critiche mosse da Green a Merleau-Ponty, è però anche necessario riformularle all’interno di una più approfondita lettura dell’ontologia della carne. (shrink)

This article examines Merleau-Ponty’s idea of an “ontological psychoanalysis” and extends it in a close dialogue both internal to Merleau-Ponty (his reflection on fetishism and the Kleinian partial object, the phenomenology of hallucination, his dissolution of ontology and the resolution of the flesh in a framework of events or a becoming of becomings) and external to Merleau-Ponty: on the one hand, with Lacan and his Seminar X (the idea of the object little-a, its possible double reading as object-divergence and (...) as event of divergence always in progress); and, on the other hand, with the Bergson of Matter and Memory (his idea of the image in itself: in Lacanian language, a kind of splinter of the real, without relation, autistic, hallucinatory) and with the Bergsonian idea of philosophical gesture (that Merleau-Ponty himself takes up, as we know, in In Praise of Philosophy). The guiding idea is that a psychoanalytic process is an experimental ontology: experimentation with being and of being, and with a being that is the result of its own staging [mise en expérience], in its own becoming through experience and experimentations, in its own future as divergence and its own movement of diverging. And the idea is also that philosophy, or at least a certain idea of philosophy, that of Merleau-Ponty’s Praise, proceeds in the same direction.L’article interroge l’idée merleau-pontienne d’une « psychanalyse ontologique » et la prolonge dans un dialogue serré interne à Merleau-Ponty (sa réflexion sur le fétichisme et sur l’objet partiel kleinien, la phénoménologie de l’hallucination, la dissolution merleau-pontienne de l’ontologie et la résolution de la chair dans une trame d’événements ou un devenir de devenirs) et externe à Merleau-Ponty : d’un côté avec Lacan et son Séminaire X (l’idée d’objet petit a, sa double lecture possible comme objet-écart et comme événement d’un s’écarter toujours en cours) ; de l’autre côté avec le Bergson de Matière et mémoire (son idée d’image en soi : en langage lacanien, une sorte de scheggia de réel, sans relation, autistique, hallucinatoire) et avec l’idée bergsonienne de geste philosophique (que Merleau-Ponty lui-même reprend, comme on le sait, dans Eloge de la philosophie. L’idée directrice est qu’un parcours psychanalytique est une ontologie expérimentale : une expérimentation avec l’être et de l’être, et avec un être qui résulte de sa propre mise en expérience, dans son propre devenir par l’expérience et par les expérimentations, dans son propre advenir comme écart et son propre mouvement d’écartement. Et aussi, que la philosophie, ou au moins une certaine idée de la philosophie, celle de l’Eloge merleau-pontien, procède dans la même direction.L’articolo muove dall’idea merleau-pontyana di una “psicoanalisi ontologica” interrogandola e prolungandola in uno stretto dialogo interno a Merleau-Ponty (la sua riflessione sul feticismo e sull’oggetto parziale kleiniano, la fenomenologia dell’allucinazione, la dissoluzione merleau-pontyana dell’ontologia e la risoluzione della carne in una trama di eventi o un divenire di divenire) ed esterno a Merleau-Ponty: da un lato con Lacan e con il suo Seminario X (l’idea di oggetto a piccolo, la sua doppia lettura possibile come oggetto-scarto e come evento di uno scartarsi sempre in corso); dall’altro con il Bergson di Materia e memoria (la sua idea di immagine in sé: lacanianamente, una sorta di scheggia di reale, irrelato, autistico, allucinatorio) e con l’idea bergsoniana di gesto filosofico (che lo stesso Merleau-Ponty riprende, com’è noto, in Elogio della filosofia). L’idea guida è che un percorso psicoanalitico sia un’ontologia sperimentale: un esperimento con l’essere e dell’essere, e con un essere o di un essere risolto nel suo proprio sperimentarsi, nel suo proprio divenire per esperienze ed esperimenti, nel suo proprio accadere come scarto e nel suo proprio scartarsi. E che la filosofia, o almeno una certa idea di filosofia, quella dell’Elogio merleau-pontyano, proceda in analoga direzione. (shrink)

This essay considers the two-way relation between critical realism and psychoanalysis. Critical realism vindicates and deepens our understanding of ontology by drawing on the sciences for which it...

This article examines Merleau-Ponty’s idea of an “ontological psychoanalysis” and extends it in a close dialogue both internal to Merleau-Ponty (his reflection on fetishism and the Kleinian partial object, the phenomenology of hallucination, his dissolution of ontology and the resolution of the flesh in a framework of events or a becoming of becomings) and external to Merleau-Ponty: on the one hand, with Lacan and his Seminar X (the idea of the object little-a, its possible double reading as object-divergence and (...) as event of divergence always in progress); and, on the other hand, with the Bergson of Matter and Memory (his idea of the image in itself: in Lacanian language, a kind of splinter of the real, without relation, autistic, hallucinatory) and with the Bergsonian idea of philosophical gesture (that Merleau-Ponty himself takes up, as we know, in In Praise of Philosophy). The guiding idea is that a psychoanalytic process is an experimental ontology: experimentation with being and of being, and with a being that is the result of its own staging [mise en expérience], in its own becoming through experience and experimentations, in its own future as divergence and its own movement of diverging. And the idea is also that philosophy, or at least a certain idea of philosophy, that of Merleau-Ponty’s Praise, proceeds in the same direction.L’article interroge l’idée merleau-pontienne d’une « psychanalyse ontologique » et la prolonge dans un dialogue serré interne à Merleau-Ponty (sa réflexion sur le fétichisme et sur l’objet partiel kleinien, la phénoménologie de l’hallucination, la dissolution merleau-pontienne de l’ontologie et la résolution de la chair dans une trame d’événements ou un devenir de devenirs) et externe à Merleau-Ponty : d’un côté avec Lacan et son Séminaire X (l’idée d’objet petit a, sa double lecture possible comme objet-écart et comme événement d’un s’écarter toujours en cours) ; de l’autre côté avec le Bergson de Matière et mémoire (son idée d’image en soi : en langage lacanien, une sorte de scheggia de réel, sans relation, autistique, hallucinatoire) et avec l’idée bergsonienne de geste philosophique (que Merleau-Ponty lui-même reprend, comme on le sait, dans Eloge de la philosophie. L’idée directrice est qu’un parcours psychanalytique est une ontologie expérimentale : une expérimentation avec l’être et de l’être, et avec un être qui résulte de sa propre mise en expérience, dans son propre devenir par l’expérience et par les expérimentations, dans son propre advenir comme écart et son propre mouvement d’écartement. Et aussi, que la philosophie, ou au moins une certaine idée de la philosophie, celle de l’Eloge merleau-pontien, procède dans la même direction.L’articolo muove dall’idea merleau-pontyana di una “psicoanalisi ontologica” interrogandola e prolungandola in uno stretto dialogo interno a Merleau-Ponty (la sua riflessione sul feticismo e sull’oggetto parziale kleiniano, la fenomenologia dell’allucinazione, la dissoluzione merleau-pontyana dell’ontologia e la risoluzione della carne in una trama di eventi o un divenire di divenire) ed esterno a Merleau-Ponty: da un lato con Lacan e con il suo Seminario X (l’idea di oggetto a piccolo, la sua doppia lettura possibile come oggetto-scarto e come evento di uno scartarsi sempre in corso); dall’altro con il Bergson di Materia e memoria (la sua idea di immagine in sé: lacanianamente, una sorta di scheggia di reale, irrelato, autistico, allucinatorio) e con l’idea bergsoniana di gesto filosofico (che lo stesso Merleau-Ponty riprende, com’è noto, in Elogio della filosofia). L’idea guida è che un percorso psicoanalitico sia un’ontologia sperimentale: un esperimento con l’essere e dell’essere, e con un essere o di un essere risolto nel suo proprio sperimentarsi, nel suo proprio divenire per esperienze ed esperimenti, nel suo proprio accadere come scarto e nel suo proprio scartarsi. E che la filosofia, o almeno una certa idea di filosofia, quella dell’Elogio merleau-pontyano, proceda in analoga direzione. (shrink)

This paper explores the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious and critiques it from a phenomenlogical perspective, especially Sartre and Heidegger, with a view to conceptualizing the unconscious from an ontological rather than psychological mindset.

Self-presentation is a term that indicates conscious and unconscious strategies for controlling or managing how one is perceived by others in terms of both appearance and comportment. In this article, I will discuss the phenomenology of self-presentation with respect to the phenomenological insights of Edmund Husserl and Merleau-Ponty regarding the visibility of the body within intercorporeal relations through ‘behaviour’ and ‘expression.’ In doing so, I will turn to the work of the Canadian sociologist and social theorist Erving Goffman. Goffman’s account (...) of self-presentation suggests why embodied subjects adopt certain styles of ordered bodily behaviour as determined by the broader social order, giving existential and social significance to the ontological structures of intercorporeal bodily communication. Following Goffman, I will suggest that the embodied subject is continuously—and constitutionally—engaged in implicit and explicit strategies to manage how the body is presented to others. In articulating self-presentation as a feature of intercorporeality, my aim in this article is to use Goffman’s insights to extend Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of bodily communication by demonstrating that bodily communication that is instantiated at the level of intercorporeality is always expressed through social life with its various historical, cultural and linguistic dimensions. (shrink)

Unconscious Incarnations considers the status of the body in psychoanalytic theory and practice, bringing Freud and Lacan into conversation with continental philosophy to explore the heterogeneity of embodied life. By doing so, the body is no longer merely an object of scientific inquiry but also a lived body, a source of excessive intuition and affectivity, and a raw animality distinct from mere materiality. The contributors to this volume consist of philosophers, psychoanalytic scholars, and practitioners whose interdisciplinary explorations reformulate traditional psychoanalytic (...) concepts such as trauma, healing, desire, subjectivity, and the unconscious. Collectively, they build toward the conclusion that phenomenologies of embodiment move psychoanalytic theory and practice away from representationalist models and toward an incarnational approach to psychic life. Under such a carnal horizon, trauma manifests as wounds and scars, therapy as touch, subjectivity as bodily boundedness, and the unconscious 'real' as an excessive remainder of flesh. Unconscious incarnations signal events where the unsignifiable appears among signifiers, the invisible within the visible, and absence within presence. In sum: where the flesh becomes word and the word retains its flesh. Unconscious Incarnations seeks to evoke this incarnational approach in order to break through tacit taboos toward the body in psychology and psychoanalysis. This interdisciplinary work will appeal greatly to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as philosophy scholars and clinical psychologists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 1-7 [Access article in PDF] Clinical Practice, Science, and the Unconscious Douglas McConnell Neil Pickering Keywords psychotherapy, cognitive science, neuroscience, computational view of mind. This volume of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology is devoted to questions about the unconscious mind. The philosophical complexities and difficulties associated with the unconscious are many and, despite widespread confusion and disagreement as to the nature of the unconscious (...) mind, it is used as a concept informing psychotherapy. It is therefore not surprising that papers in a special edition on the unconscious might be weighted heavily toward uncovering a justifiable conceptual niche for the unconscious and elaborating on some of the main conceptual connections. Although this makes for a slightly more philosophical edition of PPP than usual, those perhaps less interested in philosophy and more interested in actual psychiatric practice can incorporate the concepts and insights developed in these papers into their practice as they see fit.The three main articles take three quite distinct approaches to the unconscious. Schechtman (2005) addresses the need for a theory of personal identity to incorporate the unconscious and presents one that does so by developing some central Lockian intuitions. Church (2005) investigates whether the kinds of things happening in the unconscious can be explained by cognitive operations not normally associated with consciousness, specifically, spatial structuring of experience. McConnell and Gillett (2005) clarify some of Lacan's ontology of the mind where the language encountered and used by the subject provides the structure for their unconscious.The aim of this introduction is to ask and try to answer a question that logically precedes those raised in the articles in the light of the therapeutic use of the unconscious. When dealing with psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic concepts in an Anglo-American context, the struggle that psychoanalysis has had and continues to have in a psychiatric domain ruled by science is never far from the spotlight. Indeed Hinshelwood (2005) also picks up the importance of this conflict when replying to McConnell and Gillett. It seems to be historically true that the unconscious has fallen out of favor in scientific and psychiatric circles (it is no surprise that psychiatric training is largely based in "hard," that is, biological and biochemical science) particularly over the last 50 years or so. But is the scientific skepticism to be found about the use of the unconscious well-founded? And how does the continued utilization [End Page 1] of the unconscious by the therapist fit into current practice given this skepticism? Psychotherapy and the Unconscious In psychotherapy, the therapist and the client together construct a story that explains why the client is having some form of difficulty in his or her life. The stated aim is to enable the client to overcome this difficulty by gaining an understanding of what has generated it. Doing so may be a first step to dealing with that conflict. For example, an office worker who is scared of the boss and whose life at work is a misery as result may come to think that the boss is a reminder of some threatening figure from childhood and that the reaction is a regression to infantile behavior. Knowing this, the fear of the boss can be revisited—perhaps reconfigured, perhaps overcome—and life may improve. In the process of therapy, the relation of the figure from childhood to the boss is made conscious. But it was still operative before it was made explicit, even though the client did not realize it and some would say that the client's unconscious had somehow buried the memory from childhood or hidden from the client the relation of this memory of a threatening figure to the boss.A description of the content of the unconscious is, then, an intentional description involving the client's thought life, one made to help an individual understand otherwise unintelligible (to that individual) feelings, beliefs, desires, actions, and so on. Subjects' intentions are their normatively structured mental representations of, and attitudes toward, the world (e.g., "He is my boss"; "I am afraid of him"). An intentional unconscious description then takes an intentional form... (shrink)

Because of risks of essentialism and homogenization, feminist theorists frequently avoid making precise ontological claims, especially in regard to specifying bodily connections and differences among women. However well-intentioned, this trend may actually run counter to the spirit of intersectionality by shifting feminists' attention away from embodiment, fostering oppressor-centric theories, and obscuring privilege within feminism. What feminism needs is not to turn from ontological specificity altogether, but to engage a new kind of ontological project that can account for the material complexity (...) of social space in the twenty-first century. Taking inspiration from the phenomenological concept of flesh as well as ecofeminism and María Lugones's theory of the colonial/modern gender system, this essay argues that our own flesh is related to that of others through lines of intercorporeal relations that collectively form topographies of flesh. When we attend to those material relationships present in a particular locality at a point in time, we are able to recognize topographical aggregates of beings that can serve as a basis for this new feminist ontology. An example from Toni Morrison's Beloved involving a human woman and a nonhuman one is used as a paradigm for thinking ontological connection and difference at the same time. (shrink)

In this article I draw on some personal experiences of my own as a springboard for a theoretical discussion of the contextuality of the several varieties of unconsciousness and, in particular, of a form of unconsciousness that I propose to call the ontological unconscious.

This essay is a second attempt to reconcile the perspectives of Merleau-Ponty and Guattari, following on the examination of the unconscious in a previous issue of Chiasmi. Here the focus concerns an ontology that overcomes the dualistic heritage of Western metaphysics. More precisely, I compare the concept of flesh as Merleau-Ponty employs it in his later texts with that of the machine as Guattari uses this from the end of the 1960s until his last writings in the early 1990s. (...) The machine concerns the potential for transformation in a given social and political configuration, so that the ontology to be drawn from this concept is a thought of transformation. The position of individual subjectivity in this context is not so different from that granted to it by Merleau-Ponty in his last writings: a curvature of the flesh or, as Deleuze and Guattari write about the artisan in A Thousand Plateaus, “one who is determined in such a way as to follow a flow of matter.”Cet essai est une deuxième tentative de rapprochement des perspectives de Merleau-Ponty et de Guattari, après la problématique de l’inconscient traitée dans un précédent numéro de Chiasmi. Cette fois elle a lieu sous l’angle d’une ontologie qui surmonte l’héritage dualiste de la métaphysique occidentale. Plus précisément, je mets en comparaison la notion de chair telle que Merleau-Ponty la met en oeuvre dans ses textes tardifs et celle de machine telle que Guattari l’emploie depuis la fin des années 1960 jusqu’à ses derniers écrits du début des années 1990. La machine concerne le potentiel de transformation dans une configuration sociale et politique donnée, de sorte que l’ontologie qu’on peut tirer de cette notion est une pensée de la transformation. La position de la subjectivité individuelle dans ce contexte n’est pas très différente de celle que lui accorde Merleau-Ponty dans ses derniers écrits : une courbure de la chair, ou comme l’écrivent Deleuze et Guattari dans Mille plateaux à propos de l’artisan, « celui qui est déterminé à suivre un flux de matière ».Questo saggio è un secondo tentativo di avvicinare le prospettive di Merleau-Ponty e di Guattari, dopo quanto fatto in un precedente numero di Chiasmi attorno alla problematica dell’inconscio. Questa volta, tale raffronto sarà nella prospettiva di un’ontologia che superi l’eredità dualistica della metafisica occidentale. Più precisamente, intendo confrontare la nozione di carne, nel modo in cui essa prende corpo nei testi dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, e quella di macchina di Guattari, nella maniera in cui è caratterizzata dall’autore a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta fino ai suoi ultimi scritti dell’inizio degli anni Novanta. La macchina riguarda il potenziale di trasformazione in una configurazione sociale e politica data, e quindi l’ontologia che ne deriva implica un pensiero della trasformazione. In questo contesto, la posizione della soggettività individuale non è molto diversa da quella caratterizzata da Merleau-Ponty nei suoi ultimi scritti: una curvatura della carne, o, come scrivono Deleuze e Guattari in Millepiani a proposito dell’artigiano, “colui che è determinato a seguire un flusso di materia”. (shrink)

This chapter argues for a rapprochement between Heidegger and Freud to gain a more unified, comprehensive, and holistic account of the human condition. While doing so, it explores the impact of Heidegger's philosophy on existential analysis and therapy by considering his global critique of Freudian psychoanalysis, and more specifically Freud's concepts of the Unconscious and the body. After a brief synopsis of his philosophy and its relevance for existential analysis, the chapter delineates Heidegger's critique of Freud's unconscious and considers how (...) Binswanger, Boss, and Richardson try to preserve Freud's insights within the context of Heidegger's philosophy. The exploratory process then leads us to see bodily being as pivotal for the development of a truly holistic account of human existence. The chapter argues that Heidegger's humanism and neglect of the ontological primordiality of bodily being ultimately led him to a dualism he ubiquitously fought to avoid. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 325-329 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis as Natural Philosophy R. D. Hinshelwood Keywords evolution, psychopathology, ethics, unconscious phantasy Andreas De Block has offered us a most fascinating paper. We do not have to agree with all his points to be profoundly stimulated by them. His core proposition is that Freud pathologizes ordinary psychology and personalities, as well as the abnormal. There has been (...) a perennial debate about whether, psychoanalytically speaking, there is a continuum from pathology to normality or if there is a discontinuity at some point between the two. Freud's famous quote—"much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness" (Breuer and Freud 1895, 305)—is ambiguous. Interestingly, De Block takes a hard stand on this; he not only assumes a continuum, but further he reads Freud as saying that all normality is neurotic. This is not a usual reading of Freud. De Block then expands this into a philosophical position. It is, he says, Freud's philosophy on the nature of mind.Freud himself was not interested in philosophy, and thought it largely irrelevant to psychoanalysis. In fact, he mused about the traffic being inevitably in the opposite direction—that philosophy might come to psychoanalysis. In discussing the work of a philosophically inclined analyst, he remarked, The decisive reason for the rejection of Putnam's proposals was the doubt as to which of the countless philosophical systems should be accepted, since they all seem to rest on an equally insecure basis.... It seemed more prudent to wait, and to discover whether a particular attitude towards life might be forced upon us with all the weight of necessity by analytical investigation itself. (Freud 1921, 270) Psychoanalysis, Freud thought, might be the very substance from which a philosophical system could emerge. De Block has followed that route; he has gone to Freud's writing to discovery a weltanshaung on which we might develop a philosophy of life. He has come back from his intellectual expedition with Freud's fascinating paper, published only in 1987 (discovered in 1983), "A Phylogenetic Phantasy." This was actually written in 1914, but Freud never published it and in fact destroyed his own copy of the draft. The paper has been called a "metabiology" (Gubrich-Simitis 1987), and deals with Freud's speculation on how a threatened species during the ice age developed certain biological and biopsychological traits1 necessary to survive the harsh environmental conditions. These traxits, which included the repression of libido, had significant side effects, namely, the pathologies arising from repression: the neuroses, perversions and psychoses. Moreover, today the environmental conditions no longer apply, so we are left with the side effects of traits that are no longer biologically useful. [End Page 325]So, De Block indicates at least the possibility of an evolutionary theory of the nature of mind. Even if Freud's Lamarckianism makes his particular speculative metabiology implausible, it is a way of thinking that suggests that a theory of mind can arise from biological understanding of its evolutionary development. However, De Block goes further. As a corollary, because Freud's view of the evolution of mind is to involve the evolutionary nature of psychopathology, then Freud's psychoanalysis can suggest an evolutionary psychiatry—that is to say, psychiatry can look for distant causes of mental disturbance in the vagaries of evolutionary influence.This way of approaching philosophy is interesting because it starts with the outcome of a scientific investigation of the human mind, just as Freud suggested in the passage quoted (Freud 1921, 270). The prospect is for a natural philosophy of mind, just as the physics of fundamental particles and the "big bang" prompt us toward a kind of natural ontology of the universe and its contents, arising from empirically tested facts.However, De Block is on rather uncertain ground with the evidence for his argument; he commits Freud to this biological speculation on the basis of a paper that Freud did not in fact publish and tore up.2 Even if Freud's reading of the evolutionary origins of man... (shrink)

This article explores the cannibalistic dimensions of racial disgust and desire in Michel Houellebecq’s Submission. Situated within broader discourses of French déclinisme, Submis- sion offers a melancholic portrait of white nostalgia. Through the tastes and consumptive practices of his characters, Houellebecq depicts white identification as dependent on an ambivalent relationship to corporeal difference. Paying close attention to the mouth’s dual function as a site of ontological triage (sorting out the human from the non-human, the edible from the inedible) and ontological (...) transformation (converting dead matter into living flesh), I argue that cannibalist desire is integral to white nationalist anxiety. (shrink)

This paper explores the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious and critiques it from a phenomenlogical perspective, especially Sartre and Heidegger, with a view to conceptualizing the unconscious from an ontological rather than psychological mindset.

This article reads Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the “flesh of the world” alongside the ontology that seems to undergird Frantz Fanon's sociodiagnostics as well as his theory of sociogeny. It argues that reading Fanonian sociogeny in terms of the ambiguity and intercorporeality of the flesh of the world renders the ethical and political imperatives of Fanon's decolonial project all the more pressing, since the “new human” is prefigured—if not totally determined—in the national consciousness obtained by “les damnés” through (...) the decolonization process. It then examines how Sylvia Wynter's Fanonian call to (re)fashion the future of humanness through (re)conceptualizing “being human as praxis,” also seems to rely on this ontology of the flesh of the world. Bringing these arguments together, the article suggests that the conceptual content of the new human can be found in the liberation struggles of les damnés across what Wynter calls the “poverty archipelagos” wrought by colonial humanism. Hence, the “new skin” for which Fanon calls is fashioned through forming international solidarity with les damnés, with the conceptual content of the new humanism emerging sociogenically—and autopoetically—from those struggles themselves. (shrink)

The notion of repression as active forgetfulness already found in Nietzsche and systematised by Freud and his successors is employed in a distinctive manner by Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception. By showing how we appropriate our environment towards outcomes and respond to other people, he contends, we can unearth hidden modes of operative intentionality. Two such modes are the motor intentional projection of action and the anonymous intercorporeality that includes touching and being touched. Each of these is an aspect of (...) a past that was never a present. Merleau-Ponty does have something to say about pasts that were once present and that linger on in human life. Yet he shows little interest in the unconsciousness of psychoanalysis for its own sake. Psychoanalytic accounts of repression are assimilated into his theory of the body itself, serving merely as means for illustrating the latter. I suggest that this move follows on a conception of an integrated existent whose past acquisitions are remarkably enabling and untroubling. (shrink)

In this conversation, which took place across several months in the year 2021, Elizabeth Grosz describes her position with respect to “new materialism” and “the material turn”: while she emphasizes the necessity of materialist thought in the current situation marked by a global pandemic, she also stresses the equal importance of what she calls “the incorporeal”: an excess in and of matter, materiality’s heterogeneous virtuality, differentiality and becoming-other. Grosz describes the incorporeal as mutually implicated with materiality in a way that (...) eschews both monism and dualism. The conversation roughly follows five topics: 1. How does one conceive of ontology without fixity? 2. How does matter “make sense”? 3. Can we think sexual differences beyond cisgender binarism and oppositional dualism? 4. What are the ethico-political implications of a materialist thought predicated on becoming and immanence? 5. Is psychoanalysis compatible with materialism, and is there a materiality of the unconscious? In the course of this exceptional interview, Grosz discusses the works of Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway, Sigmund Freud, Luce Irigaray, Karen Barad, Friedrich Nietzsche, and of course Gilles Deleuze, among many others... (shrink)

In Being and Nothingness (1943) Sartre includes a grounding-breaking chapter on ‘the body’ which treats of the body under three headings: ‘the body as being for-itself: facticity’, ‘the body-for-others’, and ‘the third ontological dimension of the body’. Sartre’s phenomenology of the body has, in general, been neglected. In this essay, I want to revisit Sartre’s conception of embodiment. I shall argue that Sartre, even more than Merleau-Ponty, is the phenomenologist par excellence of the flesh (la chair) and of intersubjective intercorporeity (...) while emphasising that touching oneself is a merely contingent feature and not ‘the foundation for a study of corporeality’. (shrink)

It is the praxis of being a subject in the world which enables psychoanalysis to theorise subjectivity. Freud theorised subjectivity from the perspective of desires, those repressed unconscious forces which conflict with the subjects’ need to live in the world. The upshot of this conflict for the subject is trauma and for psychoanalysis such trauma provides a way into a remedy, a cure, the presumption of psychoanalysis being that through its method of transference, it does indeed possess the knowledge to (...) pursue a remedy. Lacan offers a new interpretation of Freud by considering the subject as an ongoing ontological enigma in so far as subjective unconscious desire is not only (potentially) traumatic but necessarily (always) linguistic. How is this an ontological enigma? For Lacan the subject is first and foremost a speaking being engaged in an ongoing struggle to articulate unconscious desire. This is because, claims Lacan, we are born into language which not only pre-exists us but continues after death. In this way subjectivity is inescapably oriented to language as simultaneously intrinsic external to it. The unconscious is therefore a mixture of inside and outside, an enigmatic (pre)ontological space which Lacan calls extimacy. This essay seeks to explore Lacan’s orientation of the subject towards extimacy as the site of subjective conflict where, in its quest for the subject’s desire to know and handle the symptom, transference engages a new ontological dimension in which we can say that the extimate is structured like a sensation. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the fact that already in his early essay “The Logical Time” Lacan suggested that the “ontological form of anxiety” is the constitutive element in the process of the constitution of subjectivity, thus far there have only been rare attempts at inquiring into the relation between the affect of anxiety and Lacan’s critique of classical ontology, which this article will try to explore. Specifically, my argument will be that Lacanian anxiety, unlike, for instance, its Heideggerian variation, is inextricably connected (...) with the third dimension of being, which amounts to what Lacan in Seminar XI labelled “the unrealized,” i.e. to the peculiar structure of the unconscious, which distorts the classical ontological opposition between being and non-being. For Lacan, the unconscious, rather than referring simply to repressed unconscious content, is instead structured around a “pre-ontological” gap or “ontological negativity”. While anxiety notoriously “does not deceive,” it does not deceive only regarding the subject’s encounter with the real, but also – and most importantly – regarding the specific ontological structure of the unconscious, which includes the negativity as its own “material cause”. In this respect, anxiety might be regarded as an “ontological” or even objective material affect – yet not in a posthumanist sense of the affect of being/matter, but rather as the affective correlate or material signal for the fracture of being itself. In short, without this specific ontological gap/negativity, there would only be fear and frustration, not anxiety, which brings anxiety into the domain of metapsychology. (shrink)

El psicoanálisis existencial es una de esas críticas constructivas derivadas del psicoanálisis empírico que intenta abrirse camino como alternativa, renovación y modelo de terapia psicoanalítica. Ha encontrado una fundamentación óntico-ontológica desde la cual mostrar al ser descrito tal como se manifiesta en tres estadios concretos: el para-sí, en-sí y para-otro, para llegar a ver que las relaciones con los otros son las que nos provocan esos desequilibrios psíquicos. Nuestro psicoanálisis se plantea como una superación al psicoanálisis empírico en el rechazo (...) al postulado del inconsciente y en la elección que renuncia a suponer una acción mecánica del medio sobre el sujeto considerado a abandonar la simbología utilizada hasta entonces. El psicoanálisis existencial deberá ser enteramente flexible y amoldable a los menores cambios observables en el sujeto, ya que se trata de descubrir una elección no un estado. Como el psicoanálisis existencial tiene como objeto descubrir una elección, deberá tener siempre presente que su objeto no es algo hundido en las tinieblas del inconsciente, sino una determinación consciente y libre. Finalmente, la propuesta es una terapia psicoanalítica ya que la persona es una constante proyección en el mundo, el método existencial, se orienta desde el principio hacia una comprensión del ser y no debe asignarse otro objetivo que encontrar el ser y la manera de ser del ser frente a ese ser.Existential Psychoanalysis is one of the most constructive critics based on empirical psychoanalysis which attempts to open up new paths as an alternative, renovation and model of psychoanalytical therapy. An ontic-ontological foundation has been discovered from which it can be described in 3 different concrete states: for someone, in someone or for someone else, to be able to see that our relationships with others are those which cause psychic unbalance. Our psychoanalysis overcomes empirical psychoanalysis in rejection to postulate from the unconscious and in the election which renounces to suppose a mechanical action from the medium on the subject considered to abandon the symbology used until then. Existential psychoanalysis should be completely flexible and changeable to the minor changes which can be observed in the subject, now that it is a case of discovering an election not a state. Due to the fact that the psychoanalysis has as objective to discover an election, it should always have present that its objective is not something united in the darkness of the unconscious, but more of a conscious and free determination. Lastly, the proposition is a psychoanalytical therapy now that the person is a constant projection in the world, the existential method, which is oriented from the beginning towards an understanding of the being and another objective should not be assigned other than find ways of being and the way of being against that being. (shrink)

This article takes up Hortense Spillers’ conception of ‘ungendered’ flesh and Saidiya Hartman’s notion of the ‘position of the unthought’ occupied by the figure of the Black-qua-Slave in order to explore their resonance for considering the interrelations between anti-black racial antagonism, ontological positioning and hegemonic renderings of gender formation and sexual taxonomies. Examining the performance and reception of the recent Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch starring Taye Diggs as a case study, it asks what role race, and (...) specifically (anti-)blackness, plays in the representation, recognition and intelligibility of proper, (non-)normative gendered corporealities within the dominant imaginary and collective unconscious. (shrink)

Boldly focusing on sexuality as a crucial definer of social order, Being and Symptom argues that there is an "M theory" -- a master theory of theories -- not only in Quantum Physics, but also in Continental Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Sociology, disclosing how the ontological structure of the "fantastic four" ingredients of metaphysics (potentiality, impotentiality, actuality, completion) has recurred through time. Öğüt also seeks to turn Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy into a social theory within the fields of sexuality and sovereignty (...) and to locate parallels among Aristotle, Ibn Khaldun, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan, Agamben, Nash, Derrida, Girard, Kristeva, and Žižek, with a special emphasis on how Žižek has adapted Lacanian psychoanalysis into social theory. Öğüt conveys a highly original analysis of the unconscious of our social (sexual) relations, subjectivities, and politics. (shrink)

This article explores Catherine Malabou’s philosophical foray into neuroscience, especially her continuing work on the topics of brain plasticity and epigenesis. I lay the groundwork for a productive intersection of Malabou’s philosophy with Lacanian psychoanalytic film theory, despite Malabou’s tendency to treat the brain’s plasticity as an issue beyond the scope of the Freudian-Lacanian conception of the unconscious. Through consideration of Todd McGowan’s development of a Lacanian ontology, and by reference to the structure of derivative finance in late capitalism, (...) especially as depicted in The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015), the article argues in favor of an epigenesis of desire, in which attentiveness to the sedimented layers and conflicted temporalities of the brain’s synaptic connections may prove illuminating for philosophical studies of films that adopt a pedagogical stance toward recent historical or political events. (shrink)

Interwoven with natural structurations and personal history, the flesh , in Merleau-Ponty's gradually-forged conception, is nourished by the combined influences of neurology, Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis. This triple influence undergirds a recurring theme in his later writings: the mirror . "The flesh is a mirror phenomenon," Merleau-Ponty tells us. The unpublished manuscripts reveal that this famous clause refers neither directly to Husserl, nor to Wallon and Lacan, but is driven by contemporary readings of Paul Schilder and Wolfgang Metzger, who study (...) the phenomena of distanciated migrations of the body-image in vision. The mirror mingles objective body with phenomenal body, in an effective community between my lived body and its external image. It shows how the flesh lives both within and outside of itself, animated by an essential incompleteness that engages perception in a process of incorporation and, thus, hints at intercorporeity. (shrink)

The concept of “abused collective memory” gathers two of Ricœur’s main lines of concern: history and psychoanalysis. The article aims to explain how this convergence was possible, especially, when the transposition of the Freudian metapsychology from the individual to the collective level was hindered by the Ricœurian emphasis on the Freudian libidinal economy. Our hypothesis is that this convergence required two intermediate steps. The first one gathered psychoanalysis and history within the larger framework of otherness as flesh. The second step (...) was a transcendental turn, which would lead Ricœur to inquire about the structures of collective existence that make it possible to apply psychoanalytic categories at that level, rather than considering how this transposition can be done. By taking this turn Ricœur found that a phenomenology of the capable human being was the condition of possibility of a temporal ontology, and then, could describe this ontology as the condition of possibility of his phenomenology. (shrink)

Written in D. H. Lawrence's most productive period, 'Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious' and 'Fantasia of the Unconscious' were undertaken initially in response to psychoanalytic criticism of his novel Sons and Lovers. They soon developed more generally to propose an alternative to what Lawrence perceived as the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious and the incest motive. The essays also develop his ideas about the upbringing and education of children, about marriage, and about social and even political action. Lawrence described them (...) as 'this pseudo-philosophy of mine which was deduced from the novels and poems, not the reverse. The absolute need one has for some sort of satisfactory mental attitude towards oneself and things in general makes one try to abstract some definite conclusions from one's experiences as a writer and as a man'. These conclusions form an illuminating guide to his works and therein lies their peculiar value. (shrink)

"The king is dead. Long live the king!" In early modern Europe, the king's body was literally sovereign—and the right to rule was immediately transferrable to the next monarch in line upon the king's death. In The Royal Remains, Eric L. Santner argues that the "carnal" dimension of the structures and dynamics of sovereignty hasn't disappeared from politics. Instead, it migrated to a new location—the life of the people—where something royal continues to linger in the way we obsessively track and (...) measure the vicissitudes of our flesh. Santner demonstrates the ways in which democratic societies have continued many of the rituals and practices associated with kingship in displaced, distorted, and usually, unrecognizable forms. He proposes that those strange mental activities Freud first lumped under the category of the unconscious—which often manifest themselves in peculiar physical ways—are really the uncanny second life of these "royal remains," now animated in the body politic of modern neurotic subjects. Pairing Freud with Kafka, Carl Schmitt with Hugo von Hofmannsthal,and Ernst Kantorowicz with Rainer Maria Rilke, Santner generates brilliant readings of multiple texts and traditions of thought en route to reconsidering the sovereign imaginary. Ultimately, The Royal Remains locates much of modernity—from biopolitical controversies to modernist literary experiments—in this transition from subjecthood to secular citizenship. This major new work will make a bold and original contribution to discussions of politics, psychoanalysis, and modern art and literature. (shrink)

Topology of fear : psychoanalysis, urban theory, and the space of phobia -- Pasolini and the ugliness of bodies -- Wounds of testimony and martyrs of the unconscious : Lacan and Pasolini contra the discourse of freedom -- A theater of subtractive extinction : Bene without Deleuze -- Giorgio Agamben's Franciscan ontology -- Christianity or communism? Zizek's Marxian Hegelianism and Hegelian Marxism -- The body of structural dialectic :Badiou, Lacan, and the "human animal".

Of the topics found in psychoanalytic theory it is Freud's philosophy of mind that is at once the most contentious and enduring. Psychoanalytic theory makes bold claims about the significance of unconscious mental processes and the wish-fulfilling activity of the mind, citing their importance for understanding the nature of dreams and explaining both normal and pathological behaviour. However, since Freud's initial work, both modern psychology and philosophy have had much to say about the merits of Freudian thinking. Developments in psychology, (...) philosophy, and psychoanalysis raise new challenges and questions concerning Freud's theory of mind. This book addresses the psychoanalytic concept of mind in the 21st century via a joint scientific and philosophical appraisal of psychoanalytic theory. It provides a fresh critical appraisal and reflection on Freudian concepts, as well as addressing how current evidence and scientific thinking bear upon Freudian theory. The book centres upon the major concepts in psychoanalysis, including the notion of unconscious mental processes and wish-fulfilment and their relationship to dreams, fantasy, attachment processes, and neuroscience. (shrink)

The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of (...) dialectical materialism.Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences ; and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes. (shrink)

This book contains a series of essays that explore the concept of unconsciousness as it is situated between phenomenology and psychoanalysis. A leading goal of the collection is to carve out phenomenological dimensions within psychoanalysis and, equally, to carve out psychoanalytical dimensions within phenomenology. The book examines the nature of unconsciousness and the role it plays in structuring our sense of self. It also looks at the extent to which the unconscious marks the body as it functions outside of experience (...) as well as manifests itself in experience. In addition, the book explores the relationship between unconsciousness and language, particularly if unconsciousness exists prior to language or if the concept can only be understood through speech. The collection includes contributions from leading scholars, each of whom grounds their investigations in a nuanced mastery of the traditional voices of their fields. These contributors provide diverse viewpoints that challenge both the phenomenological and psychoanalytical traditions in their relation to unconsciousness. (shrink)

This paper interprets and extends Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s unfinished ontology of flesh in order finally to settle accounts with the Cartesian legacy that has hungover Western metaphysics for the last three centuries. The essay does this by advancing Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of two closely intertwined topics—the relationship of consciousness and Nature and the meaningfulness of Nature itself. Among other things, the essay seeks to explain the emergence of consciousness from Nature and defends a view of consciousness as the mobilization of the (...) powers of corporeity—including intercorporeity—to investigate, articulate, and creatively adumbrate Nature and Being as such. It does so by responding to natural resonances and rhythms, through intensities of feeling andthe perception of possibilities. (shrink)

“Mechanical objectivity,” which Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison trace to the mid-nineteenth century, often coincided with efforts to inscribe nature “directly,” such as through automatic registering machines. But what did this inscription entail? Addressing this question requires that we reexamine indexicalization: the shift in semiotic ideology whereby medial technologies are imagined and acted on as if they preserved material traces of the real. Indexicalization is no simple reflex of mechanical objectivity and is more varied and consequential than commonly imagined. This (...) essay demonstrates this by returning to the sciences of face-to-face interaction, which crystallized in postwar America but drew inspiration from earlier research on talk therapy. Returning to efforts to record psychoanalysis sessions in the early 1930s “objectively,” it chronicles a shift in the technosemiotic mediation of knowledge. Whereas transcripts were originally “verbatim” records of literal content, researchers came to seek tacit, symptomological signs. And whereas mechanical recording was introduced to avoid an observer effect, it was later deemed necessary to preserve indexical traces for fine-grained analysis. This indexicalization had ontological as well as epistemological effects, and it was inspired not by mechanical objectivity but by the parallel capacities of the perceptive psychoanalyst and the receptive mechanical recorder, both virtuosic in registering the indexical richness of the communicative unconscious. (shrink)

The chapter titled “The Body” in Being and Nothingness offers a groundbreaking, if somewhat neglected, philosophical analysis of embodiment. As part of his “es- say on phenomenological ontology,” he is proposing a new multi-dimensional ontological approach to the body. Sartre’s chapter offers a radical approach to the body and to the ‘flesh’. However, it has not been fully appreciated. Sartre offers three ontological dimensions to embodiment. The first “ontological dimension” addresses the way, as Sartre puts it, “I exist my (...) body.” The second dimension is the manner in which my body is experienced and utilized by the other. This includes my ready-to-hand equipmental engagement with the world and my body as the “tool of tools.” The third dimension is the manner in which “I exist for myself as a body known by the other.” In this paper, I explore Sartre’s original analysis and suggest comparisons with Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodiment. I shall suggest that Sartre offers more discussion on intercorporeality than Merleau-Ponty. -/- . (shrink)

_The Universal_ proposes a radically new philosophical system that moves from ontology to ethics. Drawing on the work of De Beauvoir, Sartre, and Le Doeuff, among others, and addressing a range of topics from the Asian sex trade to late capitalism, quantum gravity, and Merleau-Ponty's views on cinema, Dorothea Olkowski stretches the mathematical, political, epistemological, and aesthetic limits of continental philosophy and introduces a new perspective on political structures. Straddling a course between formalism and conventionalism, Olkowski develops the concept (...) of an ontological unconscious that arises from our "sensible" relation to the world-the information we absorb and emit that affects our encounters with the environment and others. In this "realm of the senses," or the field of vulnerability defined by our experience with pleasure and pain, Olkowski is able to rethink the space-time relations put forth by Irigaray's notion of the "interval," Bergson's "recollection," Merleau-Ponty's idea of the "flesh," and Deleuze's "plane of immanence." This aesthetic sense is shared by all humankind and nonhuman entities in the organic and inorganic world. The sensible universal can be applied to categories of pure and practical reason; experiential binaries of male-female and subject-object; and issues of autonomy, moral laws, and the regulation of perception. (shrink)

This book presents an original comprehensive approach to some of the most difficult problems concerning sense-perception and other mental states. After rejecting prevailing approaches, the author presents his own viewpoint which may be characterized as direct, critical realism. Basing his conclusions on conceptual analysis, psychological evidence and historical considerations, the author is able to offer new insights into traditionally unsolved problems concerning the nature of perceptual states, the ontological status of perceptual environment, the cognitive mechanism in perception and the explanation (...) of perceptual mistakes. The book also discusses the implications of this approach for other mental states such as memory and consciousness. (shrink)

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)

Dieter Flader explores how current social and cultural concerns are connected to the unconscious, and how this affects our responses to them. Flader focuses on the role of the ego, assessing how our feelings about these issues in adulthood grow from childhood fears and desires, and integrating the existing psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott, Lacan, Kohut and others with sociological and political theory. The interdisciplinary approach not only analyses current social issues but also generates new perspectives and solutions, and examines examples (...) including climate change, bullying and vegetarianism. (shrink)

The first extended treatment of Hegel’s theory of the unconscious and his anticipation of Freud.

Dieter Flader explores how current social and cultural concerns are connected to the unconscious, and how this affects our responses to them. Flader focuses on the role of the ego, assessing how our feelings about these issues in adulthood grow from childhood fears and desires, and integrating the existing psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott, Lacan, Kohut and others with sociological and political theory. The interdisciplinary approach not only analyses current social issues but also generates new perspectives and solutions, and examines examples (...) including climate change, bullying and vegetarianism. (shrink)

In this essay, I interpret the wildly successful book series Freakonomics as a discourse of perversion. Drawing upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and Žižekian cultural criticism, I first explore how the books function as neoclassical economic theory in practice, then I explain how the series enjoins us to adopt reading strategies that turn us into perverts. Perversion, rather than a moral judgment, is best considered a structural inversion of the position of enjoyment, schematized as a ◊$. Freakonomics seeks to explain all (...) human behavior as the result of a “hidden force” that organizes social reality—this force is, in every case, an ontological market structure that we all unconsciously obey. The result is that we end up identifying with the mechanisms of the capitalist free market rather than our own idiosyncratic, idiotic desires, and see our desires retroactively narrated as the result of these market mechanisms. If perversion is, following Lacan, about propping up the law, I argue that Freakonomics not only props up, but instantiates, the big Other of the market by disavowing a noneconomic space and registering all of social reality under a single market structure. Freakonomics gives readers, as Lacan puts it, the “ père-version ” of events. (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)

This dissertation argues that on the basis of their elaboration of and appeal to the Virtual, Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze operate a profound transformation of the Kantian conception of the transcendental. This implies a novel account of experience and its conditions, resulting in what I call Transcendental Experience---whereby the primary condition of experience, that is, time, becomes immanent to what it conditions. Through this revaluation of the transcendental, Bergson and Deleuze are ultimately providing us with an alternative to both (...) Kant's and Phenomenology's theories of subjectivity. Rooted in real experience rather than abstract forms, this approach points to the primacy of the unconscious over consciousness as the ground of subjectivity. With Bergson and Deleuze, then, it is ultimately to the ontological unconscious that we must refer thought and experience, thereby accounting for a radically novel conception of subjectivity, in terms of inhuman and inorganic difference or alteration rather than some postulated transcendental ego. ;Hoping to provide a contribution to the current scholarship concerning Bergson and Deleuze, I examine closely both what they have in common and where they diverge. Accordingly, I dedicate the first part of the dissertation to a comprehensive examination of Bergsonian metaphysics. I conclude that through his observation of the immediate data of consciousness, perception and memory in terms of concrete duration, he is able to offer a new philosophical method based in an original notion of intuition---a method which, I claim, eventually allows him to solve the problem of dualism. The second part of this project then turns to an examination of Deleuze's Transcendental Empiricism which, I argue, is directly inspired from Bergson's method of intuition. There, I focus on Deleuze's differential ontology, which leads me to an exploration of the role he ascribes to the Sensible, and consequently, to the artistic experience, as the primary ground---which, he shows, is also an ungrounding---of consciousness. Finally, I argue that over and above Bergson's ultimate privileging of continuity, Deleuze's prioritization of discontinuity allows him to address the great traditional philosophical problems while opening the future for thought and experience. (shrink)