Après avoir montré comment le concept de pulsion d’attachement, proposé par D. Anzieu, peut s’avérer fécond pour dépasser un certain nombre de polémiques qui ont eu lieu autour de la théorie de l’attachement, l’auteur fait ensuite l’hypothèse que ce concept, apparemment hérétique, permet peut-être de mieux articuler les processus de symbolisation en absence et en présence de l’objet.

Unquenched desire, the dividing up of the drives, repetition, and symptom are the keywords for the effects that the unconscious, as deciphered by Freud, has on the body. Harmony is not on the agenda, but rather the discordance, unlinking, and arrogance of cynical jouissances. It seems that the discourse of capitalism is today increasing their deleterious consequences - with all of these demonstrative suicides, but also suicides as diverse as those of terrorists, Tibetan monks, those beleaguered by the capitalist enterprise, (...) and all the hopeless of our time. Hence the question that Lacan posed concerning the possible "humanisation" of this denatured animal, about whom Freud did not hesitate to say that he is a wolf to man, even though he has always made community. What will the psychoanalyst say about possible solutions, he whose act excludes the call to norms of any kind? Humanisation? is the 2013-2014 volume of the annual seminar held by the author at the Clinical College of the Lacanian Field in Paris. (shrink)

Cet article compare deux livres majeurs : La Symbolique du mal, de Paul Ricœur et La Littérature et le mal, de Georges Bataille. L’articulation de ces deux penseurs que tout semble opposer répond à l’espoir de dégager une forme de compatibilité productive entre eux à travers leur intérêt commun pour le langage du mal. On insistera tout d’abord sur Ricœur : c’est en reconnaissant que le dire de l’expérience du mal passe d’abord nécessairement par un langage symbolique qu’il nous permet (...) de penser l’insistance de Bataille sur la place de la littérature quant au mal. On montrera ensuite que l’affirmation par Bataille d’une lucidité littéraire moderne du mal, tout en permettant de confirmer les thèses de Ricœur au sujet du caractère à la fois historique et langagier de l’expérience du mal, nous conduit aussi à en formuler la principale conséquence : que le langage du mal, marqué du sceau de la créativité poétique, ne peut sans doute pas être tenu pour achevé. On soulignera enfin l’intérêt de cette approche pour interpréter, avec la littérature, les nouvelles expériences du mal aujourd’hui. (shrink)

Die Universalitat der Gedanken, die Goethe in seinen dichterischen und wissenschaftlichen Werken schopferisch realisierte, beruhrte tiefe Einsichten der Philosophie. ALs deren Denker im eigentlichen Sinne wollte er nie verstanden werden - trotz seines fundamentalen Interesses an metaphysischen Grundfragen. Goethes Aussagen sind stets mit den Augen dichterischer Anschauung aufgefasst worden, weil er sah, dass die analogisch-bildhafte Zusammenschau tiefer in die vom Gottlichen herruhrende Gestaltung der Natur mit ihrer symbolisierenden Bilderwelt eindringen kann. DAs gilt besonders fur die Lehre von der Ewigkeit des (...) Seins und der Gattungs- und Artformen, welche die Urphanomene oder gottlichen Urideen symbolisieren. ES ist unmoglich Goethes Realismus der lebendigen Form auf Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin oder Thomas von Aquin (dem er unerkannt nahe war) und die deutsche Mystik oder Leibniz festzulegen. Goethe lehnte die rationalistische Schulphilosophie und die zeitgenossische Transzentalphilosophie ab. SEin Genie grundete originar auch in alteren Traditionen. (shrink)

La déshumanisation à l’œuvre dans le projet génocidaire et l’héritage d’un tel événement traumatique entraîne une catastrophe de la transmission et de la filiation. S’ensuit une impasse des processus d’identification et de différenciation sur plusieurs générations. Dans cette contribution, on interroge la nature des obstacles entravant le processus de deuil, de séparation et l’investissement de la vie après une catastrophe sociale. Il s’agit pour cela de rendre compte du travail de subjectivation nécessaire à l’appropriation de sa propre histoire et de (...) celle de sa propre famille de manière à pouvoir engager un processus de séparation/différenciation. À travers une étude de cas, l’article montre la pertinence d’une rencontre clinique « médiatisée » pour la compréhension et la perlaboration du vécu traumatique d’une famille survivante qui vit entre-soi. Nous discuterons, en particulier, l’apport de la photographie comme une première tentative de figuration des affects et de mise au travail des processus intermédiaires garants de leur symbolisation. (shrink)

Interprétant l’histoire de l’humanité comme la suite discontinue dans le temps des différents degrés d’ouverture de l’âme humaine au mystère du fondement de l’être, Eric Voegelin a cherché à rompre avec toutes les visions unilinéaires de l’histoire qui ont caractérisé la pensée occidentale depuis le XVIIIe siècle et ont constitué une forme désastreuse d’impérialisme spirituel. En 1970, le philosophe a voulu rendre explicites les principes de sa démarche dans un article intitulé « Equivalences of experience and symbolisation in history ». (...) C’est ce texte qui est ici traduit en français pour la première fois.Les équivalences de l’expérience et de la symbolisation dans l’histoire Interpreting the history of mankind as the discontinued temporal succession of the various degrees of openness of the human soul to the mystery of the ground of being, Eric Voegelin has tried to break with all the one-line histories, characteristic of the Western thought since the eighteenth century and forming a disastrous kind of spiritual imperialism. In 1970, the philosopher wanted to clarify the principles of his thought processes in an article entitled « Equivalences of experience and symbolisation in history ». This text is translated here in French for the first time. (shrink)

This paper focuses on symbolization as purity and translucidity of phenomena.

Current conceptions of human language include a gestural component in the communicative event. However, determining how the linguistic and gestural signals are distinguished, how each is structured, and how they interact still poses a challenge for the construction of a comprehensive model of language. This study attempts to advance our understanding of these issues with evidence from sign language. The study adopts McNeill's criteria for distinguishing gestures from the linguistically organized signal, and provides a brief description of the linguistic organization (...) of sign languages. Focusing on the subcategory of iconic gestures, the paper shows that signers create iconic gestures with the mouth, an articulator that acts symbiotically with the hands to complement the linguistic description of objects and events. A new distinction between the mimetic replica and the iconic symbol accounts for the nature and distribution of iconic mouth gestures and distinguishes them from mimetic uses of the mouth. Symbiotic symbolization by hand and mouth is a salient feature of human language, regardless of whether the primary linguistic modality is oral or manual. Speakers gesture with their hands, and signers gesture with their mouths. (shrink)

This essay seeks to ascertain the philosophical status of revelation in Kant's critical philosophy so as to come to a better understanding of the use of Scripture in his religious writings, especially Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone . In doing so it remains faithful to Kant's hermeneutic strictures according to which the bible must be expounded according to morality, in the sense of the categorical imperative, and its attendant pure practical postulates. Taking as clues Kant's repeated insistence in (...) several critical works that revelation must function symbolically, and the Religion 's most detailed discussions of the nature of biblical language, I argue for the account of the philosophical status of Scripture's narrative content being supplied in the 3 rd Critique's discussion of analogical schematism, and that Kant thus regards Scripture as possessing an aesthetic content. I follow Henry E. Allison's work in interpreting Kant's cryptic account of analogy in terms of his theory of aesthetic ideas, and show how such a connection amply illuminates Kant's use of Scripture. Finally, I ask how understanding revelation in terms of aesthetic ideas complies with Kant's demands for the philosophical irreducibility of rational morality, and demonstrate how Kant remains strictly consistent on this score whilst also guaranteeing Scripture a properly aesthetic content. (shrink)

The author analyzes artistic symbolization as the process by which the artist creatively embodies metaphysical reality in the work of art and evokes a spiritual and emotional response in the recipient.

In this article the philosophy of mathematics issues related to the procedure of mathematical symbolization are studied on the basis of phenomenon of implicit knowledge. The specificity of mathematical symbolization and conditions of its implementation, defines the role of mathematical symbolization in the development of mathematics. The author believes that the results can justify the thesis that the basis of mathematical symbolization is a priori epistemological ‘foundation‘. The author believes that the conclusions of the article significantly (...) limit the prospects of the popular contemporary philosophy of science epistemological relativism in the philosophy of mathematics, as well as in the theory of knowledge in general. Further studies on the role of implicit knowledge in the development of mathematics, according to the author, should contribute to the strengthening and further spread of a similar approach in the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Leibniz’s universal characteristic is a fundamental aspect of his theory of cognition. Without symbols or characters it would be difficult for the human mind to define several concepts and to achieve many demonstrations. In most disciplines, and particularly in mathematics, the mind must then focus on symbols and their combinatorial rules rather than on mental contents. For Leibniz, mental perception is most of the time too confused for attaining distinct notions and valid deductions. In this paper, I argue that the (...) functions of symbolization differ depending upon the kind of concepts that are replaced with characters. In my view, most commentators did not sufficiently underline the distinction between two main functions of formal substitution in Leibniz’s characteristic: either increasing our knowledge or simply structuring it. In the first case, we complete our knowledge because formal substitution makes sensible and imaginary concepts more distinct. In the second case, symbolization helps to organize contents that are already conceived of by reason. Thus the process of substitution is not always identically applicable, for symbols replace different types of concepts. (shrink)

Both a method of therapy and an exploration of psychic reality, free association is a fundamental element of psychoanalytical practices that refers to the way a patient is asked to describe what comes spontaneously to mind in the therapeutic setting. This paper examines the role of free association from the point of view of psychoanalysis and neuroscience in order to improve our understanding of therapeutic effects induced by psychoanalytic therapies and psychoanalysis. In this regard, we first propose a global overview (...) of the historical origins of the concept of free association in psychoanalysis and examine how Freud established its principles. Then, from Freud’s distinction between primary and secondary processes, we proceed to compare the psychoanalytic model with research originating from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The notions of entropy and free energy appear particularly relevant at the intersection of these different domains. Finally, we propose the notion of symbolizing transmodality to describe certain specificities of symbolization processes within free association and we summarize the main functions of free association in psychoanalytic practices. (shrink)

Peano was one of the driving forces behind the development of the current mathematical formalism. In this paper, we study his particular approach to notational design and present some original features of his notations. To explain the motivations underlying Peano's approach, we first present his view of logic as a method of analysis and his desire for a rigorous and concise symbolism to represent mathematical ideas. On the basis of both his practice and his explicit reflections on notations, we discuss (...) the principles that guided Peano's introduction of new symbols, the choice of characters, and the layout of formulas. Finally, we take a closer look, from a systematic and historical perspective, at one of Peano's most striking innovations, his use of dots for the grouping of subformulas. (shrink)

This analysis focuses on the role of appresentational orders in the “building of the lifeworld.” Based in phenomenology and the philosophy of culture, the article contributes to semiotics by further developing some of Göran Sonesson’s ideas on signs. Appresentation means that “absent” data is intended as co-present with a directly perceivable term within the unity of consciousness (Husserl). Alfred Schutz sees “marks,” “indications,” and “signs” as different types of couplings between “present” and “absent” data according to one single cognitive style (...) or “subworld.” These appresentational relations contrast with the more complex “symbols,” which are couplings between different styles or subworlds. For instance, a crucifix may co-present a “Latin cross” given to everyday perception with meanings belonging to the world of religion, making it “symbolically pregnant” (Cassirer). Beyond a mere coupling, appresentation is constituted by appresentational orders, which can reflect high relational complexity. Although Schutz introduced the concept of these orders, he, like Sonesson, misses their full potential for understanding appresentation. Signs and sign-like relations (such as marks and indications), which make possible (life)worldly communication, spatial and temporal orientation, and social organization, can be further differentiated according to the appresentational orders “dominant” in each certain case. In contrast, symbols, which ensure an experience of the lifeworld as a whole (Voegelin), that connect subworlds such as religion, science, dreams, etc., are rather to be characterized by a relevance “annihilation” between appresentational orders. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, philosophers have criticized the scientific understanding of the human body. Instead of presenting the body as a meaningful unity or Gestalt, it is regarded as a complex mechanism and described in quasi-mechanistic terms. In a phenomenological approach, a more intimate experience of the body is presented. This approach, however, is questioned by Jacques Lacan. According to Lacan, three basic possibilities of experiencing the body are to be distinguished: the symbolical (or scientific) body, the imaginary (or ideal) (...) body and the real body. Whereas the symbolical body is increasingly objectified (and even digitalized) by medical science, the phenomenological perception amounts to an idealization of the body. The real body cannot be perceived immediately. Rather, it emerges in the folds and margins of our efforts to symbolize or idealize the body, which are bound to remain incomplete and fragile. In the first part of the article (1-3), Lacan's conceptual distinction between the symbolical, the imaginary and the real body will be explained. In the second part (4-5), this distinction will be further clarified by relying on crucial chapters in the history of anatomy (notably Mundinus, Vesalius, Da Vinci and Descartes). (shrink)

The subject of the study is the figurative and symbolic reflection and transformation of the dynamic reality of life in the cinematic space of modern culture. The purpose of the work is to identify and substantiate trends in the development of cinematographic cultural texts based on the figurative and symbolic representation of the phenomenon of success in the existential space of human existence. The scientific novelty of the work is represented by the evidence base of the study, which determines the (...) figurative correspondence of the philosophical and sociological representation of cinematic texts to the phenomenon of success as a value-symbolic aspect of personal activity. Based on the analysis of cinema screen products created at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries and devoted to the characterization of the image of a subject whose existential level of being is characterized in the symbols of success/ failure, several trends in the development of cinematic culture can be identified. Firstly, the characteristic of the "sunset" of the previously dominant ideological trend of symbolization of the actual phenomenology of success. Secondly, the stage of axiological instability and ambivalence in the evaluation of the symbols of success, unevenly implemented in the scenario and staging part. And, thirdly, the formation and consolidation of new cinematic paradigms through the constant convergence of private symbols of success, manifested in different ways both in reality and on the cinema screen, and accompanied by constant attempts at their non-contextual universalization. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic practice and theory do not map together in any seamless ways. Nevertheless, the creative tension between the two is essential in the production of psychoanalytic knowledge. In this paper, I recount Emma’s psychoanalytic journey using a series of five vignettes from her four-year psychotherapy. When I met Emma, she had been unable to walk for six months. The reasons for her affliction were, at this time, mysterious. During her therapy, a transformative process took place reflecting a movement from symptom (...) to the symbolization of an inner receptive space. The insights that emerged from this psychic journey challenge the conceptualization of a simple linear progression from the pre-Oedipal to the Oedipal moment which is seen to structure subjectivity. I argue that the representation of a receptive inner space is a necessary precondition for thought – and this is especially so for women’s development of mind. This argument calls into question the centrality given to the Oedipus complex and the associated paternal function in the structuring of subjectivity in some psychoanalytic models of mind. I suggest these models sit too closely to patriarchal fantasies which underestimate the complex processes involved in entering the symbolic realm. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide an account of constitutive rules in terms of (1) the acceptance of regulative norms, and (2) a cognitive process we call “symbolization” (in an altogether different sense from what J. R. Searle means by this word). We claim, first, that institutional facts à la Searle boil down to facts concerning the collective acceptance of regulative norms in a given community. This, however, does not exhaust what institutional facts are. There is a residue, symbolization. (...) Symbolization, as we understand it, involves a transfer of cognitive models from one domain to another. We introduce this notion by exploring different sorts of games, taking our cue from games of pretend play. In the context of this exploration, we introduce the idea of the significance—a matter of degree—of symbolization for a given institutional concept. In particular, we claim, symbolization may play, vis‐à‐vis a given institutional concept, a properly constitutive or a merely auxiliary role. We further argue that, in most legal concepts as conceived in our legal culture, symbolization plays a merely auxiliary role. A possible exception is the concept of political representation, at least on some understandings of it. (shrink)

In this article, I sketch the major points of intersection between the work of Michael Polanyi and Susanne Langer. The concepts of articulation and symbolization make up the organizing frame of the article. Langer’s semiotic approach to mind and knowing in all their forms intersects in fruitful and challenging ways with Polanyi’s approach that is based on the analogy of skills and the model of perception. Rather than being alternatives to one another, or incompatible in essential ways, they enrich (...) one another with respect to“pushing meaning up and down,” to art, religion, the emergence of mind, and the limits of language. Their focal concern with types of meanings hold their intellectual projects together in a vital and illuminating tension. (shrink)

Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of (...) the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization. (shrink)

In the years 1675-84, Leibniz sought to disprove Descartes’s account of clear and distinct perception by implementing a three-step argumentative strategy. The first part of the paper reconstructs the argument and highlights what aspects of Descartes’s epistemology it addresses. The reconstruction shows that the argument is based on conceivability errors. These are a kind of symbolic cognition that prove Descartes’s clear and distinct perception as introspectively indistinguishable from Leibniz’s symbolic cognition. The second part of the paper explores the epistemic implication (...) of the indistinguishability between clear and distinct perception and symbolic cognition: the mind constitutively depends on products of the imagination. My conclusion addresses the role of the imagination in symbolization. Symbolization does not exceed imagination; it rather is an idealized use of cognitive surrogates, like characters, to submit to the imagination what is not subject to it. (shrink)

While sublimation is not the first word in psychoanalysis, it nevertheless constitutes the final aim of psychoanalytic thought in both its clinical and theoretical orientations. Indeed, if psychoanalysis is primarily a practice whose aim is to alleviate a patient’s sufferings, and if these sufferings are largely the result of a conflict between the exigencies of an individual’s drives and the necessities of a civilized social life, then effective therapeutic action presupposes some knowledge of the way in which such a conflict (...) might be resolved.Yet the concept of sublimation not only exhibits the ultimate horizon, the aim or even the ethical norm of therapeutic action, it also provides a striking outline of the conception which psychoanalytic theory has of the human being. Sublimation cannot be understood without a previous understanding of such key psychoanalytic concepts as the unconscious, drive and desire, sexuality and pleasure, dream and reality. Tying together the ultimate ends of psychoanalytic therapy with the first principles of ‘Freudian metapsychology’, a study of the notion of sublimation invites us not only to take an overall view of psychoanalytic theory, but also to test its coherence.It would not, then, be an exaggeration to say that the value of psychoanalysis as theory and as practice depends essentially on its ability to think sublimation and, more specifically, to think the relation between the economy of a singular libidinal body and the demands of a cultural life accomplished within a symbolic field transcending the individual. (shrink)

I’m one of those who is awed and impressed by the potential of this field and have devoted some part of my energy to persuading people that it is a positive force. I have done so largely on the grounds of its economic benefits and it potential for making the fruits of computer technology more generally available to the public — for example, to help the overworked physician; to search for oil and minerals and help manage our valuable resources; to (...) explore, mine, and experimentindangerousenvironments;toallowthenon-computingpublicaccesstovast libraries of important information and even advice, and in the process give real meaning to the.. (shrink)

One way to conceptualize human life is to describe it as a process through which the biological body is progressively transformed into a psychological one through its mentalization and symbolization. This process occurs through the relational field, which begins with caregiver-infant proto-conversations and develops through adolescence into the ongoing complex interpersonal relational network we call society and culture. The essence and the problems of adolescents are intricately tied to the social and cultural contexts in which they experience life. Therefore, (...) adolescence cannot be understood if all the levels that it expresses are not taken into consideration. We identify three psycho-historical phases through which adolescence has changed in the past century: Oedipal; Narcissistic; and Post-narcissistic. In this last phase due to the psychological and historical failure of the narcissistic ideals, the ideal is mingling with the real in a wholly new way. This process has overturned Erikson's paradigm: identity, opposed and defined by a dichotomic otherness, must be transformed into a fluid integration of similarities and differences negotiated and developed through empirical interpersonal intersubjective experiences. This, in our perspective, is a possible key to understand the rapid change in the nature of consciousness, selfhood, and gendering in today's western world, together with some important psychopathological disorders which describe the new creative challenges of today's adolescents. (shrink)