Ethics

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Revision as of 19:19, 25 April 2006 by Riot Hero (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search

Lacanian Psychoanalysis and The Philosophy of Ethics

Whereas Freud never systematically spoke on the ethics of psychoanalysis, Lacan devoted his pivotal seventh seminar (in 1959-1960) to precisely this topic. Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis goes to some lengths to stress that the position on ethics Lacan is concerned to develop is concerned solely with the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. Its central topic, in line with what we examined in Part 1 concerning the intersubjective structuration of subjective desire and identity, is the desire of the analyst as that Other addressed by the patient and implicated in the way s/he structures his/her desire through the transference. Nevertheless, it remains that Lacan develops his position through explicit engagement with Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, as well as Kant’s practical writings, and the texts of Marquis de Sade. Moreover, Lacan's ethics accord with his metapsychological premises, examined in Part 1, and his theorisation of language, examined in Part 2. In this Part 3, accordingly, I want to present Lacan's understanding of ethics as a sophisticated position that, disavowals notwithstanding, can be read as a consistent post-Kantian philosophy of ethics. Part 3 is divided into three sections. The first two sections develop further Lacan's metapsychological and philosophical tenets. Section i. involves a further elaboration of the Lacanian conception of the 'master signifiers'. Section ii. involves an exposition of Lacan’s notion of the 'fundamental fantasy'. Section iii. then examines Lacan’s later notion of ‘traversing the fantasy’ as the basis of his ethical position.