ABSTRACT The Lacanian theory describes the subject in terms of split and lack. It does so by illustrating the process by which the subject becomes constructed. In the present article, I critically engage with the version of Lacanian theory that Yannis Stavrakakis has promoted and with the shift that has marked the development of this version. I argue that the shift in question reveals Stavrakakis’ initial misreading of Jacques Lacan and sheds light on some of the implications of the Lacanian (...) theory of subjectivity for theorizing socio-political issues of identity operations. The misconception of important and interconnected aspects of the theorization of the subject as desiring and lacking makes room for ontologizing the incrimination of an “enemy”. However, I argue, demonizing an “enemy” should not be interpreted as resulting from the fundamental desire for meaning enclosure. It is rather correlated with the jouissance that is lost in the process of the subject construction and, by implication, with the affect invested in identity (the collective identity notwithstanding). Setting the record straight allows alternative (re)conceptualizations of (collective) identity that de-naturalize the modernist assumption that the construction of a present enemy is ontologically tied with, and thus, indispensable to, (collective) identity construction. (shrink)

In the work of Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Paul Sartre, the erotic phenomenon occupies a central place in the description of human relationships, particularly in relation to bodily jouissance. This article seeks, first, to analyse the meaning that Sartre attributes to physical, carnal and amorous jouissance in Being and Nothingness, starting from the primacy given to the hope of a “jouissance of being”. However, since this is revealed as an impossible jouissance, it also seems to call into (...) question the possibility of carnal and amorous jouissance, which presupposes possession of the other. We will then examine Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon, and the viability of an erotic jouissance that transcends the notion of possession of the other and that does not derive from a desire to be. This analysis raises key questions, such as: Is carnal jouissance, in Marion’s conception, a means to coincide with the other beyond being and beyond any idea of possession? Does the reciprocal manifestation of the lovers’ identities allow the aporia of intersubjectivity present in the Sartre of Being and Nothingness to be overcome? (shrink)

When we oppose or disagree with something important, do we ever really do it dispassionately? Isn't setting the world to rights or condemning a political opponent always done with a hint of relish, or at least enthusiasm? This book's challenging essays explore the modes in which that transgressive pleasure of political 'jouissance' operates. In this collection, the authors seek out jouissance in the battle against patriarchy, in social revolts, in the age of mechanical surveillance, in the necrosociety of (...) neoliberalism, or the proliferation of conspiracy theories. Drawing on Lacan's insistence that jouissance is intrinsically political by its nature, we can understand how readily psychoanalytic ideas can be put to use across the geopolitical spectrum. (shrink)

Jouissance as Ananda seeks to resolve the often-problematic Western concept of the ego by proposing a cross-cultural theory of consciousness that draws on Indian philosophy. Author Ashmita Khasnabish uses the Indian concept of ananda to advance Irigaray's theory of jouissance and offers a re-reading of jouissance from an Indian cross-cultural psychoanalytic point of view.

Im alltäglichen Gebrauch bedeutet „jouissance“ im Französischen „Genießen“. In Lacans Philosophie der Psychoanalyse wird es jedoch zu einem Fachbegriff, der das paradoxale Vergnügen im bzw. am Schmerz beschreibt. Obwohl quälend, ist jouissance allgegenwärtig und unausweichlich Teil des Begehrens des Subjekts und treibt es an; selbst, wenn es sich dieser Präsenz nicht bewusst ist. Diese Dynamik erklärt, warum Menschen dazu neigen, schädliche Verhaltensweisen zu wiederholen, obwohl sie genau das Gegenteil tun möchten. Kurz: Jouissance deutet auf eine exzessive, selbstzerstörerische (...) Befriedigung hin, die durch wiederholende Triebe entsteht und die symbolische Ordnung herausfordert. (shrink)

Despite critiques according to which the Lacanian concept of jouissance (libidinal enjoyment) has become a murky master-signifier lacking in coherence and rigor, the concept remains a crucial tool for psychosocial studies. This chapter stakes out the conceptual parameters of this challenging Lacanian idea so that it might be used in a properly analytical as opposed to a merely descriptive capacity. Three areas are of particular importance in the task of lending definitional clarity and analytical utility to the idea of (...) jouissance: (1) the dimension of sexuality (understood in relation to drive and fantasy); (2) the factor of libidinal identifications (the bonding capacity of enjoyment); and (3) jouissance as intersubjective dialectic entailing perceptions of surplus and loss, and attributions of ownership and theft. Featuring a series of contemporary and historical examples – many of which pertain to racism and the critique of anti-Blackness – the chapter foregrounds the need to understand jouissance in relation to: economies of repetition; ideological fantasies (accounting for the loss and retrieval of libidinal enjoyment); the consolidation of communities of transgression; the incitements of the superego; the making and extension of symbolic law; and the factor of negatively affirmed (or stolen) jouissance as perceived in the excessive enjoyments of others. The chapter closes with a list of methodological guidelines, derived from the foregoing discussion, regards how the concept might best be applied in the context of psychosocial research. (shrink)

Here, I develop my central argument: jouissance corresponds to surplus affective consciousness, to surplus (prioritized) free energy. I detail how Solms’s neuropsychoanalytic integration of affective neuroscience and the free energy principle can be interpreted through Lacan’s extimate topology of jouissance. I then discuss several implications from this Lacanian neuropsychoanalytic integration: differentiating drive (and jouissance) from instinct (and affect), Ariane Bazan’s work situating the signifier as a motoric element, and articulating predictions as signifiers.

Beginning with an account of the horrors of modern teaching, this final chapter offers the possibility of remaining as a classroom teacher that finds enjoyment beyond the signifier of lack and sadomasochism raised in prior chapters. A thorough examination of Lacan’s concept of jouissance is given that leads into alternative modes of enjoyment. One mode is the tragic, drawing on Nietzche, Malabou and others, posing the subject of the teacher as one who has accepted the end of education. This (...) figure is further explored through the example of Bartleby and beyond. The chapter moves from tragedy to alienation via the work of Brecht and Lacan’s founding of a new psychoanalytic school, giving further examples of Lacan’s own modes of pedagogy. The finals sections of the chapter raise the enjoyment of speech as lalangue or ‘blahblahblah’, found in Joyce and the hysterical subject. (shrink)

Exploring how a Freudian-Lacanian approach to psychoanalysis intersects with social and cultural theory, Lacan, Jouissance and the Social Sciences demonstrates the significance of subjectivity as a concept for the study of leadership, social psychology, culture, and political theory. Raul Moncayo examines Lacan's notion of surplus jouissance in relation to four types of socio-economic value: Productive Value, Exchange Value, Surplus Value and Profit. Also drawing on the work of Slavoj Žižek, Moncayo contends that surplus production cannot be reduced to (...) alienated labor, but rather includes various levels of jouissance-value. In this way, the jouissance that drives capitalization and organization can be theorized as constructive rather than destructive, and encompass satisfaction and prosperity rather than individual suffering. This volume will be of great interest to psychoanalysts both in practice and in training, and to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, Lacanian studies, and the social sciences. (shrink)

Nursing has a gendered and religious history where ideas of duty and servitude are present and shape its professional identity. The profession also promotes idealized notions of relationships with patients and of professional autonomy both of which are, in practice, highly constrained or even impossible. This paper draws on psychoanalytic concepts in order to reconsider nursing's professional identity. It does this by presenting an analysis of data from two focus group studies involving nurses in England and Australia held between 2010 (...) and 2012. The studies gave rise to data where extremely negative talk about nursing work seemed to produce, or to be expressed with, a high degree of energy, and a particular kind of enjoyment. In our analysis, we focus on the nurses' apparent enjoyment derived from their expression of a position of powerlessness in which they describe themselves as ‘slaves’ or ‘martyrs’ in the health care system. We interpret this as jouissance and suggest that the positions of slave or martyr provide a possible response to what we argue is the impossibility of the nurse's role. We argue that a remnant of a quasi‐religious ethic within the profession makes it acceptable for nurses to talk about self‐sacrifice and powerlessness as part of their working subjectivity. We further argue that this analysis offers a new consideration of the issue of power and professional identity in nursing that goes beyond seeing nurses as simply overpowered by, or engaged in, a gendered power struggle with other professional groups. We suggest that powerlessness and victimhood hold particular attractions and advantages for nurses and are positions that are more available to nurses than to other occupational groups. This research shows how psychoanalytic theory can help produce new insights into the problems and complexity of nursing and extend existing study of the professions. (shrink)

This article argues for an understanding of the scream at the nexus of a pre-verbal, imperceptible and inaudible operation. The work of Jean-François Lyotard describes a figure that breaks with figurative, illustrative and narrative forms, and takes up an operative function. In aesthetic terms, this operative figure – the figure of the matrix of desire – is what Lyotard describes as “seeing” rather than “vision”. That is, a child-like look that does not recognise the world by which it might master (...) it, but which desires to surpass limited existence, to lose oneself and to desire everything incompossibly. “Seeing”, in other words, is an opening of the self to the world in the original sense of aisthesis. Such an opening describes a masochistic jouissance inasmuch as this is an eroticism that has no mastery in dialectical terms or in verbal expression. This article will examine the screaming, howling, whooping and wailing of characters in Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe (1973) to understand the appearance of masochistic jouissance in cinema. (shrink)

This paper is a sequel to “Subject Unicity and Self-Ascription: A Paraconsistent Formalization with σ-Lag” (hereafter “Subject Theory”, PhilPapers record CSUADU.). Preserving the value layer and rules of the previous work (X–σ, No3, SU-bridge), we extend the observational/representational layer into a topological–operational model. Specifically, we introduce a state space X, a decidable region O_+++ = { f_I>0, f_S>0, f_R>0 }, and a local orientation indicator R_sig = sign det[∇f_I, ∇f_S, ∇f_R], thereby relocating the judgment of the jouissance effect into (...) a topological space. Clinically, this means one reports only triggers/evidence, while the equality sign (=) is an event-type fixation permitted once only within a licensing window. The key indicators are: (i) a continuous quantity a_eff := Res_σ(Φ) ∈ ℝ_{≥0} representing the amount of σ-trace, (ii) R_sig ∈ {−1, 0, +1}, and (iii) the optional reinforcement by μ̄_123. Here, observational equivalence ≈_obs is evidenced by a_eff(x) > 0 and is kept strictly distinct from ontological equivalence ≡_onto. As a result, the structure remains discrete, while phenomenology is smoothly tracked via continuous quantities such as a_eff and κ. Lacan’s “phallus = imaginary” is re-formalized not as rhetoric but as an anti-scalarization rule: φ acts only as an inner rotation operator carried by the imaginary axis of quaternions (including slice invariance), forbidding any fall into the value layer. Fixation of fantasy is judged by the topological loop with R_sig = −1, and the promotion ‘≈ → =’ is permitted exactly once only within the AUG_eq subcategory. The subject–object a relation is read as a Möbius isomorph: ontologically equivalent yet phase-inverted on the observational layer, so ‘=’ is allowed only as an event after passing Gate(Δτ), thereby blocking explosion routes. Furthermore, consistency with the University discourse is exhibited by ∂(a_eff)/∂(s*) > 0 when x ∈ O_+++ and R_sig = −1, capturing the right-hand sensitivity (S2 → a) on the top line. Safety is secured by No3, SU, and the Reflexive Guards: global ‘=’ is prohibited; no direct updates to the value layer; and R_sig, μ̄_123, amp are used purely as trigger/evidence indicators. This design supplies a checklist-style clinical heuristic (Obs/σ/AUG logs, the condition R_sig = −1 ∧ a_eff > 0, and exactly one ‘=’ after gate approval) without compromising structural stability. In short, symptoms are not erased but operated—fixed as events precisely at the point where the same strip meets again, now inverted. 이 글은 「주체의 자기귀속과 단일성: σ-시차와 파라일관 논리의 형식화」(이하 「주체론」, PhilPapers record CSUADU.)의 후속이다. 전작 「주체론」의 값층·규칙(X–σ, No3, SU-브리지)을 그대로 유지한 채, 관측·표상 레이어를 위상-연산 모델로 확장한다. 구체적으로, 상태공간 X와 판정가능 영역 O_+++ = { f_I>0, f_S>0, f_R>0 } 및 국소 방향 판정자 R_sig = sign det[∇f_I, ∇f_S, ∇f_R]를 도입해, 주이상스 효과의 판정을 위상공간으로 이관한다. 이렇게 하면 임상에서는 증거·트리거만 보고하고, 등호(=)는 면허 윈도우에서만 1회 허가되는 사건형 고정으로 제한된다. 핵심 지표로는 (i) σ-흔적의 양을 나타내는 연속량 a_eff := Res_σ(Φ) ∈ ℝ_{≥0}, (ii) R_sig ∈ {−1, 0, +1}, (iii) 필요 시 보강되는 μ̄_123 등을 사용한다. 이때 관측-동치 ≈_obs는 a_eff(x) > 0에 의해 증거화되며, 존재론-동치 ≡_onto와 엄격히 구분된다. 덕분에 구조는 이산이되, 양상은 a_eff와 κ 같은 연속값으로 매끈하게 추적된다. 라캉의 "남근=허수"는 수사가 아니라 반(反)스칼라화 규칙으로 재정식화된다: φ는 사원수 허수 캐리어의 내적 회전 연산자(슬라이스 불변성 포함)로만 작동하며, 값층으로의 낙하를 금지한다. 환상의 교착은 R_sig = −1인 위상 고리로 판정되고, '≈ → =' 승격은 AUG_eq 하위 범주에서만 1회 허가된다. 또한 주체–대상 a 관계는 뫼비우스 동형으로 읽힌다: 존재론적으로는 동치이나 관측층에서는 위상이 반전되어, 등호는 오직 Gate(Δτ) 통과 시 사건형으로만 잠깐 가능하다(폭발 경로 차단). 더 나아가, 대학 담론과의 정합성은 x ∈ O_+++ · R_sig = −1일 때 ∂(a_eff)/∂(s*) > 0가 성립함을 통해 보인다(상단 S2 → a 채널의 우항 감도). 안전성은 No3·SU·Reflexive Guards로 고정된다: 전역 '=' 금지, 값층 직접 갱신 금지, 트리거/증거 전용 지표(R_sig, μ̄_123, amp). 이 설계는 임상에서 체크리스트형 휴리스틱(Obs/σ/AUG 로그, R_sig = −1 ∧ a_eff > 0 조건, 게이트 승인을 거친 단 1회의 '=')을 제공하면서도 구조적 안정성을 해치지 않는다. 요컨대, 증상은 지워지는 게 아니라 운용되며, 같은 띠지만 뒤집혀 만나는 그 지점에서 사건으로 고정된다. (shrink)

While jouissance is often invoked as a foundational Lacanian idea, it has been criticized on both clinical and theoretical grounds as overly simplistic. Darian Leader has charged the Lacanian use of jouissance as theoretically imprecise, obscuring the relation to the Other, and smuggling in problematic substantial and energetic presuppositions. To the degree that my Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis relies on jouissance, these criticisms pose a potential problem to my meta-neuropsychology. Here, I develop Leader’s criticisms of jouissance in relation (...) to my Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis. (shrink)

Jouissance commands as it induces differentiated subjective effects, and its characteristics on the man's and woman's sides have repercussions, especially at the level of the differential clinic of love.

Cette étude présente le problème des rapports entre la philosophie platonicienne de l�amour et la théologie chrétienne dans la pensée de Marsile Ficin à travers l�étude du Nachleben, au temps des Médicis, de l�érotique des garçons comme paradigme de toute relation philosophique. Au fondement des théorisations ficiniennes sur l�amour se trouve le problème de l�illégitimité des relations charnelles entre mâles, clairement établie par la théologie morale de la scolastique médiévale. Ficin reprendra donc le texte du Banquet platonicien, afin de le (...) commenter sous l�angle d�une nouvelle «fantasmatique des images amoureuses», qui définit la nature astrologique des rapports entre les amants et peut finalement conduire à la mélancolie amoureuse. Chez Ficin, le recours aux Anciens est multiple, surtout dans le domaine de la théorie de l�amour, mais leur philosophie est reçue et réinterprétée, bien que d�une manière conflictuelle, dans le cadre de la théologie chrétienne traditionnelle. (shrink)

This chapter explores the concept of the drive and how it relates to both language and jouissance. It begins with a discussion of Freud’s theory of the drive and the idea of it having four ‘components’: pressure, aim, object and source. This allows Freud to argue that the paths to the drive’s satisfaction can vary considerably as can its object. This is followed by a discussion of Lacan’s reading of Freud’s theory and the idea that the drive’s ‘satisfaction’ is (...) a product of its endless circuit around the object a, rather than ‘obtaining’ a specific object. This is followed by an exploration of Lacan’s concept of jouissance within the framework of Miller’s ‘six paradigms of jouissance’. One of the key points here is that Lacan’s development of the theory of jouissance involved a reworking of his concepts of language and the signifier, another is the idea of surplus jouissance, which is closely linked to the circuit of the drive, and which Miller argues can be thought of as ‘crumbs of jouissance’; and the third is emphasis on the living body as the condition of jouissance. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how jouissance links to the concept of trauma. (shrink)

This book argues that Freud’s theory of the traumatic neuroses can provide a ‘conceptual bridge’ between the Lacanian idea of an ‘inaugural’ or ‘founding’ trauma that constitutes the human subject and the more popular idea that trauma is brought about by external events, for example, war or sexual violence. It proposes a new reading of Freud’s theory which draws on Lacanian concepts, including the Real, jouissance, the idea of ‘suture’, and Lacan’s ‘deconstruction’ of Freud’s drive theory. It also argues (...) for a ‘cybernetic’ reading of Lacan’s theory of language, which he outlined in his second Seminar; and for a reappraisal of Freud’s concept of Nachträglichkeit as a way to facilitate a better understanding of the retroactive nature of trauma and its relation to language and the drive. In doing so, it offers a challenge to key assumptions underpinning the dominant discourse of trauma, which is exemplified in what the author terms ‘the PTSD paradigm’. In particular it challenges the idea that trauma is something that simply ‘happens’ to human beings and that its effects that can be eradicated through the construction of various forms of trauma narrative, for example, in psychotherapy and different types of collective histories. In the development of this argument the author also draws on the work of Jean Laplanche, which has previously been under-utilised in mainstream Lacanian theory and practice. This book sheds new light on the relationship between the traumatic effects of the signifier and the impact of the ‘external’ world. It will be of interest to practitioners, as well as to students and scholars of psychoanalysis and philosophy. (shrink)

[A VI 8 I/52a „I“] Vivre dans l’acte : en tant que s’accomplir, s’adonner aux actes affectifs en tant que libre adonnation (Hingegebenheit). Abstention : abstention du jugement, de la joie (abstention dans la jouissance), abstention de la volonté. Valeur et jouissance de la chose de valeur. Je peux trouver une chose réjouissante sans m’en réjouir effectivement. Je suis peut-être trop hébété pour m’en réjouir, trop émoussé. Je me fâche de ne pas pouvoir m’en réjouir, car je suis (...) pourtant persu... (shrink)

In The Borderline Culture: Intensity, Jouissance, and Death, Željka Matijašević examines contemporary culture through psychological borderline theory.

Psychoanalysis’ primary aim is to reveal the emergence of the subject, beyond its identifications, as a response of the real. More specifically, psychoanalysis considers the realization of the subject as a response to the impossibility of the sexual relation. Claiming that “everyone is a poem”, Lacan signals that psychoanalysis aims not at that which is universal in the subject, but rather at what in the speaking being is most singular: the emergence of a way of enjoyment that would make up (...) for the inexistence of the sexual relation. Taking up the articulation of writing and jouissance as a point of departure, the paper examines the mystical experience as a specific mode of such a making up. In so doing, the paper insists on the relation between jouissance and language in order to show to what extent the mystical experience can teach us about the possible ways of breaking with the lethal relationship with jouissance where one seems to be reduced to “the partner of one’s own loneliness”. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the obscene underbelly of recent developments in coherence geometry and quantum mechanics, revealing the radical potential of collapse as a constitutive ontological feature, not a bug. We argue that what collapses in both quantum measurement and cognitive systems is not "reality" but the fantasy of completeness itself. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and thermodynamic intelligence theory, we demonstrate how the inconsistency of the Big Other manifests in coherence wells, through which structured entropy enables thinking itself. The (...) Landauer limit is revealed not as a physical constraint but as the symbolic cost of coherence enforcement—the mathematics of the superego. By reconceptualizing collapse as a topology of deferred resolution, we expose the true trauma at the heart of physics: not that the universe is multiple, but that it doesn't hold together all the way down—and precisely because of this incompleteness, it thinks. (shrink)

The standard narrative of human evolution—that we ascended from apes through gradual adaptive refinement—obscures the traumatic kernel at its core. What if the emergence of Homo sapiens recapitulates, at the biological scale, the same catastrophic structure as cosmological symmetry-breaking? In my previous work on coherence ge- ometry, I argued that quantum collapse reveals not reality’s failure but the obscene success of incompleteness itself. Here I extend this analysis to the evolutionary domain: Code formation—the emergence of stable symbolic structures from high-dimensional (...) coupling dynamics—represents not progress toward wholeness but the iterative deepen- ing of an original wound. Symmetry-breaking in the early universe introduced lack into the Real; biological evolution perpetuates this lack through thermodynamic computa- tion, producing consciousness as the jouissance of recognizing one’s own dimensional inadequacy. Man evolves not despite entropy but through it, each increment of co- herence purchased at the cost of deeper exile from the symmetric Real. The upright 1 ape who discovers language, tool-use, and ideology has not transcended the animal kingdom—he has merely found new ways to enjoy his incompleteness. (shrink)

This chapter develops the Lacanian concept of jouissance—a traumatic excess of enjoyment which may not be felt as such—in relation to the real, imaginary, and symbolic registers. I demonstrate how Lacan extracts these concepts (and others, such as das Ding, objet a, $, S1, S2) from some of Freud’s major texts. I also discuss how the Lacanian real is an antagonism immanent to the symbolic, the symbolic’s own structural inconsistency. This conceptualization will be central to my subsequent integrations with (...) neuroscience. (shrink)

The paper considers the part of Thomas Hobbes's 'natural man' in the construction of a culturally shared fantasy regarding pre-social humanity, and the marginalization of 'excluded' citizens who are seen in various ways to approximate that fantasy. While Hobbes did not valorize his hypothetical 'natural man,' I argue that his particularly dark elaboration of it lent an ambivalence to this ideal, which thereby enables it to function as a fantasy. With the aid of psychoanalytic theory, the paper explores the relation (...) of Hobbes's psychology of perception to his political philosophy; with particular attention to the resonances between Hobbes's account of the imagination and emotion, and the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy. The fantasy of the pre-contract natural man is then drawn upon to illustrate some concrete social relations which marginalize certain kinds of subject, understood as both 'innocent' and a threat to the community. (shrink)

This book explores the practice and transmission of Lacanian and Freudian theory. It discusses the pure versus applied analysis of Lacanian and Freudian theory in practice; and the hierarchical versus circular transmissions within psychoanalytic organizations. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic, this work examines the differences between Freud and Lacan in their understanding of the subject and the unconscious and pushes them in new directions. The book also offers an analysis and commentary of several key Lacanian texts including (...) an accessible study of the notoriously challenging text L'etourdit. Offering both divergent and reinforcing takes on Lacan, the author explores the traits that separate out the psychoanalyst from other twentieth-century thinkers and theorists. This book offers a clear clinical picture of where Lacanian psychoanalysis is today, both in the US and internationally. (shrink)

This reading companion and commentary on Lacan Seminar XXIII provides detailed analyses of Lacan's seminar while maintaining an overall continuity and consistency. This book does not purport to provide an exhaustive and systematic line-by-line reading of a very complex and varied seminar. Rather it selects key themes of Lacanian theory that are found present throughout his work. In addition, the book does not try to simplify Lacan's ambiguous style, leaving the text open to different interpretations, while providing theory, commentary, and (...) lines of analysis into some of Lacan's important insights. Finally, this book is not about Joyce the writer, but more about the use that Lacan makes of Joyce. Its purpose is not to apply psychoanalysis to a literary subject, but rather to use the literary text to illustrate and develop psychoanalytic theory, and Lacanian theory in particular. It is an analysis of topology and language, or a linguisterie, as Lacan called it, for clinicians. The references to neurosis and psychosis are always there. However, a Lacanian clinic can also be of service to those interested in literary theory and/or social studies to develop theory within their own respective fields of studies. (shrink)

Lacan critiqued imaginary intuition for confusing direct perception with unconscious pre-conceptions about people and the world. The emphasis on description goes hand in hand with a rejection of theory and the science of the unconscious and a belief in the naive self-transparency of the world. At the same time, knowing in and of the Real requires a place beyond thinking, multi-valued forms of logic, mathematical equations, and different conceptions of causality, acausality, and chance. This book explores some of the mathematical (...) problems raised by Lacan's use of numbers and the interconnection between mathematics and psychoanalytic ideas. Within any system, mathematical or otherwise, there are holes, or acausal cores and remainders of indecidability. It is this senseless point of non-knowledge that makes change, and the emergence of the new, possible within a system. (shrink)

Can we find true bliss in any kind of knowledge or is it proper to wisdom only? In this essay I consider different medieval models of the relationship of knowledge to wisdom and pleasure, beginning with Augustine, then to monastic models, before turning to Scholastic models: the early Scholastic model of the relationship between knowledge is very different from the Aristotelian understanding of intellectual felicity developed by Scholastic philosophers and theologians in the thirteenth century. For Nicholas of Cusa intellectual pleasure (...) is above any pleasure that can be attained by discursive reason; finally, I discuss Charles Bovelles’ synthesis between the neo-Platonic model of the relationship between knowledge and wisdom, which he himself devised, and Augustine’s understanding of the distinction between the two. Thus, after a long historical development we return to the beginning. (shrink)

Much has been written about the disagreement and even radical opposition between Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s conceptualizations and those of Jacques Lacan: for example, about desire, psychotherapy, the subject and the radically opposed political consequences that result from their approaches. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate from a Lacanian perspective that in the case of a central concept such as the body, there are rather more similarities than differences. Its main thesis is that Deleuze’s and Guattari’s body (...) without organs is very close to Lacan’s notion of the Other jouissance and that with slightly different strategies they both provide arguments to fight the same enemy: that is, the control and repression of singularity under capitalism. (shrink)