Subjectivity and Otherness A Philosophical Reading of Lacan

by Chiesa, Lorenzo

• ISBN13: 9780262532945
• ISBN10: 0262532948
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-28
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Countering the call by some "pro-Lacanians" for an end to the exegesis of Lacan's work-and the dismissal by "anti-Lacanians" of Lacan as impossibly impenetrable-Subjectivity and Othernessargues for Lacan as a "paradoxically systematic" thinker, and for the necessity of a close analysis of his texts. Lorenzo Chiesa examines, from a philosophical perspective, the evolution of the concept of subjectivity in Lacan's work, carrying out a detailed reading of the Lacanian subject in its necessary relation to otherness according to Lacan's orders of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. Chiesa emphasizes the continuity underlying apparently incompatible phases of Lacan's examination of the subject, describing Lacan's theory as a consistent philosophical system-but one that is constantly revised and therefore problematic. Chiesa analyzes each "old" theory of the subject within the framework of a "new" elaboration and reassesses its fundamental tenets from the perspective of a general psychoanalytic discourse that becomes increasingly complex. From the 1960s on, writes Chiesa, the Lacanian subject amounts to an irreducible lack that must be actively confronted and assumed; this "subjectivized lack," Chiesa argues further, offers an escape from the contemporary impasse between the "death of the subject" alleged by postmodernism and a return to a traditional "substantialist" notion of the subject. An original treatment of psychoanalytic issues, Subjectivity and Othernessfills a significant gap in the existing literature on Lacan, taking seriously the need for a philosophical investigation of Lacanian concepts.

Author Biography

Lorenzo Chiesa is Director of the Genoa School of Humanities and the author of Subjectivity and Otherness: A Philosophical Reading of Lacan and The Not-Two: Logic and God in Lacan, both published by the MIT Press.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. vii
Introduction	p. 2
The Subject Of The Imaginary (Other)
The Subject of the Imaginary (Other)	p. 12
Introduction: The Subject and the Ego	p. 13
"Je est une autre": The (De)formative Function of the Image and the Mirror Stage	p. 14
Hainamoration, Ideal Ego and Ego-Idea	p. 19
Consciousness, the Unconscious, and the Complexes	p. 26
The Subject Of The Symbolic (Other)
The Unconscious Structured Like a Language	p. 34
Introduction: From the Small to the Big Other	p. 35
The Function of Speech	p. 37
The Notion of Message	p. 41
Signifier, Signified, Letter	p. 46
Oedipus as a Metaphor	p. 60
Introduction: Entering the Symbolic	p. 61
The Mythical State before Frustration, and Primordial Frustration	p. 65
The Dialectic of Frustration, or, the First ("Pre-Oedipal") Stage of the Oedipus Complex	p. 67
The Second and Third Stages of the Oedipus Complex	p. 75
Sexuation and the Feminine Oedipus Complex	p. 82
The Paternal Metaphor, the Name-of-the-Father, and the Phallus	p. 88
The Oedipus Complex and the Birth of the Unconscious	p. 96
The Subject Of The Real (Other)
There Is No Other of the Other	p. 104
Introduction	p. 105
From "There Is an Other of the Other"...	p. 107
...to "There Is No Other of the Other"	p. 115
What Is the "Real"?	p. 125
The Subject Of The Fantasy...And Beyond	p. 140
The Subject of the Fantasy and the Function of the Death Drive: An Overview	p. 141
The Subject of the Fantasy and Desire	p. 151
The Subject of the Fantasy and the Object ¿	p. 156
Pure Desire, Jouissance, and the Ethics of Psychoanalysis	p. 167
J'ouis-sens, Jouis-sens, Jouis-sans	p. 183
Notes	p. 193
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