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articles in english

1. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Jens De Vleminck

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This paper scrutinizes the concept of ‘moral masochism’ as one of Freud’s most enigmatic concepts. In contrast to Laplanche and Pontalis, who think of moral masochism as an “idea [that] can easily be tied down” (1973: 245), this paper argues that moral masochism is too often reduced to or obscured by related although different concepts, such as ‘the unconscious sense of guilt’ and ‘the negative therapeutic reaction’. In order to clarify the concept of moral masochism, which is defined by Freud as “the most important[,] form assumed by masochism” (1924: 161), we argue that one must take into account that, at this point in Freud’s work, masochism is re-thought from within the context of the melancholic disposition. The latter became of central importance as a prevailing psychopathological ‘research frame’ in Freud’s thinking since Mourning and melancholia (1916-17). The questions put forward in this paper are: What is the relation of moral masochism to the so-called ‘primary, erotogenic masochism’ and to the ‘daemonic’ workings of the death instinct? What is ‘moral’ about moral masochism? Which phenomena Freud is pointing at exactly when he is talking about moral masochism? And, what is both ‘sexual’ and ‘dangerous’ about moral masochism?
2. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Ora Gruengard

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Psychoanalysts have borrowed a lot from philosophy, yet they claim to differ from philosophers: They pretend to be more scientific; understand and change experiential and emotional aspects of life in ways that are beyond the reach of both empirical science and “intellectual” philosophy; penetrate into “unconscious” or “subconscious” levels of life; shutter down the self-deceptive illusions of “rationalizing” philosophers. Some contemporary philosophers are tempted, in their turn, to adopt psychoanalytic ideas and methods and introduce them into philosophy. Philosophy, however, is not the art of combining ideas and methods, but rather a participation in controversies in which ideas and methods are called into question and values and attitudes are examined. Although psychoanalysts challenge ideas, values and attitudes that their patients take for granted, and in this respect they are philosophical, their aim is conversion and not conversation. They try to persuade the challenged patient to “grow” towards their own philosophical convictions rather than invite her to join a philosophical dialogue, and they do it with non-rational tools. In this respect they are gurus. Participation in a philosophical controversy in which the philosophical presuppositions of the analysts are also examined and challenged may sometimes be more beneficial not only intellectually and theoretically but also emotionally and practically.
3. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Maria Kli

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The purpose of this paper is the introduction of the anthropological ideas that are proposed through the philosophical thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, specifically focusing on the psychoanalytic topic that he elaborates. Psychoanalysis for Castoriadis does not only disclose the ‘impossibility’ of the subject but also the overcoming of this ‘impossibility’. The subject on Castoriadis is not an a priori logical subject, absolutely absorbed by the social, as well as it is not a ‘lost’ subject that is being ‘captured’ by the unconscious’ domination and betrayed through a latent language from which he has irrecoverably been alienated. In the Castoriadian anthropology the singularity of the human nature is self-creation and human’s vocation could be autonomy. This aim that exactly could coincide with the goals of a successful analytical process constitutes not only a deeply humane purpose, but also a vital precondition for a free and autonomous society. Castoriadic psychoanalysis aims to autonomy through the establishment of a different, clarified–as much as this can be possible- relation between the subject and his unconscious. By defining the soul’s being as imaginary, Castoriadis refers to a condition that enables the reflection to become, overrunning thus the Freudian biological thinking and succeeding to show, that the act of thinking is something totally different from the process of simple logical computation. Imagination is designated as a source of creation and human conceived as basically an imaginative being, becomes potentially self-creative and capable of autonomous decision.
4. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Consuelo Martinez-Priego

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It is patently clear that theoretical difficulties in the understanding of human freedom exist, the roots of which can be found in classic psychological proposals. The western crisis may require reconsideration of freedom and responsibility as expressed in each person. One such proposal of this type begs clarification of the approaches that led to the loss of freedom in the existential horizon and thus of social dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to explain its roots in the psychoanalytic context. Specifically there seems to be three theses that give way to this analysis: the role of the past in shaping the personality; the influence of the psychological workings as related to the handling of conflict as well as the understanding of psychoanalysis as hermeneutics. The three are united in the consideration of freedom as “liberation”, and the temporal dynamics implicit in this concept. We conclude that this is the origin of the limitation of the concept of freedom within psychoanalysis.
5. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Ludwig Nagl

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This paper focuses on Freud´s critique of religion. Informed by Alfred I. Tauber´s 2010 study Freud, the Reluctant Philosopher, it starts with a glimpse at Freud’s methodology, arguing that, when carefully reconstructed, Freud´s (practical as well as theoretical) claims turn out to be significantly more complex, as well as ambiguous, than standard readings of psychoanalysis (in theory of science, cognitive science, and in [post]phenomenological Continental philosophy) suggest. With regard to religion, however, Freud’s writings seem unambiguously critical: they terminate without leaving much room for alternatives, in an “immanentist” (or – to use Charles Taylor’s term - “exclusivist”) humanistic naturalism. The view that those who are interested in Freud´s psychoanalytical method must also accept his post-religiously dimensioned immanentism is neither shared by Paul Ricoeur, nor by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Segments 2 and 3 of the paper deal with their attempts to defend, vis a vis Freud´s critique of what he calls the “illusionary” state of religion, the complexity, and possible relevance, of the “religious language game”. Both Wittgenstein and Ricoeur are (like Freud) operating within the framework of Enlightenment, but both challenge (unlike Freud) its secularist closure, trying (post Freud) to “make room for faith”.
6. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Jorge Hernando Pacheco Gómez

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A large number of philosophers have said in their writings and life examples that philosophy has to be seen as an activity, as a way of life and thinking, outside of common conventions. She observes what others observe, but sees in the observed something deeper and different from what others see. What is the nature or origin of this philosophical knowledge that is different from the rest of knowledge? If we think of philosophy as an activity, as a way of life, then we can understand that the nature of this knowledge is not only in the reflections on the world, but also in a particular mode of behavior. In this paper I intend to approach the activity of the philosopher, to expose and understand in the key psychoanalytic terms what is proper to philosophy, to her activity and her lifestyle.
7. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
James F. Perry

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A thousand years from now, every child the world over will be taught that all human action and thought occurs at one or another of just three levels: random, routine, or reflective. This will be their human birthright: to learn that thought and action occurs without a plan (randomly), within a plan (routinely), or about a plan (reflectively). They will learn that the reflective level of thought and action is what people of earlier times called the Soul. They will all be taught the skills and vision needed to create their own futures and to share and negotiate them with others. They will live in a sustainable universal community composed of families, tribes, and other congregations of use and interest. They will spend their lives correcting their errors by creating and sharing new knowledge. They will dismiss as idolatrous adolescent fanaticism the worship of any routine or impulse. In this paper I suggest that recent research in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology will help us in our philosophical quest.
8. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Vera Saller

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In this paper I am going to present several ideas selected from the field of two important current inputs to the interface of philosophy and psychoanalysis. First, there is the study of Linda Brakel who confronts Freudian unconscious with meaning theory, i.e. the philosophy of Donald Davidson. Brakel feels that the approach of Davidson/Cavell misinterprets the Freudian concepts and robs it of its central characteristics. She insists in the primary process which she describes as representational, contentful and a-rational. The second input is to be found within today’s reception of Kant in the epistemological field. The debates depart from the controversial issue of whether Kant was a conceptionalist or a non-conceptionalist and frequently refer to McDowells Mind and World. Then I will present my own approach that combines psychoanalytical ideas with an application of Peircean categories (First, Second and Third). My aim is to show that this approach contributes to the understanding of mind in general. In comparing the philosophical concepts with psychoanalytical ones, I will point out the specific place of psychoanalytical concepts within the theory of knowledge. I will conclude by pleading for the integration of the psychoanalytic ideas into a broader theory of thinking. Furthermore, the meaning of this integration on psychoanalysis itself will be evaluated.
9. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Dimitris Sdrolias

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After initially attempting to establish a connection between philosophy’s main concern and the psychoanalytic theorization of the unconscious, making a first step towards its view under the Heideggerian perspective of “Destruktion”, -the historical account of being in terms of its own epochs-, we attempt to show that although indeed the unconscious came to support initially the Kantian finite limit, giving a new-born background to new philosophical theories, enriching and expanding crucially what we consider knowledge, leading thus our philosophy to reach its very ownmost challenge, as death’s most primordial study, embracing therefore substantially our human per se condition with new, unprecedented data, in terms of our finite mystery, it failed this goal fundamentally. Its ownmost way of dying, though, -positively or even negatively-, in the course of its brief history, highlighted wholly different paths that need to be now taken, untraced by our old philosophy or even by psychoanalysis, pushing us to an uncharted ground, which doesn’t give newborn contents –in this way of course negating it- to the notion per se of limit, through its return eternally, thematic or non-thematic, or via a sur-reality, or even an expanded ego. Because it’s by now apparent, that this is our only hope out of our current no way out, out of the meta-modern paradigm, which led us into the holocaust of our anarchic difference behind neo-capitalistic crises. But how is it really possible to think about our thought’s limit? Τhe impossible of our thought per se, defining anew the unconscious and making again so timely the Freudian declaration, that our in fact biggest mystery lies in our mysterious conscious? Because it is true indeed that someone or something thinks behind our almighty cogito, thinking there on a hole. But what would this now here signify? A vacuum –to say the least- cogitans? How can our thought per se conceive its own unconceivable? It may be that on the contrary to Hamlet’s most famous monologue, there after all exists an instrument for the unknown. A death’s so called intuition. Herein should now enter the era of our new philosophy. To a new thought of the unconceivable. To a cogito per se on death. Into an entropic conscious.
10. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Xymena Synak-Pskit

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Lacanian (No)Thing appears as the nothing of the limit of re/presentation, of the edge of language: in this appearance the realization of nothing affirms itself as the res of the limit, which gives rise to the disappropriation of the limit. The origin is desire, the edge of passion and pain which are the instances of jouissance, pleasure-at-the-limit. Liminal pleasure, between life and death marks lacking desire as – essentially – self-destructive passion, possible only through instantaneous oscillation between absence and sense, infinite finitude being its edge. Death and life form a radical continuity where the subject becomes the non-extensive point of exchange between life and death. Thus, to live, finally, would mean to inhabit the border-line between the subject and the Thing; to touch the untouchable, or experience the impassable between life and death. This is the place of Lacanian ré(si)stance: between life and death the encounter with the real takes place, mis/encounter, there being no place of the real as well no place of the encounter; the ré(si) stance of the death drive itself.
11. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Ching-wa Wong

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Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of morality is often regarded as a deflationist one, to the effect that it takes morality ‘s authority as a sheer product of human irrationality originating in the formation of the superego, and that it should be discarded on pain of its harmful effects on human life. In this paper, I shall discuss three views on this deflationist reading of Freud: that he is right in holding the alleged moral deflationism; that he is wrong in holding it; and that this deflationism is wrong, but he may not actually hold it at all. I attribute the first two views to the philosophers Richard Wollheim and Samuel Scheffler, and argue that both accounts of psychoanalytic moral psychology are inadequate, because they fail to appreciate the role of irrationality in a person’s search for the good life. I then propose a non-deflationist reading of Freud, according to which both the loving and authoritative aspects of morality are deeply rooted in our human nature, and a truly fulfilling life requires more a balancing between the two than an elimination of irrationality. The appreciation of Freud’s moral naturalism, in effect, will require us to drop the presumption that rationality is the only source of goodness.

articles in spanish

12. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Ana Carrasco-Conde

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In a text dealing with the relationship between Walter Benjamin and architecture, Winifried Nerdinger recalls the correspondence between Asja Lacis and Hildegard Brenner in which Lacis reminisces upon philosophy´s capacity to understand architecture as image. For Lacis, architecture expresses social conditions through its buildings, the layout of the streets and the use of certain construction materials, giving the example of the internal patios of Mietkaserne of the Ackerstraße and the Kudamm. As a stratified sample of social matter, the city thus appears to Walter Benjamin as the material form of the spacialization of thought, and as such, may be analyzed through architectonic and urban forms- ones which establish and condition how the city is inhabited. Following Benjamin’s approach, the current project is based upon the conception of the city as a space where the laws of our social and historical world are subject to sedimentation. As an objective, the paper proposes to analyze how the past and historic vision are received, understood and recovered via the city. The city is thus understood as a space where there is a simultaneousness of times in which different historical strata -or as Koselleck might put it, ‘time strata’- are interwoven and then ‘spacialized’ (or made into space). Each of these strata thus remains clearly separate and marked out from the other while allowing, as Benjamin might have done, for the discontinuity of historical time and the rupture of any type of linear conception of time. Yet not only is the past remembered in what we see: it is also embodied in what we believe. This sedimentation of historical matter (ruins, monuments, remnants) feeds into the reinterpretation of what is done with historical matter in the present (restorations, revival and historicist architecture, imitation ruins and remnants, eclecticism), taking into account people’s cultural identity and historic consciousness. As such, the second of objectives is to trace a relationship between the evolution of architectonic forms and how, with respect to the evolution of “the philosophy of history”, the past assimilates and adapts to the present within the fabric of the city.
13. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Alejandra Rivera Quintero

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Los dispositivos psicoanalíticos desarrollados por Freud y Lacan son comprendidos hoy en día como discursos que marcaron hitos en la configuración social, cultural y política durante los Siglos XIX y XX. En ese tránsito es posible constatar la aparición de diversas construcciones subjetivas, que son categorizadas por el psicoanálisis como derivaciones de la personalidad psicótica, neurótica y perversa; todas ellas poseen peculiaridades que pueden concebirse como objetos de análisis para lograr entrever las condiciones culturales que las estructuran; de la misma forma, la aparición de nuevas identidades en el espacio social nos obliga a plantearnos cuestiones que permitan dimensionar el estatus de los sujetos políticos que se encuentran en escena. De tal manera, el presente ensayo analizará el lugar de dos sujetos políticos contemporáneos: Julian Assange y Anonymous. Para lograr lo anterior, proponemos partir de una premisa peculiar; esto es que tanto el fundador de Wikileaks como la red de hackers más famosa del mundo comparten un estatuto común que los dimensiona como voyeurs contemporáneos. La estrategia consistirá en lograr caracterizar psicoanalítica y filosóficamente las argumentaciones mediante las cuales ambos sujetos políticos pueden concebirse a la vez como sujetos mirantes dentro de un sistema que todo lo mira.

articles in russian

14. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Aliya K. Abisheva

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в статье анализируется проблема деструкции субъекта, раздвоения личности, описанные в психоанализе, особенно в теории неврозов З. Фрейда. Феномен расщепления человеческого «Я» автор объясняет внутрипсихическим самоотчуждением человека, конфликтом несовместимых ценностных установок личности, направленных против ее сущностных устремлений к автономности, индивидуальности, установкам свободы и развития. На основе онтологической свободы как своей сущности, человек творит многообразие духовных смыслов, выбирая их как смыслы своего бытия, ценности, переводя их через свою деятельность из должного в сущее. Ценностные смыслы могут быть положительными или отрицательными по нравственному содержанию. Отчуждение заключается в поклонении человека внешним результатам своей исторической деятельности – капиталу, государству и т.д., когда они из средства его развития превращаются в самоцель, в средства их укрепления. В последнем случае человек расщепляется, прежде всего, внутренне на две сферы своего бытия: личную и безличную. В результате их несовместимости личные ценности чаще вытесняются в бессознательную сферу психики, а в официальной сознательной сфере жизни их прикрывают безличные. Однако исход всегда индивидуален. В зависимости от уровня субъектности, в условиях отчуждения многие индивиды, видимо, находят два способа удовлетворения своих личных устремлений и этим определенной степени разрешения внутреннего конфликта: идентифицируя свои личные интересы с интересами безличных институтов и норм, или осознавая в различной степени и отделяя их от интересов внешней господствующей сферы.

articles in greek

15. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Μαρία Κλη

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Η πρόθεση μου στην παρούσα ανακοίνωση είναι η ανάδειξη των ανθρωπολογικών θέσεων που έχουν προτεραιότητα στη φιλοσοφική διανήση του Κορνήλιου Καστοριάδη, με αναφορά στην ψυχαναλυτική προβληματική που αναπτύσσει. Η ψυχανάλυση για τον Καστοριάδη δεν προδίδει μόνο την ‘αδυνατότητα’ του υποκειμένου, αλλά και την υπέρβαση αυτής της ‘αδυνατότητας’. Το υποκείμενο στον Καστοριάδη δεν είναι ένα υποκείμενο a priori λογικό, απόλυτα αφομοιωμένο από το κοινωνικό, όπως δεν είναι ένα υποκείμενο χαμένο, που ‘συλλαμβάνεται’ από τους ασυνείδητους καθορισμούς και προδίδεται από μια ‘γλώσσα λανθάνουσα’, από την οποία έχει ανέκκλητα αποξενωθεί. Όπως θα υποστηρίξω, στην καστοριαδική ανθρωπολογία αυτό που αποτελεί ίδιον του ανθρώπου είναι η αυτοδημιουργία και προορισμός του η αυτονομία. Αυτή ακριβώς η επιδίωξη, που συμβαίνει να συμπίπτει με τους σκοπούς μια επιτυχούς αναλυτικής διαδικασίας, συνιστά όχι μόνο ένα βαθιά ανθρώπινο σκοπό, αλλά και καίρια προϋπόθεση μιας ελεύθερης και αυτόνομης κοινωνίας. Η καστοριαδική ψυχανάλυση στοχεύει στην αυτονομία, μέσα από την εγκαθίδρυση μιας διαφορετικής , διαυγασμένης κατά το δυνατόν, σχέσης του υποκειμένου με τον εαυτό του. Με την ανάδειξη του είναι της ψυχής ως φαντασίας, ο Καστοριάδης αναφέρεται σε μια συνθήκη επιτρεπτική του ανακλαστικού στοχασμού, υπερβαίνοντας έτσι τον βιολογισμό του Φρόϋντ και κατορθώνοντας να δείξει ότι η σκέψη είναι κάτι πολύ διαφορετικό από τη διαδικασία του απλού λογικού υπολογισμού. Η φαντασία αναδεικνύεται σε πηγή δημιουργίας και το ανθρώπινο ον, ως ον με φαντασία, είναι ικανό δυνάμει για αυτοδημιουργία και απόφαση.
16. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 42
Δημήτρης Σδρόλιας

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Αφού αρχικά αποπειραθούμε να συνδέσουμε τη θεμελιακή φιλοσοφική προβληματική με την ψυχαναλυτική θεωρητικοποίηση του ασυνειδήτου, κάνοντας ένα πρώτο βήμα για τη θέαση του τελευταίου στο πλαίσιο της χαϊντεγκεριανής προοπτικής της αποδόμησης της ιστορίας του είναι στο πέρας των εποχών του, υποστηρίζουμε ότι, παρόλο που το ασυνείδητο ήρθε αρχικά να χτίσει επάνω στο καντιανό όριο στο γνωστό, δίνοντας νέο υπόβαθρο στις φιλοσοφικές θεωρίες, διαστέλλοντας και εμπλουτίζοντας σημαντικά ό,τι θεωρούμε γνώση, οδηγώντας έτσι τη φιλοσοφία να αρθεί στην αρχική εκείνη πρόκλησή της, ως μελέτη ακριβώς θανάτου, ερχόμενη έτσι εγγύτερα στην ανθρώπινη περατή κατάσταση με νέα από δεδομένα, στο μυστήριο του τί είναι εν τέλει άνθρωπος, παρόλα αυτά εξώκειλε από τον αρχικό του αυτό στόχο. Οι τρόποι, παρόλα αυτά, με τους οποίους θανατώθηκε, -στο πλαίσιο των θετικών ή αρνητικών από θανάτους του-, κατά μήκος της σύντομης ιστορίας του, ανέδειξε εντελώς καινούργιους δρόμους που χρειάζεται στο εξής να διασχισθούν, αχαρτογράφητους έως τώρα από τη φιλοσοφία ή και την ψυχανάλυση, χωρίς την περιεχομενικοποίηση, ούτε και την αναίρεση, της έννοιας ακριβώς του ορίου, μέσω της επανάληψης, περιεχομενικής ή α-περιεχομενικής του, ή μέσω υπερ-πραγματικότητας, όσο και διευρυμένου εγώ μας. Αυτή είναι η μόνη ελπίδα διαφυγής από το τρέχον μας αδιέξοδο, αυτό του μεταμοντερνισμού μας, που μας οδήγησε στο πλέον αισθητό απ’ όλους μας –μέσω των «αναρχοκαπιταλιστικών» μας κρίσεων- ολοκαύτωμα της διαφοράς. Πώς όμως να το σκεφτούμε το όριο ακριβώς της σκέψης μας, το αδύνατο να σκεφτούμε, έτσι επαναπροσδιορίζοντας την ουσία του ασυνειδήτου, που κάνει εκ νέου επίκαιρη τη φροϋδική ενόραση, ότι το μεγαλύτερο στην ουσία μυστήριο το διαθέτει per se η συνείδηση; Κάποιος βεβαίως σκέφτεται πίσω απ’ το cogito μας, σκεφτόμενος απ’ τη θέση του πάνω από μία τρύπα. Τί ακριβώς θα σήμαινε όμως per se ετούτο; Μία ωπή σκεπτόμενη; Θα ισούταν με ασυνείδητο μία «vacuum cogitans» μας; Πως συλλαμβάνει η σκέψη μας το ίδιο της το ασύλληπτο; Γιατ’ ίσως ακριβώς αντίθετα με τα αμλετικά τα λόγια, εκείνου του μονολόγου του, του πλέον του διαβόητου, ίσως και να υπάρχει εν τέλει ένα όργανο για το άγνωστο. Μία εποπτεία θανάτου. Να που οφείλει άμεσα ν’ ανοίξει η φιλοσοφία. Η φιλοσοφική η έρευνα. Σε cogito πλέον θανάτου.