The Ethics Of Psychoanalysis 1959 1960

In his famous seminar on ethics, Jacques Lacan uses this question as his departure point for a re-examination of Freud's work and the experience of psychoanalysis in relation to ethics. Delving into the psychoanalyst's inevitable involvement with ethical questions, Lacan clarifies many of his key concepts. During the seminar he discusses the problem of sublimation, the paradox of jouissance, the essence of tragedy, and the tragic dimension of analytical experience. One of the most influential French intellectuals of this century, Lacan is seen here at the height of his powers.

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized linguistics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural and media studies. He gained his reputation as a lecturer, disseminating his ideas to audiences that included Jean-Paul Sartre and Luce Irigaray amongst other hugely influential names. The Ethics of Psychoanalysisis a transcript of his most important lecture series. Including influential readings of Sophocles’ Antigoneand Elizabethan courtly love poetry in relation to female sexuality, The Ethics of Psychoanalysisremains a powerful and controversial work that is still argued over today by the likes of Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek.

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized linguistics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural and media studies. He gained his reputation as a lecturer, disseminating his ideas to audiences that included Jean-Paul Sartre and Luce Irigaray amongst other hugely influential names. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis is a transcript of his most important lecture series. Including influential readings of Sophocles' Antigone and Elizabethan courtly love poetry in relation to female sexuality, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis remains a powerful and controversial work that is still argued over today by the likes of Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek.

Examines the ethics of psychoanalysis, discussing sublimation, tragedy, and analytical experience, and offers criticism of some trends in psychoanalysis

For both continental and analytic styles of philosophy, the thought of Martin Heidegger must be counted as one of the most important influences in contemporary philosophy. In this book, essays by internationally noted scholars, ranging from David B. Allison to Slavoj Zizek, honour the interpretive contributions of William J. Richardson's pathbreaking Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. The essays move from traditional phenomenology to the idea of essential (another) thinking, the questions of translation and existential expressions of the turn of Heidegger's thought, the intersection of politics and language, the philosophic significance of Jacques Lacan, and several essays on science and technology. All show the influence of Richardson's first study. A valuable emphasis appears in Richardson's interpretation of Heidegger's conception of die Irre, interpreted as Errancy, set in its current locus in a discussion of Heidegger's debacle with the political in his involvement with National Socialism.

In Eros and Ethics, Marc De Kesel patiently exposes the lines of thought underlying Jacques Lacan's often complex and cryptic reasoning regarding ethics and morality in his seventh seminar, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959–1960). In this seminar, Lacan arrives at a rather perplexing conclusion: that which, over the ages, has been supposed to be "the supreme good" is in fact nothing but "radical evil"; therefore, the ultimate goal of human desire is not happiness and self-realization, but destruction and death. And yet, Lacan hastens to add, the morality based on this conclusion is far from being melancholic or tragic. Rather, it results in an encouraging ethics that for the first time in history gives full moral weight to the erotic. De Kesel's close reading uncovers the real scope of Lacan's criticism regarding the moralizing ethics of our time, and is one of the rare books that gives the reader full access to the letter of the Lacanian text.