Marcus Pound
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199552870
- eISBN:
- 9780191731037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552870.003.0029
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter explores the central role of the ressourcement theologians in mediating crucial currents of Catholic thought to post‐war critical theorists including the literary theorist Roland Barthes ...
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This chapter explores the central role of the ressourcement theologians in mediating crucial currents of Catholic thought to post‐war critical theorists including the literary theorist Roland Barthes (1915‐80), the medievalist, sociologist, and surrealist George Bataille (1889‐1962), and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901‐81). Particular attention is given to Jacques Lacan and his return to Freud. By highlighting the tangible and theoretical links to the nouvelle théologie, it offers not only a new perspective on Lacanian psychoanalysis and its relation to theology, but also what the practical working out of that relation might mean for theology today.Less
This chapter explores the central role of the ressourcement theologians in mediating crucial currents of Catholic thought to post‐war critical theorists including the literary theorist Roland Barthes (1915‐80), the medievalist, sociologist, and surrealist George Bataille (1889‐1962), and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901‐81). Particular attention is given to Jacques Lacan and his return to Freud. By highlighting the tangible and theoretical links to the nouvelle théologie, it offers not only a new perspective on Lacanian psychoanalysis and its relation to theology, but also what the practical working out of that relation might mean for theology today.
Kelly Oliver
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195327939
- eISBN:
- 9780199852444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327939.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter introduces the notions of psychoanalysis and the subconscious to further complicate the problem of deception and self-deception. It discusses the differences between humans and nonhuman ...
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This chapter introduces the notions of psychoanalysis and the subconscious to further complicate the problem of deception and self-deception. It discusses the differences between humans and nonhuman animals in the work of Jacques Lacan, posing the questions: To what degree is humans' capacity to lie a function of their capacity for speech? And is there a difference between pretending and pretending to pretend? The discussion follows Jacques Derrida in concluding that at least one difference between human and nonhuman animals is that “animals may be capable of deception, but man is the self-deceptive animal”. It suggests that the distinction between pretense and lie that Lacan rests on is unsupportable: nonhuman animals lie just as well as people do.Less
This chapter introduces the notions of psychoanalysis and the subconscious to further complicate the problem of deception and self-deception. It discusses the differences between humans and nonhuman animals in the work of Jacques Lacan, posing the questions: To what degree is humans' capacity to lie a function of their capacity for speech? And is there a difference between pretending and pretending to pretend? The discussion follows Jacques Derrida in concluding that at least one difference between human and nonhuman animals is that “animals may be capable of deception, but man is the self-deceptive animal”. It suggests that the distinction between pretense and lie that Lacan rests on is unsupportable: nonhuman animals lie just as well as people do.
Lydia H. Liu
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226486826
- eISBN:
- 9780226486840
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226486840.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on the work of Jacques Lacan and his 1954–55 seminars. It proposes a new interpretation of Lacan's theory of language and the symbolic chain and his notion of the unconscious by ...
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This chapter focuses on the work of Jacques Lacan and his 1954–55 seminars. It proposes a new interpretation of Lacan's theory of language and the symbolic chain and his notion of the unconscious by investigating the intellectual provenance of French theory typically associated with this central figure. Lacan's reinterpretation of Freud must be significantly rethought in tandem with what he had learned about game theory, cybernetics, and information theory when these theories were systematically imported to France from the United States. The use of writing espoused by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern to generate strategic moves in game theory was taken up by Lacan to think about the function of the psychic machine of the unconscious. This psychoanalytical work provides some unusual insights about the cybernetic unconscious of the postwar Euro-American world order.Less
This chapter focuses on the work of Jacques Lacan and his 1954–55 seminars. It proposes a new interpretation of Lacan's theory of language and the symbolic chain and his notion of the unconscious by investigating the intellectual provenance of French theory typically associated with this central figure. Lacan's reinterpretation of Freud must be significantly rethought in tandem with what he had learned about game theory, cybernetics, and information theory when these theories were systematically imported to France from the United States. The use of writing espoused by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern to generate strategic moves in game theory was taken up by Lacan to think about the function of the psychic machine of the unconscious. This psychoanalytical work provides some unusual insights about the cybernetic unconscious of the postwar Euro-American world order.
Lewis Michael
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636037
- eISBN:
- 9780748652457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636037.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter investigates the distinct positions in which Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida end up, with respect to the notion of writing. For Lacan, as a result of his originally wholly genetic ...
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This chapter investigates the distinct positions in which Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida end up, with respect to the notion of writing. For Lacan, as a result of his originally wholly genetic account of the human being, the ‘archi-writing’ that constitutes the signifier is not understood merely on the basis of the symbolic. There are in fact three aspects to Lacan's writing: the literary, the mathematical, and the diagrammatic. Archi-writing composes a positive signifier by overlaying the traces of all other signifiers. Lalangue is the moment at which, by failing to make sense, language ceases to communicate. For Lacan, archi-writing is also proto-writing, and for this reason, the transcendental and the genetic converge in the trace. Lacan's very work is another text written on top of Derrida's text: Lacan as an other writing, an other who wrote, and who wrote otherwise, with another writing.Less
This chapter investigates the distinct positions in which Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida end up, with respect to the notion of writing. For Lacan, as a result of his originally wholly genetic account of the human being, the ‘archi-writing’ that constitutes the signifier is not understood merely on the basis of the symbolic. There are in fact three aspects to Lacan's writing: the literary, the mathematical, and the diagrammatic. Archi-writing composes a positive signifier by overlaying the traces of all other signifiers. Lalangue is the moment at which, by failing to make sense, language ceases to communicate. For Lacan, archi-writing is also proto-writing, and for this reason, the transcendental and the genetic converge in the trace. Lacan's very work is another text written on top of Derrida's text: Lacan as an other writing, an other who wrote, and who wrote otherwise, with another writing.
Miriam Leonard
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199237944
- eISBN:
- 9780191706455
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237944.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
In her recent book Antigone's Claim, Judith Butler returns to a question once posed by George Steiner: What would have happened if psychoanalysis had taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point ...
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In her recent book Antigone's Claim, Judith Butler returns to a question once posed by George Steiner: What would have happened if psychoanalysis had taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? This chapter explores how the figure of Antigone has played a crucial role in the history of psychoanalysis in post-war France. As Luce Irigaray and Jacques Lacan compete for the figure of Antigone, Greek myth becomes the battleground for psychoanalysis and its definitions of woman. If psychoanalysis had taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure, it would have given rise to a more explicitly politicised understanding of the psychoanalytic sexual subject. The debate about ethics and politics in Antigone is also fundamentally a debate about feminism's relationship to politics.Less
In her recent book Antigone's Claim, Judith Butler returns to a question once posed by George Steiner: What would have happened if psychoanalysis had taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? This chapter explores how the figure of Antigone has played a crucial role in the history of psychoanalysis in post-war France. As Luce Irigaray and Jacques Lacan compete for the figure of Antigone, Greek myth becomes the battleground for psychoanalysis and its definitions of woman. If psychoanalysis had taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure, it would have given rise to a more explicitly politicised understanding of the psychoanalytic sexual subject. The debate about ethics and politics in Antigone is also fundamentally a debate about feminism's relationship to politics.
Seb Franklin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029537
- eISBN:
- 9780262331135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029537.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter examines the relationship between two socio-cultural formations: the narrative forms that have emerged in conjunction with the control episteme, and the attribution of notions of ...
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This chapter examines the relationship between two socio-cultural formations: the narrative forms that have emerged in conjunction with the control episteme, and the attribution of notions of programmability to human psychology. The chapter begins with a study of programmability as a general concept in Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s studies of computing, Manuel Castells’s work on global labor classifications, and the historical connections between cybernetics and neuro-linguistic programming. The chapter then addresses the midcentury relationship between psychoanalysis and cybernetics in the work of Lawrence Kubie and Jacques Lacan. The second half of the chapter situates the shifting narrative and visual form of films from the 1970s to the present in relation to a notion of programmable subjectivity that shifts from character to viewer. This section includes close analyses of films including Alan Pakula’s The Parallax View and so-called ‘post-cinematic’ works such as the Bourne films. This final chapter ends with a ‘Coda’ that discusses interactive media and the principle of targeting as a privileged mode of relationality, before returning to questions of exclusion and critique that have been central to the book as a whole.Less
This chapter examines the relationship between two socio-cultural formations: the narrative forms that have emerged in conjunction with the control episteme, and the attribution of notions of programmability to human psychology. The chapter begins with a study of programmability as a general concept in Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s studies of computing, Manuel Castells’s work on global labor classifications, and the historical connections between cybernetics and neuro-linguistic programming. The chapter then addresses the midcentury relationship between psychoanalysis and cybernetics in the work of Lawrence Kubie and Jacques Lacan. The second half of the chapter situates the shifting narrative and visual form of films from the 1970s to the present in relation to a notion of programmable subjectivity that shifts from character to viewer. This section includes close analyses of films including Alan Pakula’s The Parallax View and so-called ‘post-cinematic’ works such as the Bourne films. This final chapter ends with a ‘Coda’ that discusses interactive media and the principle of targeting as a privileged mode of relationality, before returning to questions of exclusion and critique that have been central to the book as a whole.
Gerald Moore
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748642021
- eISBN:
- 9780748671861
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748642021.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Chapter 1 opens through a discussion of Mauss's more explicit héritiers, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Georges Bataille, as two principal, albeit highly different proponents of new forms of knowledge ...
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Chapter 1 opens through a discussion of Mauss's more explicit héritiers, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Georges Bataille, as two principal, albeit highly different proponents of new forms of knowledge deemed irreducible to the broader concerns and remit of institutional philosophy. The main focus of the chapter is on Jacques Lacan. Drawing extensively on the historical background Lévi-Strauss, Hegel-Kojève, Freud and Bataille, the chapter is structured around the idea that the gift features extensively in the formation of each of the three registers of Lacan's pre-ontology: the symbolic ‘gift of speech’ of the earlier, more structuralist Lacan; the sacrificial gift of love in the imaginary; and, in the later, more Bataillean, Lacan, the traumatic ‘gift of shit’, the eternal return of a real that ungrounds the subject. Through sustained readings of many of Lacan's most important works, including the “Rome Discourse” and Seminars VII and XI, plus a range of responses from Boothby and Miller, Borch-Jakobsen, Žižek and Zupančič, we see that the work of Lacan is exemplary of the shift from more empirical understandings of gifts and exchange toward an increasingly abstract, theoretical conception of giving as an event that cannot be incorporated within the economic sphere of the traditionally-conceived subject.Less
Chapter 1 opens through a discussion of Mauss's more explicit héritiers, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Georges Bataille, as two principal, albeit highly different proponents of new forms of knowledge deemed irreducible to the broader concerns and remit of institutional philosophy. The main focus of the chapter is on Jacques Lacan. Drawing extensively on the historical background Lévi-Strauss, Hegel-Kojève, Freud and Bataille, the chapter is structured around the idea that the gift features extensively in the formation of each of the three registers of Lacan's pre-ontology: the symbolic ‘gift of speech’ of the earlier, more structuralist Lacan; the sacrificial gift of love in the imaginary; and, in the later, more Bataillean, Lacan, the traumatic ‘gift of shit’, the eternal return of a real that ungrounds the subject. Through sustained readings of many of Lacan's most important works, including the “Rome Discourse” and Seminars VII and XI, plus a range of responses from Boothby and Miller, Borch-Jakobsen, Žižek and Zupančič, we see that the work of Lacan is exemplary of the shift from more empirical understandings of gifts and exchange toward an increasingly abstract, theoretical conception of giving as an event that cannot be incorporated within the economic sphere of the traditionally-conceived subject.
Tina Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199566075
- eISBN:
- 9780191747359
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199566075.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This first part of the book explores questions of language, being, and desire in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s theology and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis, seeking to illustrate the ways in which ...
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This first part of the book explores questions of language, being, and desire in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s theology and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis, seeking to illustrate the ways in which Thomism has a pervasive influence on Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory. This chapter outlines key themes in Lacanian psychoanalysis, in preparation for the more detailed analysis that follows. It addresses questions of the human condition and the end of humanism in terms of universality, desire, and religion, drawing on the work of Lacanian theorists such as Erin Labbie, Kenneth Reinhard, and Julia Lupton. It explores how Lacan understands the relationship between language and desire, love and lack, and it relates this to his theory of castration and the Freudian Oedipus complex. It outlines Lacan’s critique of modern scientific atheism such as that represented by Richard Dawkins, and it explains what he means when he refers to the ‘unconscious God’ of modernity. It refers to the influence of Hegel and Freud on Lacan’s thought, and to the development of his ideas by thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupančič, and Luce Irigaray.Less
This first part of the book explores questions of language, being, and desire in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s theology and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis, seeking to illustrate the ways in which Thomism has a pervasive influence on Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory. This chapter outlines key themes in Lacanian psychoanalysis, in preparation for the more detailed analysis that follows. It addresses questions of the human condition and the end of humanism in terms of universality, desire, and religion, drawing on the work of Lacanian theorists such as Erin Labbie, Kenneth Reinhard, and Julia Lupton. It explores how Lacan understands the relationship between language and desire, love and lack, and it relates this to his theory of castration and the Freudian Oedipus complex. It outlines Lacan’s critique of modern scientific atheism such as that represented by Richard Dawkins, and it explains what he means when he refers to the ‘unconscious God’ of modernity. It refers to the influence of Hegel and Freud on Lacan’s thought, and to the development of his ideas by thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupančič, and Luce Irigaray.
John Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262101264
- eISBN:
- 9780262276351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262101264.003.0003
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
This chapter examines the “cybernetic subject” through the lens of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his participation (along with others, such as Noam Chomsky) in a new discourse network ...
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This chapter examines the “cybernetic subject” through the lens of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his participation (along with others, such as Noam Chomsky) in a new discourse network inaugurated by the confluence of cybernetics, information theory, and automata theory. It concludes with a double view of the chess match between Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue, which suggests both the power and limits of classic artificial intelligence.Less
This chapter examines the “cybernetic subject” through the lens of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his participation (along with others, such as Noam Chomsky) in a new discourse network inaugurated by the confluence of cybernetics, information theory, and automata theory. It concludes with a double view of the chess match between Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue, which suggests both the power and limits of classic artificial intelligence.
Andrea Hurst
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228744
- eISBN:
- 9780823235179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228744.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Jacques Derrida, it would seem, loves Jacques Lacan. It is, he insists, “for the love of Lacan” that he emphasizes the important political obligation to embrace a difficult ...
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Jacques Derrida, it would seem, loves Jacques Lacan. It is, he insists, “for the love of Lacan” that he emphasizes the important political obligation to embrace a difficult thinking that rebels against normalization. Lacan in turn is not entirely averse to being loved by Derrideans. Seemingly tied together by mutual respect and resistance, it is fair to expect a Derridean/Lacanian philosophical legacy that reflects a dynamic interchange of ideas. Yet, for a complex set of reasons, there is relatively little productive interchange between deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Derrida's writings on Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche reflect an attitude toward sexual difference and feminine sexuality that matches Lacanian insights. This book argues that Derrida's “plural logic of the aporia” can serve as a heuristic for addressing prominent themes in Lacanian psychoanalysis: subjectivity, ethics, and language.Less
Jacques Derrida, it would seem, loves Jacques Lacan. It is, he insists, “for the love of Lacan” that he emphasizes the important political obligation to embrace a difficult thinking that rebels against normalization. Lacan in turn is not entirely averse to being loved by Derrideans. Seemingly tied together by mutual respect and resistance, it is fair to expect a Derridean/Lacanian philosophical legacy that reflects a dynamic interchange of ideas. Yet, for a complex set of reasons, there is relatively little productive interchange between deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Derrida's writings on Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche reflect an attitude toward sexual difference and feminine sexuality that matches Lacanian insights. This book argues that Derrida's “plural logic of the aporia” can serve as a heuristic for addressing prominent themes in Lacanian psychoanalysis: subjectivity, ethics, and language.
David Howarth
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198292371
- eISBN:
- 9780191600159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198292376.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, Reference
An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is ...
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An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is given to the concepts of signification, antagonisms, political subjectivity, agency, hegemony, the hermeneutical tradition in social science, and how to apply deconstruction methods.Less
An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is given to the concepts of signification, antagonisms, political subjectivity, agency, hegemony, the hermeneutical tradition in social science, and how to apply deconstruction methods.
Lewis Michael
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636037
- eISBN:
- 9780748652457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636037.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter follows the unfolding of the imaginary, and at the same time, the effect this has on Jacques Lacan's understanding of the relationship between the symbolic and the real, and particularly ...
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This chapter follows the unfolding of the imaginary, and at the same time, the effect this has on Jacques Lacan's understanding of the relationship between the symbolic and the real, and particularly his understanding of the real. Lacan himself realised that his understanding of the relation between the symbolic and the real was inadequate. It then reports the story of the development of the imaginary from Lacan's early work to his late work. Lacan was attempting to explain purely genetically how culture could have arisen from nature. Furthermore, it explores how it is once again the imaginary form of man and certain elements of nature which are responsible for the generation of the symbolic as such. It determines how close Lacan comes to Jacques Derrida.Less
This chapter follows the unfolding of the imaginary, and at the same time, the effect this has on Jacques Lacan's understanding of the relationship between the symbolic and the real, and particularly his understanding of the real. Lacan himself realised that his understanding of the relation between the symbolic and the real was inadequate. It then reports the story of the development of the imaginary from Lacan's early work to his late work. Lacan was attempting to explain purely genetically how culture could have arisen from nature. Furthermore, it explores how it is once again the imaginary form of man and certain elements of nature which are responsible for the generation of the symbolic as such. It determines how close Lacan comes to Jacques Derrida.
Benjamin Y. Fong
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231176682
- eISBN:
- 9780231542616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231176682.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Uses Jacques Lacan's theory of the mirror stage as a point of departure for developing a new theory of aggressivity.
Uses Jacques Lacan's theory of the mirror stage as a point of departure for developing a new theory of aggressivity.
Andrea Hurst
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228744
- eISBN:
- 9780823235179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228744.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter deals with Jacques Lacan's complex articulation of “the transcendental relation”. Favoring more concrete metaphorics over mathematical symbolization, this ...
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This chapter deals with Jacques Lacan's complex articulation of “the transcendental relation”. Favoring more concrete metaphorics over mathematical symbolization, this chapter takes the articulated imagoes that appear in Lacan's early essays as an orienting armature to explain the “Gödelian structure” of the transcendental relation. These also serve to emphasize that other humans are the primary and most significant “objects” or “others” implicated in the constitution of the subject in the transcendental relation. The “other”, which takes the three generalized forms of Nebenmensch, alter egos, and speaking others, is not a neutral, inert object. The family complexes of Lacan's early writings offer a metaphorical organization that remains a productive and orientating heuristic for understanding the complexities of his account of the transcendental relation. By using these structural metaphors, Lacan is at pains to point out that subjective development is not shaped by instincts but by complex imaginary constructs that inaugurate drives. This chapter shows how each of these complexes may be read according to the three moments of the “plural logic of the aporia”.Less
This chapter deals with Jacques Lacan's complex articulation of “the transcendental relation”. Favoring more concrete metaphorics over mathematical symbolization, this chapter takes the articulated imagoes that appear in Lacan's early essays as an orienting armature to explain the “Gödelian structure” of the transcendental relation. These also serve to emphasize that other humans are the primary and most significant “objects” or “others” implicated in the constitution of the subject in the transcendental relation. The “other”, which takes the three generalized forms of Nebenmensch, alter egos, and speaking others, is not a neutral, inert object. The family complexes of Lacan's early writings offer a metaphorical organization that remains a productive and orientating heuristic for understanding the complexities of his account of the transcendental relation. By using these structural metaphors, Lacan is at pains to point out that subjective development is not shaped by instincts but by complex imaginary constructs that inaugurate drives. This chapter shows how each of these complexes may be read according to the three moments of the “plural logic of the aporia”.
Andrea Hurst
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228744
- eISBN:
- 9780823235179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228744.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
For Lacan, “successful negotiation of oedipal conflicts is quite literally a matter of learning to speak properly”. This chapter examines precisely what this means and how ...
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For Lacan, “successful negotiation of oedipal conflicts is quite literally a matter of learning to speak properly”. This chapter examines precisely what this means and how it is tied to questions of ethics and power. It examines Lacan's Seminar on the “Purloined Letter”, in which he capitalizes on both the literary metaphor and the ambiguity of the story's axial motif (namely, the “letter”, which allows for the play of multiple metaphorical manipulations) to demonstrate that the orders of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic can and must be understood in linguistic terms. This accords with his insistence on the fundamental importance of a linguistic theory in psychoanalysis and undergirds his call for psychoanalytic theory to situate Sigmund Freud's fundamental concepts “in a field of language” and to order them “in relation to the function of speech”. To read this seminar in terms of the “plural logic of the aporia” poses a direct challenge to Jacques Derrida's reading of this text. This chapter also looks at Barbara Johnson's seminal essay “The Frame of Reference”.Less
For Lacan, “successful negotiation of oedipal conflicts is quite literally a matter of learning to speak properly”. This chapter examines precisely what this means and how it is tied to questions of ethics and power. It examines Lacan's Seminar on the “Purloined Letter”, in which he capitalizes on both the literary metaphor and the ambiguity of the story's axial motif (namely, the “letter”, which allows for the play of multiple metaphorical manipulations) to demonstrate that the orders of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic can and must be understood in linguistic terms. This accords with his insistence on the fundamental importance of a linguistic theory in psychoanalysis and undergirds his call for psychoanalytic theory to situate Sigmund Freud's fundamental concepts “in a field of language” and to order them “in relation to the function of speech”. To read this seminar in terms of the “plural logic of the aporia” poses a direct challenge to Jacques Derrida's reading of this text. This chapter also looks at Barbara Johnson's seminal essay “The Frame of Reference”.
Michael Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636037
- eISBN:
- 9780748652457
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us ...
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This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us with a form of deconstruction different to Derrida's. This Lacanian approach opens up the possibility of engaging critically with Derridean deconstruction. Lacan demonstrates that an attention to the order of the imaginary, along with the genesis of the human being and his language, should cause us to modify our understanding of the relation between language and the real, which is deconstruction's concern. The book argues that this is what psychoanalysis offers to philosophy — a way of relating its own transcendental thought to the insights of the empirical sciences, which Lacan draws upon in his theory of the genesis of the human being and of language. The book argues that Derrida's thought represents the most advanced formulation of transcendental philosophy, and as a result, if the Lacanian criticism may be applied to his work, then it may be applied to all transcendental thought. This book engages with the entire development of Lacan's thought in its attempt to demonstrate that Lacan presents an alternative to Derrida's understanding of the nature of ‘archi-writing’. It represents a systematic development of Slavoj Žižek's attempt to present a Lacanian alternative to Derridean deconstruction.Less
This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us with a form of deconstruction different to Derrida's. This Lacanian approach opens up the possibility of engaging critically with Derridean deconstruction. Lacan demonstrates that an attention to the order of the imaginary, along with the genesis of the human being and his language, should cause us to modify our understanding of the relation between language and the real, which is deconstruction's concern. The book argues that this is what psychoanalysis offers to philosophy — a way of relating its own transcendental thought to the insights of the empirical sciences, which Lacan draws upon in his theory of the genesis of the human being and of language. The book argues that Derrida's thought represents the most advanced formulation of transcendental philosophy, and as a result, if the Lacanian criticism may be applied to his work, then it may be applied to all transcendental thought. This book engages with the entire development of Lacan's thought in its attempt to demonstrate that Lacan presents an alternative to Derrida's understanding of the nature of ‘archi-writing’. It represents a systematic development of Slavoj Žižek's attempt to present a Lacanian alternative to Derridean deconstruction.
Charles Shepherdson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227662
- eISBN:
- 9780823235353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227662.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter focuses on Lacan's ideas about memory and how these may intersect with some issues in the phenomenological tradition. The thread of memory can guide us through ...
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This chapter focuses on Lacan's ideas about memory and how these may intersect with some issues in the phenomenological tradition. The thread of memory can guide us through the labyrinth of Lacan's categories, the imaginary, symbolic, and real — but not without difficulties, which must be confronted in order to clarify a few technical details along the way, above all the twist that leads from the “Rome Discourse” to Seminar XI, from the Other to the object, along the path of the transference.Less
This chapter focuses on Lacan's ideas about memory and how these may intersect with some issues in the phenomenological tradition. The thread of memory can guide us through the labyrinth of Lacan's categories, the imaginary, symbolic, and real — but not without difficulties, which must be confronted in order to clarify a few technical details along the way, above all the twist that leads from the “Rome Discourse” to Seminar XI, from the Other to the object, along the path of the transference.
Jeremy Tambling
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719086731
- eISBN:
- 9781781705100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086731.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses Jacques Lacan's influential ‘return to Freud’. This ‘turn to theory’ in literature and cultural studies was also a ‘linguistic turn’: a new attention to language. Part of that ...
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This chapter discusses Jacques Lacan's influential ‘return to Freud’. This ‘turn to theory’ in literature and cultural studies was also a ‘linguistic turn’: a new attention to language. Part of that turn to theory included recognition of the centrality of psychoanalysis to literary criticism. The chapter considers the view that Lacan has always argued that language was Freud's concern, and that psychoanalysis has but one medium: the patient's speech. Psychoanalysis, Lacan felt, had ignored the signifier; ignored not just the point that the ‘talking cure’ works on speech, but that psychoanalysts were oblivious to what speech is.Less
This chapter discusses Jacques Lacan's influential ‘return to Freud’. This ‘turn to theory’ in literature and cultural studies was also a ‘linguistic turn’: a new attention to language. Part of that turn to theory included recognition of the centrality of psychoanalysis to literary criticism. The chapter considers the view that Lacan has always argued that language was Freud's concern, and that psychoanalysis has but one medium: the patient's speech. Psychoanalysis, Lacan felt, had ignored the signifier; ignored not just the point that the ‘talking cure’ works on speech, but that psychoanalysts were oblivious to what speech is.
Lewis Michael
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636037
- eISBN:
- 9780748652457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636037.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter considers Jacques Lacan's early psychoanalytic theory in such a way as to demonstrate where and how it is vulnerable to deconstruction. Deconstruction concerns the relation between the ...
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This chapter considers Jacques Lacan's early psychoanalytic theory in such a way as to demonstrate where and how it is vulnerable to deconstruction. Deconstruction concerns the relation between the text and the other of the text, the symbolic and the real. Lacan's own understanding of this relation may be reconstructed around two notions: the ‘name-of-the-father’ and the ‘phallus’. It is shown that the overwhelming tendency of Lacan's thought is to understand the relation between the real and the symbolic as an opposition. It then explores why a more ‘deconstructive’ notion of the relation is overwhelmed in this way. The phallus has two aspects: imaginary and symbolic. The phallus is an image of what stands at the very origin of the signifier. The name-of-the-father forces Lacan to adopt a transcendental rather than a genetic approach, and institutes a deconstructible relation between the real and the symbolic.Less
This chapter considers Jacques Lacan's early psychoanalytic theory in such a way as to demonstrate where and how it is vulnerable to deconstruction. Deconstruction concerns the relation between the text and the other of the text, the symbolic and the real. Lacan's own understanding of this relation may be reconstructed around two notions: the ‘name-of-the-father’ and the ‘phallus’. It is shown that the overwhelming tendency of Lacan's thought is to understand the relation between the real and the symbolic as an opposition. It then explores why a more ‘deconstructive’ notion of the relation is overwhelmed in this way. The phallus has two aspects: imaginary and symbolic. The phallus is an image of what stands at the very origin of the signifier. The name-of-the-father forces Lacan to adopt a transcendental rather than a genetic approach, and institutes a deconstructible relation between the real and the symbolic.
Charles Shepherdson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227662
- eISBN:
- 9780823235353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227662.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter sketches out some of the major issues that the concept of the real might engage. It suggests some general points of intersection between the real in Lacan and ...
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This chapter sketches out some of the major issues that the concept of the real might engage. It suggests some general points of intersection between the real in Lacan and other contemporary issues or thinkers — the “trace” in Derrida, the “incest prohibition” in Lévi-Strauss, the critique of Lacan's covert essentialism that one finds in some of Judith Butler's work.Less
This chapter sketches out some of the major issues that the concept of the real might engage. It suggests some general points of intersection between the real in Lacan and other contemporary issues or thinkers — the “trace” in Derrida, the “incest prohibition” in Lévi-Strauss, the critique of Lacan's covert essentialism that one finds in some of Judith Butler's work.
