Difference between revisions of "Seminar VII"
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− | At the root of the ethics is desire, but a desire marked by the "fault". Analysis' only promise is austere: it is "the entrance into-the-I," ''l'entrée-en-Je''. "I must come to the place where the ''Id'' was," where the analysand discovers, in its absolute nakedness, the truth of his desire. The end of the cure is then the purification of desire. Lacan makes three statements: one is only guilty of "having given in on one's desire"; "the hero is the one who can be betrayed with impunity"; goods exist, but "there is no other good than the one that can pay the price of the access to desire," a desire that is only valid insofar as it is desire to know. Lacan | + | At the root of the [[ethics]] is [[desire]], but a [[desire]] marked by the "fault". [[Analysis]]' only promise is austere: it is "the entrance into-the-I," ''l'entrée-en-Je''. "[[I]] must come to the place where the ''[[Id]]'' was," where the [[analysand]] discovers, in its absolute nakedness, the [[truth]] of his [[desire]]. The [[end]] of the [[cure]] is then the purification of [[desire]]. [[Lacan]] makes three statements: one is only guilty of "having given in on one's desire"; "the hero is the one who can be betrayed with impunity"; goods exist, but "there is no other good than the one that can pay the price of the access to [[desire]]," a [[desire]] that is only valid insofar as it is [[desire]] to [[know]]. [[Lacan]] lauds [[Oedipus]] at Colonus who calls down curses before dying, and he associates him with Antigone, walled up alive, who has not given in at all. Both have rejected the right to live in order to enter the "in-between-two-deaths," - ''entre-deux-morts'' - that is immortality. |
− | Since ''Le désir et son intépretation'', the analysis of the son's passion (subject) has become more pressing. Who is the Father? Here is the terrible Father of the primal horde (Freud's ''Totem and Taboo''); Luther's God with "his eternal hatred against men, a hatred that existed even before the world was born"; the father of the law who, as to Saint Paul, leads to temptation: "For me, the very commandment - Thou shall not covet - which should lead to life has proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, seduced me and by it killed me." Lacan adds, "I have put the Thing in the place of sin," denouncing the complicity between the law and the Thing, "which is called Evil." But what is the Thing against which the Father cannot or does not know how to defend himself? It has nothing to do with the object, which is created by | + | Since ''[[Le désir et son intépretation]]'', the [[analysis]] of the son's passion ([[subject]]) has become more pressing. Who is the [[Father]]? Here is the terrible [[Father]] of the [[primal horde]] (Freud's ''[[Totem and Taboo]]''); Luther's [[God]] with "his eternal hatred against men, a hatred that existed even before the world was born"; the [[father]] of the [[law]] who, as to [[Saint Paul]], leads to temptation: "For me, the very commandment - Thou shall not covet - which should lead to life has proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, seduced me and by it killed me." [[Lacan]] adds, "I have put the [[Thing]] in the place of sin," denouncing the complicity between the [[law]] and the [[Thing]], "which is called [[Evil]]." But what is the [[Thing]] against which the [[Father]] cannot or does not know how to defend himself? It has nothing to do with the [[object]], which is created by [[word]]s. It is the outside [[signifier]] and also the hostile outside [[signified]]: a mute reality prior to primal [[repression]] that puts in its place the pure [[signify]]ing web without being able to hide it. It is the center of the [[unconscious]] but it is excluded; it is the [[Real]] but always represented by an emptiness, the nonthing, ''l'a chose'', the nothing, a hole in the [[Real]] from which the [[Word]], the [[Signifier]], creates the world. It is the place of deadly ''[[jouissance]]'' sanctioned by the [[prohibition]] of [[incest]]. It is associated with the [[mother]] who represents it by her manifest carnality, and with [[woman]] who, idealized in [[courtly love]], [[speak]]s the [[truth]]: "I am nothing but the emptiness which is in my cloaca." The idea of a distorted [[sexuality]] meets the 70s mantra: "[[There is no such thing as a sexual rapport]]." [[Woman]], who is the other, bears the burden of the curse, although the [[Thing]] is settled at the heart of all [[subject]]s who have to recognize it. Who am I? "You are the waste that falls in the world through the devil's anus." However, salvation holds on by a thread: the theme of the exquisiteness of the son's love for the [[father]] would be amplified in ''D'un Autre à l'autre''. This [[father]] is a [[symbolic]] [[Father]], he is all the more [[present]] for [[being]] [[absent]], a [[Father]] without a [[body]] or the glorious [[body]] of [[signifier]]s, a [[father]] who can only be the [[object]] of an [[act]] of faith, for: [[there is no Other of the Other]]" to guarantee him. [[Sublimation]] is an attempt to confront the [[Thing]]: [[true]] [[love]] for one's neighbor consists in recognizing in him, as in oneself, the place and the wound of the [[Thing]]. As for disbelief, by rejecting the [[Thing]] it makes it reappear in the [[Real]], which is the [[Lacan]]ian definition of [[psychosis]]. |
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− | + | If ethical thought "is at the centre of our work as [[analyst]]s," then, in the [[cure]], [[ethics]] converges from two sides. On the side of the [[analysand]] is the problem of guilt and the pathogenic nature of [[culture|civilised]] [[morality]]. [[Freud]] conceives of a basic conflict between the [[demand]]s of [[culture|civilised]] [[morality]] and the essentially amoral sexual [[drive]]s of the patient. If morality takes the upper hand and the drives are too intense to be [[sublimation|sublimated]], [[sexuality]] is either expressed in [[perversion|perverse]] forms or [[repression|repressed]]. [[Freud]] further develops this idea in his theory of an unconscious sense of [[guilt]] and in his concept of the superego, that interior moral [[agency]] which becomes crueler to the extent that the ego submits to its [[demand]]s. The [[analyst]], on the other hand, has to deal with the pathogenic [[morality]] and [[unconscious]] [[guilt]] of the [[patient]] and with the ethical problems that arise in the [[cure]]. | |
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− | Yet,in relation to ''jouissance'', as well as being the object of language, ''das Ding'' is the object of desire. It is the lost object which must be continually looked for, the unforgettable Other, the forbidden object of | + | [[Lacan]] addresses the issue of how the [[analyst]] will respond to the [[patient]]'s sense of [[guilt]] by arguing that he must take it seriously, for whenever the [[patient]] feels [[guilty]] it is because he has given way to his [[desire]]: "the only thing of which one can be guilty is of having given ground relative to one's [[desire]]." As to the pathogenic morality acting through the [[superego]], [[Lacan]] asserts that [[psychoanalysis]] is not a libertine ethos. The ethical position of the [[analyst]] is revealed by the way that he formulates the goal of the [[cure]]. [[Ego-psychology]], for instance, proposes a normative [[ethics]] in the [[adaptation]] of the [[ego]] to [[reality]]. [[Lacan]] opposes this stance and devises an [[ethics]] relating [[action]] to [[desire]]: "Have you acted in conformity with the [[desire]] that is in you?" |
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+ | Traditional [[ethics]] ([[Aristotle]], [[Kant]]) revolves around the concept of the [[Good]], where different goods compete for the position of Supreme Good. Lacanian [[ethics]] see the [[Good]] as an obstacle in the path of [[desire]], thus "a repudiation of the idea of Good is necessary." It also rejects ideals, such as health and happiness. Traditional [[ethics]] tends to link the [[good]] to [[pleasure]]: moral thought has "developed along the paths of an hedonistic problematic." [[Lacan]] does not take such an approach because psychoanalytic experience has revealed the duplicity of [[pleasure]]: there is a limit to [[pleasure]], and when it is [[transgression|transgressed]], it becomes pain. ''[[Jouissance]]'' is the paradoxical [[satisfaction]] that the [[subject]] derives from his [[symptom]], the suffering he derives from his [[satisfaction]]. Finally traditional [[ethics]] puts work and a safe, ordered [[existence]] before questions of [[desire]] by telling people to make their [[desire]]s wait. [[Lacan]] forces the [[subject]] to confront the relation between his actions and his [[desire]] in the immediacy of the present. | ||
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+ | [[Lacan]] introduces the notion of ''[[das Ding]]'', the [[Thing]], via the opposition between the [[pleasure principle]] and the principle of [[reality]], this opposition, however, is deluding since the latter is but a modification of the former. Two are the contexts where ''[[das Ding]]'' operates. Firstly there is Freud's [[distinction]] between ''Wortvorstellungen'', word-presentations, and ''Sachvorstellungen'', thing-presentations. The two types are bound together in the preconscious-conscious system, whereas in the unconscious only thing-presentations are found. This seems to contradict the linguistic nature of the unconscious. [[Lacan]] counters the objection by pointing out that there are two words in [[German]] for "[[thing]]": ''[[das Ding]]'' and ''die Sache''. [[Freud]] employs the latter to refer to the thing-presentations in the unconscious, and if at one level ''Sachvorstellungen'' and ''Wortvorstellungen'' are opposed, on the [[symbolic]] level they go together. ''Die Sache'' is the representation of a [[thing]] in the [[symbolic]], whereas ''[[das Ding]]'' is the [[thing]] in the [[real]], which is "the beyond-of-the-signified." Thing-presentations found in the unconscious are of linguistic nature, as opposed to ''[[das Ding]]'', which is outside language and outside the unconscious. "The [[Thing]] is characterized by the fact that it is impossible for us to imagine it." | ||
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+ | Yet,in relation to ''[[jouissance]]'', as well as being the object of [[language]], ''[[das Ding]]'' is the [[object of desire]]. It is the [[lost object]] which must be continually looked for, the unforgettable Other, the [[prohibition|forbidden]] [[object]] of [[incest]]uous [[desire]], the [[mother]]. The [[Thing]] appears to the subject as the Supreme Good, but if the [[subject]] [[transgression|trangresses]] the [[pleasure principle]] and attains it, it is experienced as suffering or/and [[evil]] because the [[subject]] "cannot stand the extreme good that ''[[das Ding]]'' may bring on him." It would seem then fortunately that the [[Thing]] is usually inaccessible. | ||
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Revision as of 22:33, 21 June 2007
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I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII Index
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