24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
The '[[beautiful soul]]' (Fr.''belle âme'', Ger. ''schöne Seele'') is a stage in the [[dialectic ]] of self-consciousness which [[Hegel ]] describes in the''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]''.<ref>(Hegel, 1807)</ref>The [[beautiful soul]] projects its own disorder onto the world and attempts to cure this disorder by imposing 'the law of the heart' on everyone else. For [[Lacan]], the [[beautiful soul]] is a perfect [[metaphor]] for the [[ego]]; "the ego of modern man ... has taken on its form in the dialectical impasse of the ''belle âme'' who does not recognise his very own ''raison d'être'' in the disorder that he denounces in the world."<ref>(E, 70)</ref>In a more extreme way, the [[beautiful soul]] also illustrates the [[structure]] of [[paranoia]]c [[misrecognition]] (''méconnaissance'').<ref>(Ec, 172-3)</ref>The concept of the [[beautiful soul]] illustrates the way that [[neurosis|neurotics]] often deny their own responsibility for what is going on around them. The [[ethics]] of [[psychoanalysis]] enjoin [[analysand]]s to recognise their own part in their [[suffering]]s. Thus when [[Dora]] complains about being treated as an [[object]] of exchange by the men around her, [[Freud]]'s first intervention is to confront her with her own complicity in this exchange.<ref>(Ec, 218-19; see Freud, 1905e)</ref>
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Slavoj ŽižekPhilosophy]]