Psychoanalysis and Ontology Alenka Zupančič Psychoanalysis (in its Freudo-Lacanian lineage) has been, among other things, a very powerful conceptual invention, with direct and significant resonances in philosophy. The “encounter” between philosophy and psychoanalysis has turned out to be one of the most productive construction sites in contemporary philosophy. It has produced some stunning new and original readings of classical philosophers and of classical philosophical concepts (such as subject, object, truth, representation, real), and opened a genuinely new vein in contemporary philosophy. At the moment when philosophy itself was just about ready to abandon some of its classical notions as belonging to its own metaphysical past from which it was eager to escape, there came Lacan and taught us an invaluable lesson: it is not these notions themselves that are problematic, what is problematic (in some ways of doing philosophy) is the disavowal or effacement of the inherent contradiction (“antagonism”) they all imply, and are part of. Which is why by simply abandoning these notions we are abandoning the battlefield, rather than winning any significant battles. In a similar, albeit not symmetrical way, psychoanalysis (also as clinic) has gained a lot by hanging on to, and operating with philosophical concepts, and by playing a part in philosophical debates. For in this way it remained itself involved in the general intellectual landscape and its antagonisms, which it has itself brought to light, rather than closing itself in a safely circumscribed specialized field of expertise and practice. And this was precisely the divide that Lacan kept pointing out, and which has been at the heart of his quarrel with (that is his expulsion from)
the IPA: the divide between psychoanalysis as a recognized therapeutic practice, appropriately confined to, or allocated, its field/feud, and what appeared as his intellectual (and practical) extravagances which were, quite literally, all over the place (philosophy, science, literature…). It was here, and not simply in the battle between different psychoanalytic orientations, that Lacan situated the real divide. “Intellectualization” was the key-word and the key insult referring to what he has been doing in his “teaching” (which itself took place outside of the psychoanalytic practice, and had a universal destination) – the insult coming from analysts which Lacan didn’t hesitate insulting back, calling them “orthopedists of the unconscious” and “guarantors of the bourgeois dream”. The alleged “intellectualization” was not due simply to Lacan’s persona (his own intelligence, erudition, ambition), but to what he recognized to be at the very core of Freud’s discovery, causing its main scandal: the Freudian unconscious (starting with the unconscious sexuality), was not some realm of obscure and dirty thoughts, its main scandal was, as he puts it, “that it was so intellectual”. If, however, the encounter between psychoanalysis and philosophy has proved to be a most inspiring and fruitful construction site for both, it seems that avoiding this site is lately becoming more and more of the mot d’ordre (or fashion) in both fields. Philosophers have rediscovered pure philosophy, and particularly ontology; engaged as they are in producing new ontologies, they see little interest in what looks at best as a regional theory corresponding to a particular therapeutic practice. (Lacanian) psychoanalysts, on the other hand, are busy rediscovering the “experimental” (clinical) core of their concepts, which they sometimes like to present as their holy grail – the ultimate real that they, and nobody else, are in touch with. In this respect the seminar will go – both methodologically and ideologically – against the grain of the “times we live” in, refusing to abandon the construction site in favor of more polished “conceptual products,” “services” or “singular experiences”. The seminar will be looking at and insisting on some of the key points and notions of the encounter between psychoanalysis and philosophy, which cannot be reduced to one or the other (nor to their “sum”), but constitute a genuine new way of “doing philosophy”. It will focus particularly on the ontological relevance and consequences of some of the key Freudo-Lacanian conceptualizations.
