This essay revisits Margaret Thatcher’s notorious claim: “There is no such thing as society.” Not only does this remark sum up the neoliberal political programmatic but it also, and more ...fundamentally, exposes an entire political ontology, which organizes the antisocial tendencies of the capitalist mode of production. After reflecting on the implications of Thatcher’s implicit stance in ontological matters, the text moves on to the critique of capitalist antisociality in Freud by reflecting specifically on the affective conditions of solidarity. In the end, the encounter of psychoanalysis and emancipatory politics, as well as their own solidarity, is exemplified in the concept of the symptom.
Psychoanalysis Michael Friedman, Samo Tomsic / Michael Friedman, Samo Tomsic
2016, 201612, 2016-11-07
eBook
The volume addresses the philosophical, epistemological and interdisciplinary aspects of the link between psychoanalysis and topology. Looking at the historical developments of psychoanalytic theory, ...one can hardly overlook the significant presence of architectonic and geometrical references that traverse Freud's writings. Lacan's return to Freud made a decisive step in taking these metaphors seriously and engaged with the mathematical correspondence of Freud's topological models. He thereby intensified the link with topology, which obtained an important didactic and conceptual value. The contributions highlight the ongoing relevance of this »topological turn« in psychoanalysis by exploring both concrete topological objects and outline the philosophical framework that supports the relation of psychoanalysis to topology.
Nowadays it is still common to see Deleuze and Lacan as two rivals standing on entirely opposite shores. The legitimation of this opposition is sought in Deleuze and Guattari's notorious Anti-Oedipus ...project, whose very name attacks one of the cornerstones of Freudian psychoanalysis, the Oedipal drama of castration and the corresponding notion of negativity. On the other side, Lacan's teaching is said to have pushed structuralism to the extreme, privileging lack and negativity, while also promoting an overall pessimistic vision of politics. However, this perspective could also be inverted. Deleuze and Guattari's project contains a peculiar radicalisation of psychoanalysis, a consequent substitution of the psychological with the schizological: schizo-analysis took a step further in the depsychologisation and deindividualisation of the mental apparatus, or if one prefers, of thinking. Anti-Oedipus pursued the anti-humanist orientation of their ‘arch-rivals’, structuralism and psychoanalysis, whereby it went beyond the boundaries of concepts such as structure and analysis. With Freud, psychoanalysis took the first step by abolishing the metaphysical hypothesis of the soul. The etymology of ‘psychoanalysis’ already contains this point: analysis (decomposition, dissolution, deconstruction) of psyché. Freud's discipline is anti-psychology, which still remains logos of psyche, the science of the soul. With the discovery of the unconscious no soulhypothesis could be sustained any longer, and in this respect Freud indeed produced a ground-breaking epistemological, philosophical and political rupture. From here on the subject could finally be envisaged beyond its anthropomorphic mask: the subject of the unconscious has no human face; it is a decentralised, constitutively alienated and split entity. Yet, Freud did not go beyond the split that the abolition of the soul revealed in the psychic reality. Consequently, psychoanalysis never made the effort to become more than a royal road to negativity, while other attempts to step out of Freud's shadow only amounted to worse. Jung's mysticism brought about the obscurantist regression, while the Anglo-Saxon development continues to represent a conformist regression in accordance with the demands of the free market ideology. Then there is Wilhelm Reich, the bastard psychoanalyst, who in an exaggerated and somewhat delusional way demonstrated that there is something beyond the schism of the mental apparatus discovered by Freud.
Risa y capitalismo Tomšič, Samo
Teoría y crítica de la psicología,
2019
13
Journal Article
Open access
This work stablishes an homology between the structure of political economy in Marx and the structure of jokes in
Freud. In a second movement, it underlines what they have in
common this homology ...between those structures: humor. After
isolate the joke as the common element in this homology, it shows
the difference between humor in capitalist’s discourse and humor
in psychoanalysis. It also shows how the laughter of the capitalist
is exactly the symptomatic point of capitalism: the place where it
is possible to articulate the origin of commodities value and the
concealment of this conflict by means of ideology. Finally, through
the figure of the saint in Lacan or the absurd joke in Freud, this
work shows some interruptions or alternatives to capitalist discourse.
O presente trabalho faz uma homologia entre a estrutura da economia política de Marx e a estrutura do chiste de Freud.
Em um segundo momento, enfoca o que há em comum nessa homologia: o humor. Depois de isolar o chiste como um elemento
comum nessa homologia, é mostrada a diferença entre humor no
discurso capitalista e humor na psicanálise. Ele também mostra
como o riso do capitalista é um ponto central que mostra o ponto
sintomático no capitalismo: o lugar onde a criação do valor das
mercadorias e ocultação através da ideologia é articulada. Finalmente, apresenta através da figura da santidade em Lacan ou do
absurdo do chiste em Freud as saídas ou interrupções do discurso capitalista.
El presente trabajo hace una homología entre la estructura de la economía política de Marx y la estructura del chiste en Freud. En un segundo momento se centra en aquello que hay en común en esa homología: el humor. Después de aislar al chiste como un elemento común en esta homología, se muestra la diferencia entre el humor en el discurso capitalista y el humor en psicoanálisis. Se muestra así mismo, cómo la risa del capitalista es un punto central que muestra el punto sintomático en el capitalismo: el lugar donde se articula la creación del valor de las mercancías y el ocultamiento por medio de la ideología. Finalmente, a través de la figura de la santidad en Lacan o del chiste absurdo en Freud como salidas o interrupciones al discurso capitalista.
The relationship between psychoanalysis and natural sciences is marked by a turbulent history. At its core, we find incompatible answers to the question whether psychoanalysis is (or should become) a ...“hard science”, or whether its concepts of truth and knowledge, its theory of language, or its notion of the unconscious are at all compatible with the predominant standards of scientificity. It is worth recalling that Freud and Lacan had strikingly different, sometimes entirely opposite views on the way psychoanalysis should stand toward the scientific disciplines. Throughout his teaching, Lacan cultivated an ongoing dialogue with natural sciences, while remaining consistently ambiguous
This paper aims at clarifying the structural ho-mology between Marx and Jacques Lacan’s thought from his seminar in 1968. First, on the basis of Saussure (temporali-ty) and Marx (economics), the ...Lacanian concept of the object a is examined. Its importance as theoretical concept is cru-cial, as it gives us the homology link between Marx’s sur-plus value, Freud’s unconscious work and the logics of market capitalism and exchange elaborated by Lacan through his notion of plus-de-jouir. Subsequently, we expose the formalization within the limits of symbolic order and materialistic discursive production based on the equivalence between structure and the real. Those are the conditions to understand the production of the social bond and the sub-jectivity in capitalism.
El artículo busca precisar la relación de homología entre Marx y el pensamiento del psicoanalista francés Jacques Lacan a partir de su seminario dictado en 1968. Primeramente, proponemos, a partir de los aportes teóricos de Saussure (temporalidad) y Marx (economía), matizar la importancia del objeto a como concepto teórico que homologa el vínculo entre la plusvalía planteada por Marx y el entendimiento del trabajo inconsciente postulado por Freud, en las lógicas del capitalismo de mercado y de intercambio articuladas por Lacan desde su noción de plus de goce. Ulteriormente, se plantea la necesidad de entender la formalización en los límites de producción discursiva simbólica y materialista a partir de la equivalencia entre la estructura y lo real. Condiciones necesarias para entender la producción del lazo social y la subjetividad en el capitalismo.
