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{{Top}}matérialisme{{Bottom}}
By addressing the issues of psychogenesis, the [[mind]]/body problem, etc. [[psychoanalysis]] necessarily raises [[ontological]] questions.
The questions of whether [[Freud]]'s views can be considered materialistic or not is difficult to answer.
On the one hand, he insisted on the importance of the [[physical]] substratum of all [[mental]] events, in keeping with the materialist axioms of the [[science|scientists]] whom he had most respected during his studies (principally Hermann Helmholtz and Ernst Brücke). On the [[other]] hand, he opposed Charcot's attempts to explain all [[hysterical]] [[symptoms]] by reference to lesions in the brain, distinguished [[psychical]] [[reality]] from material reality, and constantly emphasized the [[role]] of [[experience]] rather than heredity in the aetiology of nervous [[illness]].
These two trends often converge in his writings in an uneasy alliance, as in the following [[sentence]]:
<blockquote>[[Analysts]] are at bottom incorrigible mechanists and materialists, even though they seek to avoid robbing the mind and spirit of their still unrecognized characteristics.<ref>{{F}} 1941d. (1921). [[SE]] XVIII p.179</ref></blockquote>
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[[Lacan]] too presents himself as a [[materialism|materialist]]; in 1936 he criticizes associationist [[psychology]] for not [[living]] up to its purported materialism, and in 1964 he argues that [[psychoanalysis]] is opposed to any [[form]] of [[philosophical]] [[idealism]].
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However, as with [[Freud]], [[Lacan]]'s declarations of [[materialism]] are highly [[complex]]. It is clear in [[Lacan]]'s earliest statements on the [[subject]] that he conceives of [[materialism]] in a very [[particular]] way. In 1936, for example, he argues that [[materialism]] does not imply a [[rejection]] of the [[categories]] of [[intentionality]] and [[meaning]], <ref>{{Ec}} p. 76-8</ref> and he rejects the simplistic [[idea]] of 'matter' as "a naive form which has been [[left]] behind by authentic materialism."<ref>{{Ec}} p.90</ref>
In 1946 he repeatedly criticizes the crude form of [[materialism]] which regards [[thought]] as a mere "epiphenomenon."<ref>{{Ec}} p.159</ref> And in 1956 he distinguishes between a "naturalist materialism" and a "[[Freudian]] materialism".<ref>{{Ec}} p.465-6</ref>
It is clear, then, that [[Lacan]] does not subscribe to a kind of [[materialism]] which reduces all [[cause|causation]] to a crude [[economic]] [[determinism]] which regards all [[cultural]] phenomena (including [[language]]) as a mere superstructure,"<ref>{{E}} p.125</ref> and argues that [[language]] "is something material."<ref>{{S2}} p.82</ref>
On these grounds he declares that the importance he attributes to [[language]] is perfectly compatible with historical [[materialism]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.875-6</ref>
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[[Lacan]]'s [[materialism]] is thus a [[materialism]] of the [[signifier]]:
<blockquote>"the point of view I am trying to maintain before you involves a certain materialism of the elements in question, in the [[sense]] that the [[signifiers]] are well and truly embodied, and materialized."<ref>{{S3}} p.289</ref></blockquote>
However, the materiality of the [[signifier]] does not refer to a tangible inscription but to its indivisibility:
<blockquote>"But if we have insisted firstly on the materiality of the signifier, this materiality is [[singular]] in many ways, the first of which is that the signifier does not withstand partition."<ref>{{Ec}} p.24</ref></blockquote>
The [[signifier]] in its material [[dimension]], the [[real]] aspect of the [[signifier]], is the [[letter]].
It is [[Lacan]]'s "[[materialism|materialism of the signifier]]" which leads him to give "a materialist definition of the phenomenon of [[consciousness]]."<ref>{{S2}} p. 40-52</ref>
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[[Lacan]]'s claims that his [[theory]] of the [[signifier]] is a materialist theory are disputed by [[Derrida]], who argues that [[Lacan]]'s [[concept]] of the [[letter]] betrays an implicit idealism.<ref>Derrida. 1975.</ref>
==See Also==
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
