Jacques Lacan

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Mirror Stage ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Objet Petit A ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (b. 13 April 1901–d. 9 September 1981) arguably is the most creative and influential figure in the history of psychoanalysis after Sigmund Freud. Lacan portrays himself as an embattled defender of Freud’s true legacy within and beyond analytic circles, the lone champion of a “return to Freud.” His teachings emphasize the crucial differences between the Freudian unconscious and speciously similar notions such as that of the id as a dark, seething cauldron of irrational, animalistic instincts. He stresses especially the centrality of language in psychoanalysis, with the unconscious subject at stake in analysis being constituted and sustained through socio-symbolic mediations (as per Lacan’s famous thesis according to which “the unconscious is structured like a language”). Dubbed “the French Freud,” Lacan significantly broadened and deepened Freudianism through putting Freud’s discoveries into conversation with a wide range of other disciplines and orientations. In particular, Lacan’s reflections draw frequently and extensively on the resources of 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophical currents such as German idealism, structuralism, semiotics, phenomenology, and existentialism. Indeed, not only did Lacan inspire the formation of distinctly Lacanian clinical approaches—perhaps his greatest worldwide impact has been (and continues to be) in the fields of the theoretical humanities, themselves heavily indebted to the past two centuries of European philosophy. Over the course of recent decades, Lacan’s concepts/theories of, for instance, the mirror stage, subjectivity, language, desire, drive, jouissance, fantasy, and the objet petit a all have come to serve as key components in numerous scholars’ explorations of issues and instances relating to philosophy, art, literature, cinema, culture, politics, and religion, among other areas of concern. Furthermore, like Freud, Lacan remains a source of heated controversy among various commentators and critics right up through the present day.

Schopenhauer and the Unconscious

2020 ◽  
pp. 496-516
Author(s):  
Stephan Atzert
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pleasure Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Sabina Spielrein

This chapter explores the gradual emergence of the notion of the unconscious as it pertains to the tradition that runs from Arthur Schopenhauer via Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer to Sabina Spielrein, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. A particular focus is put on the popularization of the term “unconscious” by von Hartmann and on the history of the death drive, which has Schopenhauer’s essay “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual” as one of its precursors. In this essay, Schopenhauer develops speculatively the notion of a universal, intelligent, supraindividual unconscious—an unconscious with a purpose related to death. But the death drive also owes its origins to Schopenhauer’s “relative nothingness,” which Mainländer adopts into his philosophy as “absolute nothingness” resulting from the “will to death.” His philosophy emphasizes death as the goal of the world and its inhabitants. This central idea had a distinctive influence on the formation of the idea of the death drive, which features in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

The Making of a Translator: James Strachey and the Origins of British Psychoanalysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 685-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Linstrum
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
World War ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
First World

AbstractBoth critics and defenders of James Strachey's translations of Sigmund Freud have tended to judge their worth by the standard of “accuracy”—in other words, their faithfulness to Freud's theories. This article takes a different approach, tracing Strachey's choices as a translator to his own experiences in Edwardian, wartime, and interwar Britain. Convinced that the ruling elite and the mass public alike were captive to dangerously irrational forces, Strachey saw the science of the unconscious as a vehicle for political and social criticism. As an attempt to mobilize expert knowledge against the status quo, Strachey's translation represents a divergence from two influential paradigms for interpreting the history of psychoanalysis: Carl Schorske's account of the Freudian “retreat from politics” and Michel Foucault's portrait of the “superstructural” state as an extension and ally of the human sciences. Strachey's translation also demonstrates that the political and social ambitions of British psychoanalysis were powerfully formed by the era of the First World War, and not only the Second, which historians have often identified as the crucial moment.

Heidegger, Martin (1889–1976)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Caruana
Keyword(s):  
Edmund Husserl ◽  
Western World ◽  
Paul Celan ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Being There ◽  
Mature Work

Born in Meßkirch, Germany, Martin Heidegger is renowned as a leading 20th-century philosopher of existentialism and phenomenology with far-reaching influence in the Western world. Heidegger helped advance – at the same time as he radicalized – the phenomenological project initiated by his mentor, Edmund Husserl. The publication of his magnum opus, Sein und Zeit, a work ranked by his student Emmanuel Levinas as one of the five greatest texts in the history of Western philosophy, established Heidegger as a major voice in European philosophy. Demolishing the claims and pretensions of the Cartesian subject, this work also gave expression to the groundless nature of Dasein ("being-there"), its inexorable projection towards the nothingness of its being and its struggle for authenticity, ideas that would shape the work of Alberto Giacometti, Paul Celan, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Heidegger’s relationship to modernism is simultaneously complementary and conflicted. Following in the wake of Friedrich Nietzsche’s sweeping philosophical attack, Heidegger’s work looms large as one of the most important philosophical critiques of the Western tradition, inspiring a wide-range of modernist and postmodern artists and theorists. Yet his mature work also exhibits a notable conservative streak that runs counter to some of the experimental and innovative thrust of modernist culture.

Freud, Fliess, and the Nasogenital Reflex: Did a Look into the Nose Let us See the Mind?

1988 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Zucker ◽  
David Wiegand
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
History Of Psychiatry ◽  
Oedipus Complex ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Nose And Throat

Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin nose and throat surgeon, and Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, collaborated to treat one of Freud's earliest patients, Emma Eckstein. The basis for the treatment was their belief in the “Nasogenital Reflex,” a widely accepted theory that has disappeared from the literature of otolaryngology. The outcome of Emma's treatment may have profoundly altered the history of psychiatry, by suggesting the role of the unconscious and the existence of the Oedipus complex.

Group Experiences and Individual Differences in Stuttering

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4335-4350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth E. Tichenor ◽  
J. Scott Yaruss
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Support Group ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Life Outcomes ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Group Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adults Who Stutter

Purpose This study explored group experiences and individual differences in the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings perceived by adults who stutter. Respondents' goals when speaking and prior participation in self-help/support groups were used to predict individual differences in reported behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Method In this study, 502 adults who stutter completed a survey examining their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in and around moments of stuttering. Data were analyzed to determine distributions of group and individual experiences. Results Speakers reported experiencing a wide range of both overt behaviors (e.g., repetitions) and covert behaviors (e.g., remaining silent, choosing not to speak). Having the goal of not stuttering when speaking was significantly associated with more covert behaviors and more negative cognitive and affective states, whereas a history of self-help/support group participation was significantly associated with a decreased probability of these behaviors and states. Conclusion Data from this survey suggest that participating in self-help/support groups and having a goal of communicating freely (as opposed to trying not to stutter) are associated with less negative life outcomes due to stuttering. Results further indicate that the behaviors, thoughts, and experiences most commonly reported by speakers may not be those that are most readily observed by listeners.

Introduction: Emotion, History and the Arts

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Sullivan ◽  
Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild
Keyword(s):  
Historical Change ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Review Section ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
War Correspondents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Johan Huizinga

This introduction surveys the rise of the history of emotions as a field and the role of the arts in such developments. Reflecting on the foundational role of the arts in the early emotion-oriented histories of Johan Huizinga and Jacob Burkhardt, as well as the concerns about methodological impressionism that have sometimes arisen in response to such studies, the introduction considers how intensive engagements with the arts can open up new insights into past emotions while still being historically and theoretically rigorous. Drawing on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including the novels of Carson McCullers and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, the private poetry of neo-Confucian Chinese civil servants, the photojournalism of twentieth-century war correspondents, and music from Igor Stravinsky to the Beatles—the introduction proposes five ways in which art in all its forms contributes to emotional life and consequently to emotional histories: first, by incubating deep emotional experiences that contribute to formations of identity; second, by acting as a place for the expression of private or deviant emotions; third, by functioning as a barometer of wider cultural and attitudinal change; fourth, by serving as an engine of momentous historical change; and fifth, by working as a tool for emotional connection across communities, both within specific time periods but also across them. The introduction finishes by outlining how the special issue's five articles and review section address each of these categories, while also illustrating new methodological possibilities for the field.

History of the Study of Apocrypha in Early Medieval England

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Brandon W. Hawk
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Early Judaism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early English

Literature written in England between about 500 and 1100 CE attests to a wide range of traditions, although it is clear that Christian sources were the most influential. Biblical apocrypha feature prominently across this corpus of literature, as early English authors clearly relied on a range of extra-biblical texts and traditions related to works under the umbrella of what have been called “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” and “New Testament/Christian Apocrypha." While scholars of pseudepigrapha and apocrypha have long trained their eyes upon literature from the first few centuries of early Judaism and early Christianity, the medieval period has much to offer. This article presents a survey of significant developments and key threads in the history of scholarship on apocrypha in early medieval England. My purpose is not to offer a comprehensive bibliography, but to highlight major studies that have focused on the transmission of specific apocrypha, contributed to knowledge about medieval uses of apocrypha, and shaped the field from the nineteenth century up to the present. Bringing together major publications on the subject presents a striking picture of the state of the field as well as future directions.

Mirroring the Complexities of the Human Psyche and the Depiction of Female Powerlessness in Alice Munro’s “Runaway”

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 1036-1041
Author(s):  
Steffi Santhana Mary. S ◽  
Dr Anita Albert
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Human Psyche

Human behaviour is constructed by unconscious drives and impulses. To Freud, thoughts are supposed to be guided by desires and these desires are the fundamental basis of humankind, life, and psyche. Not being expressed directly, they take other shapes in order to be expressible in personal and social situations. They are repressed because they could not be fitted into social norms and laws. Freud believes that many of our actions are motivated by psychological forces unknown to others which he calls ‘the unconscious’. The objective of the present paper is to read Munro's Runaway in the mirror of Sigmund Freud to detect the psychological aspects of the characters.

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