Philosophy

philosophy (philosophie) Freud regarded philosophy as one of the great cultural institutions, alongside art and religion - the mark of a highly developed state of civilisation. However, he viewed the relationship between philosophy and pychoanalysis in ambiguous terms. On the one hand, he credited certain philosophers (such as Empedocles and Nietzsche) with having anticipated purely by intuition what psychoanalysts discovered only by laborious investigation (Freud, 1914d: SE XIV, 15-16). On the other hand, he repeatedly criticised philosophers for equating the psyche with consciousness and thus excluding the unconscious on purely a priori grounds (Freud, 1925e [1924]: SE XIX, 216-17), and likened philosophical systems to paranoiac Delusions (Freud, 1912-13: SE XIII, 73).

    In Lacan's work too there is an ambivalent relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy. On the one hand, Lacan opposes psychoanalysis to the totalising explanations of philosophical systems (Sl, 118-19; S11, 77), and links philosophy with the discourse of the MASTER, the reverse of psychoanalysis (S20, 33). On the other hand, Lacan's work is full of philosophical references; indeed, this is often regarded as one of the features that distinguishes Lacan from other psychoanalytic thinkers. The philosophers most frequently referred to by Lacan are the following:

e Plato Lacan often compares the psychoanalytic method to the Socratic dialogue (see DIALECTIc). He also refers specifically to a number of Plato's works, especially The Symposium, to which he dedicates a large part of his 1960-1 seminar.

ï Aristotle Lacan discusses Aristotle's typology of causation in the 1964

seminar (see CHANCE), and Aristotelian logic in the seminar of 1970-1.

e Descartes References to Descartes abound in Lacan's work, since he sees

the philosophy of the COGITO as summing up the very heart of the psychology of

modern man (S2, 6). The Lacanian concept of the subject is both the cartesian

subject (in its quest to move from doubt to certainty) and the subversion of the

cartesian subject.

e Kant It is Kant's moral philosophy (the Critique of Practical Reason)

which most interests Lacan, and he discusses this at length both in his seminar

 on ethics (1959-60) and his essay on 'Kant with Sade' (1962). Lacan uses

Kant's categorical imperative to throw light on the Freudian concept of the

superego.

 e Hegel       Lacan attended a series of lectures on Hegel given by Alexandre

KojËve in 1933-9 at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (these lectures were later

collected and published by Raymond Queneau; see KojËve, 1947). The

influence of these lectures on his work, especially his earlier work, is immense,

and whenever Lacan refers to Hegel it is KojËve's reading of Hegel that he has

in mind. From Hegel Lacan takes (among other things) an emphasis on

dialectical modes of thought, the concept of the BEAUTIFUL SOUL, the dialectic

of the MASTER and the slave, and a distinction between animal and human

DESIRE.

 e Heidegger         Lacan established      a personal friendship with Heidegger,

visiting him and translating some of his works. Heidegger's influence on

Lacan's work can be seen in Lacan's metaphysical discussions of BEING, and

in the distinction between full SPEECH and empty speech.

     These are only the philosophers to whom Lacan refers most frequently; he

also discusses the work of many other philosophers such as St Augustine,

Spinoza, Sartre, and others.

     Lacan's work engages with many philosophical schools and                areas of

enquiry. In his early work he shows a bent towards phenomenology, even

presenting a 'phenomenological description of the psychoanalytic experience'

in 1936 (Ec, 82-5), but he later becomes quite opposed to phenomenology, and

in 1964 presents a critique of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception

(Sll, 71-6). Insofar as psychoanalysis engages with ontological questions,

Lacan aligns psychoanalysis with MATERIALISM, againSt all forms of idealism.

Lacan also engages with epistemology and the philosophy of SCIENCE, where

his constant approach is rationalist rather than empiricist.

     Further information on Lacan's relationship with philosophy is provided in

Juranville (1984), Macey (1988: ch. 4), Ragland-Sullivan (1986) and Samuels

(1993).