Changes

The relations between [[psychoanalysis ]] and [[philosophy ]] are close, [[complex]], and [[full ]] of [[conflict]]. [[Freud]], [[Lacan]], and a few [[other ]] writers assuming a [[psychoanalytic ]] viewpoint persistently situated themselves in relation to philosophy, making use of it and explaining psychoanalytic [[terms ]] by reference to it. For their part, [[philosophers ]] have regarded psychoanalysis with a mixture of [[fascination ]] and suspicion, and have subordinated it to the [[needs ]] and objectives of philosophy, which has allowed [[them ]] to contest or reject it.The [[meaning ]] and scope of [[Freudian ]] enquiry have been evaluated differently by the two disciplines. For Freud, philosophy has repeatedly been concerned with the question of the [[unconscious]]. Indeed, thinkers before Freud have posited the unconscious. In the philosophic [[tradition]], however, either the unconscious is [[mystic ]] and [[impossible ]] to grasp, so that its relation to the [[psyche ]] remained buried in obscurity (Eduard von [[Hartmann ]] and the Romantics), or the psyche was [[identified ]] with [[consciousness ]] (René [[Descartes]], Franz Brentano), with the result that [[psychological ]] investigation overlooked the unconscious. These philosophers misunderstood unconscious [[mental ]] [[activity]]. They did not suspect to what extent unconscious "phenomena" (primary and secondary [[processes]], the processes of the id and the ego) were similar to and yet different from [[conscious ]] phenomena.

Freud exposed the [[paradox ]] of the [[philosopher]], caught between the [[wish ]] for a totalizing and [[unifying ]] [[vision ]] and the [[need ]] to put an [[individual ]] stamp on his [[work]]. Freud believed that psychoanalysis could expose the [[subjective ]] and individual motivations behind [[philosophical ]] doctrines that claimed to result from an impartial effort of [[logic ]] (see his derivation of systems from two sources in <i>[[Totem ]] and [[Taboo]]</i> [1912-1913a]). Psychoanalysis can also demonstrate the weak points of a philosophical [[system]]. There is a link among these two findings, the [[singular ]] focus of philosophy on "conscious [[awareness]]," and the uncovering of philosophical paradox. To acknowledge unconscious processes is to recognize the [[impossibility ]] of any pure [[transparent ]] [[knowledge ]] of the [[world ]] and of [[thought ]] to itself. Less negatively, on the [[interpretation ]] of art proposed by Freud, philosophy could be considered an [[intellectual ]] work of art.Nonetheless, Freud maintained that psychoanalysis is a [[natural ]] [[science ]] with a specific [[object]]. For it has an empirical [[content ]] that is experienced in everyday [[psychic ]] phenomena and in [[analysis ]] and that is manifested in ways governed by a determined protocol: unconscious mental processes, [[infantile ]] [[sexuality ]] and the [[Oedipal ]] [[structure]], [[transference]], [[resistance]], and [[repression]]. This same content can be grasped a posteriori in fundamental [[concepts ]] and coordinated in a [[theory ]] that Freud called "[[metapsychology]]." As distinct from [[biology ]] and [[psychology]], metapsychology refers to a psychology that runs up against the unconscious. Freud did not hesitate to apply such conceptions to Immanuel [[Kant]]'s thought by suggesting, for example, that the [[superego ]] is the metapsychological version of the [[categorical imperative]]. As for the [[death ]] [[instinct]], Freud noted the differences but also the proximity of his [[concept ]] with that of Arthur Schopenhauer.Yet psychoanalysis wanted to go further. It seeks to "translate [[metaphysics ]] into metapsychology," that is, not only to [[capture ]] the subjective motivation of a philosopher but to propose a [[global ]] interpretation of mental [[life]], one of the most fundamental aspects of philosophy. For psychoanalysis, the mental [[process ]] takes [[place ]] in [[three ]] [[stages]]: "endopsychic perceptions," including unconscious psychic phenomena, supply an "obscure awareness"; this is objectified by [[projection ]] onto the [[outside ]] world and is reflected in the [[construction ]] of a supersensible world; finally, metapsychology translates this supersensible metaphysical world into a psychology that takes unconscious processes into account (Assoun, 1976).At the same [[time]], Freud downplayed his knowledge of philosophers, especially Friedrich Nietzsche—whether from [[fear ]] of [[being ]] dispossessed of his discovery or from [[real ]] [[ignorance]], it is difficult to say, especially given the ambiguous link that connects Freud to philosophy and science. Freud, who was initially very interested in philosophical thought (1985), attempted to reconcile in metapsychology (which he called "the metapsychological sorceress") his enthusiasm for [[speculation ]] and the requirements of [[scientific ]] [[practice]].It must be pointed out that Freud never contested the primacy of consciousness. For although the unconscious is located at the juncture of the psyche and the [[body]], it is inaccessible via the body. Therefore, it must be approached by the only avenue [[left ]] open to us: consciousness. It is through the data of consciousness, and principally [[language]], that we are able to infer unconscious processes.Throughout his life, the [[French ]] [[psychoanalyst ]] [[Jacques Lacan ]] always engaged with philosophy and philosophers. The landscape and aims of psychoanalysis have changed since Freud, but a [[secret ]] heritage remains. Lacan could rightly [[claim]], "What I tried to do with my Borromean [[knot ]] is [[nothing ]] less than the first philosophy that seemed likely to me to hang together." He referred to philosophy as an "irreparably mistaken path," against which psychoanalysis affirms its [[belief ]] in the unconscious. But his differences from Freud are considerable. Lacan's originality can be traced, at least partially, to his unique learning. He was grounded in contemporary philosophy and possessed an [[understanding ]] of modern science, especially [[linguistics]], [[mathematics]], [[mathematical ]] logic, information theory, and [[game ]] theory. Such science, profoundly connected to the nominalist current that appeared in European philosophy in the fourteenth century (William of Ockham) and was extended by Descartes and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, tends to [[separate ]] the [[sign ]] from the [[referent]], or [[signified]], and to emphasize the [[value ]] of the [[signifier]]. Even though he profoundly distorts the meaning of the concepts he borrows from philosophy and science, Lacan can be [[understood ]] only if the origin of those concepts is properly situated: the concept of the signifier arose in linguistics and nominalist thought, that of the real in its opposition to the world arose from Martin [[Heidegger]]'s concept of being-in-the-world (<i>[[Dasein]]</i>), that of the other and the [[big Other ]] (the primary caregiver) arose in reference to the work of Georg Wilhelm

Friedrich [[Hegel]]. Also important is philosophical [[thinking ]] on [[alterity ]] ([[otherness]]) in general (from [[Plato ]] to Hegel and Emmanuel [[Levinas ]] [1906-1995]).Indeed, it is difficult to talk [[about ]] [[desire ]] (a concept foreign to Freud) without recalling the [[discourse ]] of [[master ]] and [[slave]], about the [[subject ]] without reference to Descartes, or about the [[thing ]] without reference to Heidegger's or Kant's [[notion ]] of [[the thing]]-[[in-itself]]. But aside from his concepts, Lacan's [[project]], although not metapsychological, is to [[form ]] a distinct psychoanalytic discourse that diverges from [[university ]] discourse, to which philosophical discourse is assimilated (see Lacan's theory of the four [[discourses ]] [1991]). Through the construction and study of [[Borromean knots]], Lacan felt he was able to achieve what Freud had foretold: "There is a place beyond the Oedipal complex, where we enter into the [[reality ]] [[test ]] and where we [[experience ]] a <i>[[jouissance]]</i> [[[enjoyment]]] beyond the [[pleasure ]] [[principle]]." Lacan felt he had written the much sought-after philosophical discourse—a discourse that possessed, if not scientific rigor, at least philosophical rigor (Juranville, 1984).We again face the ambiguity confronted at the start: the [[nature ]] of the subject. Here the point of disagreement between philosophy and psychoanalysis has to do with the subject that engages in these discourses: even if the [[subject of the unconscious ]] is the [[Cartesian ]] subject (philosophical discourse), that subject, as conceived by Lacan, has been [[divided]], separated, and [[split ]] (psychoanalytic discourse). Lacan's relation to philosophy is original and singularly complex. It is impossible to adjust to the needs of psychoanalysis the logic of the signifier (for which Lacan's use of Borromean knots is the ultimate extension) and Freud's discovery of the unconscious without a misappropriation of philosophy, principally Descartes's "[[Cogito]], ergo sum" (I [[think]]; therefore I am) (Lacoue-Labarthe &amp; Nancy, 1992).Psychoanalysis always appears to the philosopher as a source of the [[uncanny]], which is difficult to integrate in [[rational ]] thinking. How can one practice philosophy after Freud? asked Monique Schneider (1989). There has been a dizzying array of responses to this question; here it will suffice to [[sketch ]] a few of the main arguments. The point of view generally adopted is that of the unconscious, which [[naturally ]] cannot be introduced without placing limits on the question. Marxists (Georges Politzer, Herbert [[Marcuse]]), phenomenologists (Eugen Fink, Jean-[[Paul ]] [[Sartre]], Maurice [[Merleau-Ponty]]), hermeneuticians (Paul [[Ricoeur]]), philosophers of the 1960s (Gilles [[Deleuze]], Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques [[Derrida]], Michel Henry), [[Ludwig Wittgenstein ]] and his commentators (Jacques Bouveresse), philosophers of science ([[Karl Popper]], Adolf Grünbaum), [[analytic ]] philosophers (in [[France]], [[Pascal ]] Engel, Centre de recherche en epistémologie appliquée [Center for Research in Applied [[Epistemology]]]) have all developed a discourse on psychoanalysis and the unconscious. Some of their criticism is directed at the scientific status of psychoanalysis, which is violently rejected by Popper, Grünbaum, and Bouveresse. [[Others]], such as Ricoeur, felt they could demonstrate its validity by treating it as a form of hermeneutics. Marcuse saw psychoanalysis as an [[instrument ]] of [[sexual ]] liberation. Deleuze saw it as an instrument of [[destruction]]: "In opposition to psychoanalysis I have claimed only two things: it breaks everything produced by [[desire, ]] it crushes every [[utterance]]. By doing so it shatters both sides of the arrangement: the mechanistic articulation of desire and the collective articulation of utterance." Lyotard made brilliant use of the concepts developed by Freud in <i>The Interpretation of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900a) to [[construct ]] an aesthetic philosophy. Others, like Henry in <i>Généalogie de la [[psychanalyse]]</i> (1985) or Jean-Marie Vaysse in <i>L'[[inconscient ]] des modernes</i> (1999), attempt to demonstrate how Freud's thought derived from Descartes "Cogito, ergo sum," as it did for Benedict de [[Spinoza]], Leibniz, Schopenhauer, and [[Nietzsche]]. [[Jacques Derrida ]] is a separate [[case]]. Even though, like his predecessors, he feels that only his principal concepts (here <i>différence</i> [[[difference]]], <i>archi-écriture</i> [original [[writing]]], [[deconstruction]]) are capable of addressing the arguments of psychoanalysis, among philosophers he remains, together with Lyotard, one of the most knowledgeable about psychoanalysis and, since the 1970s, one of the most engaged with psychoanalysis.The difficult relations between philosophy and psychoanalysis arise primarily from the fact that both investigate the same field, [[human ]] experience (including sexuality, life, death, [[suffering]], relations with the world in [[culture ]] and work) but operate within this field according to opposite principles, consciousness in the case of philosophy and the unconscious in the case of psychoanalysis. The unconscious is expressed in everyday life but is especially [[present ]] during analysis, where transference and resistance occur. Except for Derrida (1987; 1998), most authors do not really consider the reality of transference and its paradoxical nature. One thing is certain, however. A dialogue with philosophy and epistemology will enable psychoanalysis to better [[understand ]] its ambiguous status, which falls somewhere between science and [[fiction]].

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4: 1-338]]