With its privileging of the unconscious, Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic thought would seem to be at odds with the goals and methods of philosophy. Lacan himself embraced the term ‘anti-philosophy’ in characterizing his work, and yet his seminars undeniably evince rich engagement with the Western philosophical tradition. These essays explore how Lacan’s work challenges and builds on this tradition of ethical and political thought, connecting his ‘ethics of psychoanalysis’ to both the classical Greek tradition of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and to the Enlightenment tradition of Kant, Hegel, and de Sade. Charles Freeland shows how Lacan critically addressed some of the key ethical concerns of those traditions: the pursuit of truth and the ethical good, the ideals of self-knowledge and the care of the soul, and the relation of moral law to the tragic dimensions of death and desire. Rather than sustaining the characterization of Lacan’s work as ‘anti-philosophical, ‘ these essays identify a resonance capable of enriching philosophy by opening it to wider and evermore challenging perspectives.
Table of Content
Preface
List of Abbreviations of Works by Jacques Lacan
Introduction
1. Toward an Ethics of Psychoanalysis
2. Philosophy Preparation for Death
3. The “Truth about Truth”
4. The Knots of Moral Law and Desire
5. Antigone, in Her Unbearable Splendor
6. The Desire for Happiness and the Promise of Analysis: Aristotle and Lacan on Ethics of Desire
7. To Conclude / Not to Conclude
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Charles Freeland is Lecturer and Course Coordinator, teaching philosophy and architecture at the International Program of Design and Architecture at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
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