Why I Am Interested in Jacques Lacan's Thought - Philosophical Development and Commitments
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- Опубліковано 5 тра 2018
- Get Lacan's Ecrits here - amzn.to/2JVJOew
Or better yet, Lacan's Seminars vol. 7 - amzn.to/2HYHX8e
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This video discusses my interest in the works and thought of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. In it, I speak about how I first encountered Lacan's works, my mento Garth Gillan's use of Lacan, Alasdair MacIntyre's seminar discussing Lacan, what I find useful in Lacan's works, and what I find less helpful in his deliberately obscure style.
I've published several pieces on Lacan over the years. Here they are:
Outlines of Jacques Lacan’s Ethics of Subjectivity - www.academia.edu/8690151/Outl...
Situating Lacan's Mirror Stage in the Symbolic Order - www.academia.edu/381657/Situa...
If sufficient interest exists, I may create videos on Lacan's works in the future
I know somebody else asked about Zizek, but my inability to read and understand most of the things he said is what got me interested in Hegel and Lacan in the first place. And now that I've started the Phenomenology and gotten some basic concepts down, I feel a great degree of satisfaction... It's a lot more like learning a new language, and one that forces you to change the way you think. I guess that's why people don't like it. I remember blasting through Plato, Aristotle, a lot of the scholastics, and I read those works in the same passive way I would read a history book. But reading Hegel has forced my brain to come alive. I must say, Dr. Sadler, I'm always impressed by your range of interests and your fairness in dealing with all sorts of different philosophers.
You probably want to go back to those classic texts and give them the same kind of reading you give those later authors sometime
If you're reading Plato and Aristotle passively then you're doing it wrong
Thanks. Rediscovering Lacan as a thinking tool. Your reading references are a help.
Glad you found it useful - and thanks!
I think the best explanations of Lacan I've read has been Zizek and Fredric Jameson. They obviously use him for their own means, but I think their modulation of Lacanian ideas is mostly transparrent. Made me see Lacan way clearer than reading his seminars.
Don't forget Mari Ruti.
I found the book- 'Lacan: A beginner's guide' to be very accessible as an introduction for a layman.
I read that, and it uses common sense to explain something very counter-intuitive: its a disaster..
Powerful Dr.Sadler with a new brilliant series.
Well, down the line.
Great video, thanks for making it!
Glad you enjoyed it
Would definitely interested in videos on Lacan
Thanks for the thoughts on Lacan. I've never read him. He's one of those people I know of, rather than know.
He's well worth checking out
Goddamn you make philosophy sound so cool, I almost always have an urge to read something related to your videos after watching them
Hahaha! Philosophy IS cool!
I enjoyed the video. Currently reading The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, enjoying it also.
Glad you enjoyed it
"can barely rub two ideas together and get a spark" *COUGHS and glares at de Botton and his School of Life channel*
#h8r
Hahaha! I usually avoid naming names myself, but. . . .
I mean, kudos to him to getting people /interested/ in Philosophy, but I just wish he weren't so much.... like Joel Osteen.
Yes, when the School of Life gets people interested enough to then actually study philosophy, it serves some useful purpose
@@GregoryBSadler Funny, this happened to me. But now that I know at least 10% more about philosophy, I realise just how (at best) pedestrian and (at worst) miscontextualised/outright wrong SoL's ideas about philosophers like Lacan are. Botton tries sooooo hard to make EVERYTHING about this cookie-cutter self-love message that he bowdlerises everything he's talking about. Still, I give him props for igniting a passion about philosophy and being, at least, open-minded about a range of thinkers (it was surprising to see a video about Marx that wasn't mired in red scare propaganda at the time).
Ive been watching your videos for at least a year, and NOW i stumbled on the fact that you are interested in Lacan! Ive been struggling with lacan for months, ive read about 6-7 books on him and still cant say i grasp him, id love it if you could make some videos on him (especially given that, due to zizek, interest has been rising). If not, could you at least recommend a book or two, best if written by sticklers for detail and clarity, since a lot of secondary sources tend to devolve into poetics almost as much as the man himself.
Did you already read the linked-to articles in the video description?
Great video, as someone interested in Lacan but lacking much vigorous knowledge of psychoanalysis, what of Freud would you recommend reading? I’m aware of Lacan as a ‘Freudian’ so I’d like to have a good understanding of the essentials before I tackle Lacan himself.
A great religious appropriation of Lacan is Marcus Pound's Theology, Psychoanalysis, and Trauma.
Thank you for this video, Dr. Sadler! I am reading (struggling with ) Lacan and would like to see more videos on his work. I join with @The Compiler in the request of a video series like the ones on Hegel.
"Demand" is a pretty strong term. . .
I edited it. Apology for the language.
I appreciate your thoughts on Lacan. I've read some of his work before, while I don't agree with a lot of it, there is something to be gained by studying Lacan.
Yes, that's the best way to look at his work. One doesn't have to agree with all or even most of it to see some things of value in it
Yes, I have a hard time thinking of someone I teach or work on who hasn't said something off. Half the time, though. . . perhaps not all of them
What an excellent idea!
Glad to read it!
Can you maybe talk a little bit about your thoughts on Foucault? I'm currently reading Discipline and Punish, and I find it very fascinating.
I would be very interested in watching your video on Lacan if you make one.
Edit: I'm sorry if this is rude to imply to be demanding of (given the efforts it'd take), but it'd be really great if you could make video lectures about his books like you are doing with Phenomenology of the Spirit
Well, Lacan's texts are dense enough that they would benefit from that sort of close reading, to be sure
does that mean you will do it?
That means that it's a possibility.
@@GregoryBSadler a possibility of which actualization we eagarly await
I studied in Argentina Psychology -jokingly called the International reservoir of psychoanalysis (where literally all the books written in france since the 80' and translated are sold in an 8 to 1 ratio) In Buenos Aires there are around 60,000 psychoanalysts, most of them Lacanian, that is, 3 or 4 Lacanians per block- which is to say, Psychoanalysis (and some universities are rather aligned with the more Marxist-Community focussed frameworks, such as Enrique Pichon-Rivière and such), rather than Psychology. I had troubles by my senior year, were I was really beginning to read how incommensurable was Freud whole Scientific Investigation Program to that of Lacan's, and the problem was and is, that now, 3 generations of academics later, they try to abridge Lacan by the way of a Freudo-Millerian Psychoanalysis, lead by Miller and his rivals also, with their separate schools, where they took it literally "return to freud", which in french is like re-tour, go around it and back: and it's true, Lacan used the same terms, such as libido, Drive, Unconscious: but the axioms, the hypothesis and the overall epistemological development, which as early as 1954 was pretty clear in its fundamentals, made it impossible to say that "he developed freud", or "went back to basics": It's like saying Newton's Physics was developed by Einstein (when it has been debunked more than a Century ago, the NEwtonian physics as wrong, although, it wouldn't fail if one used it to launch a missile to the moon, because it fairly marginal in its error in this scale and enterprise, but, when MRIs, and gravitation ensue, it cannot account for it. The same with Lacan: He introduced Jakobsonian linguistics of the 1950's to replace "representation-energy" to deal with whatever goes on with people, rejecting therefore, any mythical biological primordial pair of opposites forces (death/life), but having humans entangled in societies, with a structure as that of language, as that of unconscious, not inside the person, in the brain, where libido had electric phenomenology according to Freud. He then USed topology to deal with the Clinical development, and not as analogy, or metaphor, like froud used diagrams and models, but as structures themselves. Then it was Logic and an anti-ontology philosophy (which is what anti-philosophy is: against all the Aristotelian and Platonic threads, going back to Parmenides, and rehabilitating Heraclitus. Therefore, we have a Modern Logic drawn from Frege, Russell and Gödel, with a new epistemological proposition to empty being as such, where it's a tautology to say things are, without saying what. He maintained the rigour and the seriousness to make his own Scientific Program of Investigation thrive, always with high formalism, so that Psychoanalysis would remain in a privileged position regarding Science and Philosophy, by way of being the discourse (out of the four ones, that are ways of bonding, creating human bonds on every kind), legitimately able to deal with the Subject of Science, which is the Subject (of study, practice) of Psychoanalysis.
Now, Because it wasn't a Universitarian, Academic, Scientific discourse, nor that of Religion and State (common sense, and social control), but closer to that of the subversive, the Hysterical one, but positioned in an contrary angle to that of the Masters' (State, Religion), he taught not like any other discipline in College, nor in the ways of Theology or Politics, but with a paraconsistent logic, making it a new Serious discipline that has many levels or argumentation, and, regrettably, Lacan was worried that it would happen to his Theory what happened to Freud's, making him go in that particular, difficult way, undoubtedly failed, since it's he that from 1967 starts giving conferences and writing essays and saying in his seminaires that he failed, for example, a title of a conference was "... Reasons for a Failure (Rome 1953-1967)" addressing the problem of misunderstanding of the theory, he dissolved his school, and again before dying, sure that he was going to be understood however. Which is what, after this generations of academics, we have the versions of how Lacan is either a showman, a poser, not serious at all, and the other one making it like a ultra-marxist revolutionary group, say, maoists of the 60' in Europe, or Religious sect with all their esoteric things that the ordinary man cannot understand. TO my knowledge, There is one School that remains consistent with Lacan, but it counts 500 people amongst 90000 Lacanians in the world (85% in Argentina, by the way): Secretaría Apertura: with the leading figures of Alfredo Eidelsztein and the other great true Academic, serious, from Brazil, Ricardo Goldenberg, although not fully part of the abovementioned institution. So, to be fair, we could argue whether Lacan ios wrong or not, but we cannot use arguments such as those used by Sokal, or to say "he is passé, the Deal is with his nephew now, Miller". But to call it "non-sense" or a mega-trolling by him, to the whole world, like a Magician, or other false prophets, its not valid, but rather some very intellectual dishonesty which slothiness cannot even begin to explain.
Could you elaborate on why Lacan is so popular in Argentina? This was something I always wanted to know, but found nothing on the internet
@@mates.2994 It's just historical coincidence, Lacan became famous in 1967 with his first and only book publication, gaining momentum by 1970 in Argentina & elsewhere, then in 1976 came the dictatorship till 1983, during which time psychologists practiced underground in the title of M.D.'s, add to it the legislation of that day wouldn't be reformed because of turmoil and subsequent political persecutions: many in the social sciences fled to Brazil, Uruguay, Spain, but certainly 7k lost their jobs and at least a hundred where tortured and killed. It hit the humanities even worse. Before that like US and EU, Ego psychology and Klein's Psychoanalysis (OR Winnicott's) where hegemonic, buy by 1984 almost all curriculum had recoiled to psychoanalysis and marxists-oriented communitarian psychology (when not clinical), The general fertile ground for French post-structuralist is patent in Brazil and Uruguay and Mexico and USA too, Derrida especially popular in the latter, So those two things made it ubiquitous until well into the 21st century when the neurosciences started regaining some ground
Like many, I discovered Lacan and Hegel through Slavoj Zizek. Prior, I was digging around in idealism and analytic philosophy. From a new perspective I have, at least from a Kleinian psychological perspective, I am seeing analytic philosophy as the paranoid/schizoid position of splitting, whereas continental philosophy is more of the depressive/ambivalent position. Personally, I am happier in the later position -less neurosis.
You lost me at the analytics are this, continentals are this. Way too broad of generalizations about vast complex traditions
This was great
Thanks!
Thank you
You're welcome!
In the Self-Consciousness videos in your PoS series you mentioned its influence on Lacan; have you ever thought about doing a video on the links between Hegel and Lacan?
I've thought of doing all sorts of videos. The general issue is finding the time. Perhaps down the line, when I have more Patreon support so I don't have to hustle and work so much
me the other day "boy Lacan's hard, I wish that fellow who did those Hegel videos did Lacan"
me right now "we'll i'll be"
Hahaha! Well, it's a matter of finding the time to shoot videos on Lacan
I tried reading Lacan in French, but even in English his Ecrits is taunting. But one of the better chapters in Lacan's Ecrits, is the discussion of Poe's Purloined Letter. Each time I try to read it, I find something new. Even Lacan laments that there is no decent translation for Purloined which he translates as to steal. So much of Lacan is lost in translation and best to read him in French, if at all possible. Thanks for the video
That's why I suggest not beginning with the Ecrits
I'm to be honest, quite interested in Lacan, especially application of his ideas to works of literature. I will take your advice and start with the ethics of psychoanalysis. Other that that specific seminar, do you suggest reading for example the four fundamental concepts before delving into the Ecrits?
It certainly couldn't hurt. You'll be going back and forth from one text to the other, rereading them, in any case
Lacan seems to be one of those thinkers that's hard to get into (because of the way he writes and how it's interdisciplinary), so a video (or three) would be great to help with those first hardest steps.
Yes, he's quite precious - in the bad sense - far more often than he has a right to be!
Look up Todd McGowans channel here on UA-cam. He has made some of the best videos on Lacanian concepts that are very clear and understandable. If you then want more you can listen to his podcast Why Theory which goes more into detail.
Hello, I'm curious what you think of john Dewey and William Jame's philosophy/psychology?
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What's the name of the Lacan that deals with religion you showcased? Should I read the seminars beforehand?
I don't think there's any set order you have to read Lacan's works in. You're going to reread them several times to figure out what he's talking about anyway.
Just starting out reading some Jung and at first a lot of my reaction was “this is... junk and it sounds like Jordan Peterson ripped this guy off pretty hard”. But by sticking with it a bit I see exactly what you’re getting at here. Even if it isn’t necessarily “true” in the sense of being a mechanical medicine of the soul, his work and what appears to be the guiding questions of psychoanalysis (I haven’t read Freud or Lacan... yet) are really interesting, relevant, and never really handled in depth by the other philosophers I spend a lot of time with. They seem to explain around certain topics while Jung, and Freud and Lacan I imagine, put them front and center: dreams, the unconscious, how things flit back and forth between the unconscious and the conscious, what the unconscious means and does and so on. Will definitely check Lacan out after a little more time with Jung. Always exciting discovering an entire region of thought I hadn’t touched before.
I find Jung is mostly worth reading when he's discussing other thinkers.
And why would you read Jung without reading Freud at all?
Gregory B. Sadler I didn’t really know of a good introduction to Freud, and was kind of turned off by what I had heard of Freud before, and that coupled with some other media I’m watching referencing Jung directly got me to buy a book to just kind of dive in. And yea, in this video you mention Lacan using a lot of different philosophers (especially De Saussure and structuralism, which I’m a huge fan of), in what I’ve read so far Jung has done a pretty good work up on a quote of Cleanthes and made some decent use of Nietzsche. Getting a bit ahead of myself but do you think it’s best to jump back into Freud a bit before going for Lacan?
@@jeffsullivan4182 I think that you should read some Freud, rather than relying on what you might have heard about him. And yeah, if you want to understand Lacan, you need to read Freud
Gregory B. Sadler Gotcha, that’s what I’ll do next then. Thanks.
I'm curious about that guy who dropped out- what do you think about people who think that Analytical Philosophy is the only "real" philosophy?
I think they're missing out
Have you read Lacan’s seminar IX (identification)? Does it have any political implication?
Pretty much anything can have "political implication" if you push it a bit. I suppose you can draw out political implications from most of Lacan's works
Can you suggest where I can find any commentaries on Seminar IX? If its not too much to ask for!
@@ThangNeihsial No idea. I'm not a big reader of secondary lit, unless I'm engaged in some active research project.
What are your thoughts on zizek's work on Lacan?
Iasonas Xd. Zizek references Lacan somewhat. I would like to nail Lacan but other analysts talk of Carl Rogers
Well, I don't spend much time with Zizek, quite frankly - or with secondary sources for most primary authors - so I'm not a great judge. I'd say that - sort of like with Deleuze when he does history of philosophy, or with Kojeve on Hegel - you're getting more Zizek than Lacan
Gregory B. Sadler. Something new emerge out of repetition which you can find in both Zizek and Deleuze. So it is a good thing to see a more Zizek rather than the same Lacan itself.
About a month ago, I bought a book of Freud. The book is about the dream theory. I find his writings interesting. The only problem I have is the I don't believe in the subconscious. I, like Sartre, believe that subconscious cannot be possible since consciousness is conscious of everything.
Well, then that will indeed be a problem for you, though hopefully not an impediment to understanding.
Must be pretty exhausting being conscious of everything, though. I'm kinda glad that's not the case for me
Agree.
Thanks for making these videos.
Did you ever encounter Louis Althusser's work in any detail? Given that you have had significant experience with Derrida, Lacan, and Deleuze (if I recall correctly from your Derrida video), I figured that I would ask, and I would love to see what your perspective is on his interpretation of Marxism, which is quite radical in my view.
I am about to start my MA in political philosophy/theory at the University of Vienna in the coming spring, my philosophy undergraduate experience was almost entirely analytic (and was incredibly hostile towards the continental tradition), I have been spending the last year almost completely immersed in 19th and 20th century continental thought, and I am finding the structuralist thinkers to be the most engaging and liberating without any question.
I read enough to realize I didn't want to devote the time to read any more. My mentor was big on him
Do you have similar thoughts towards Lukács and the Frankfurt School thinkers?
No.
I do appreciate the attitude of setting realistic expectations for the client....too much snake oil these days....and we cannot wait until we reach mass "mental health" before solving our systemic problems...we have to solve an imperfect flawed toxic system in whatever crazy mental-emotional state we are in to the best that we can. Time is of the essence.
Would love to hear your opinion on Jung.
Since you finished reading Phenomenology of spirit, perhaps it's time to something similar with Lacans Ecrits or seminars?
Topic addressed many times in AMAs
What are the other books on that shelf?
Lacan
@@GregoryBSadler thank you.
but i meant that what are the names of other books behind your back, on that wall actually.
@@GregoryBSadler and it's really great to see that you are talking of Lacan. Hope some day you might make thorough videos on Lacan. :D
@@totoodas2339 They're all Lacan seminars or Ecrits. Like I said
What philosophical terms do you think are close to the lacanian real?
Depends on the philosopher/movement you want to compare
would you do videos on Lacan?
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Do you have acquaintance of Roger Penrose theory use of the conceptual triad to reframe the imaginary, the symbolic and the real, Dr. Sadler. Isn't theory the symbolic itself?
Theory wouldn’t be in just one register
Ethics of Psychoanalysis is Lacan at his best
Yes, I'd say that's right. It's a great way to make one's way into his thought
I am interested is psychoanalysis but I’ve encountered many who have said it is nothing but pseudoscience. Is this the case?
No statement at that level of sweeping generality is going to be the case
I was a philosophy major and now study psychoanalytic theory at the graduate level. My position is this: psychoanalysis is not a science proper, and it should not be if we want to continue talking about elements of the self whose nature extends beyond the preview of empirical investigation. It’s pseudoscientific so long as it claims to be doing science. And it’s wanted to be accepted by science for so long. That’s why there’s such a lash back. Still, I think it is both clinically effective and, in many ways, a very responsible and realistic approach to therapy. Not for everyone tho. But the philosophy of psychoanalysis is what I love most. Rather than trying to be a science, the discipline should frame itself as an applied philosophy of mind. It’s own philosophical tradition in a way…a conversation about the psyche in abstract, speculative, deeply metaphorical and philosophical language.
@@arranda15 Thank you so much for your input. I agree with what you are saying.
Donald Winnicott?
Yes
As a philosopher it really amazed me that you discovered Lacan in US so late. May be because of he is French:)?
What a weird comment.
You do know that I grew up learning French, right?
:) conversation is getting so weird
@@alpomeroglu5121 Yes, when you start it weird, it certainly is. Not finding that to be the case with most of my interlocutors
I tend to agree with Chomskys view of French peseudo - inellectualism, but you are right, 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater', the trouble is knowing which is which.
Yep. And that requires doing the work of reading and thinking, which most are fairly unwilling to spend the time on
I was put off for the longest time of psychoanalysis because I was taught that it was pseudoscience about sex, specifically the Oedipus complex. 😡
Yes, it's best not to trust people who simply dismiss major bodies of wrk, and check out a bit of it oneself
I'd recommend foregoing Ecrits just getting into Lacan. I'd go straight to probably Seminar 11 and maybe 17.
Edit: okay, he actually gave the same recommendation after I typed my comment, so there you go.
Yep. Already ahead of you on that.
I remember a bunch of friends telling me about how Deleuze & Guattari in Anti Oedipus rly go at it in criticizing Lacan but when i actually sat down and read it seems more like they have bones to pick with "lacanians" (as you put it) than with Lacan himself lmao
The only Lacan ive read so far is his seminar The Unconcious and Repetition for a class on writting (because it was referenced by Hal Foster in The Return Of The Real and one of my teachers really likes Lacan in general) and though it was pretty obscure and hard i did find the ideas in that very interesting
Indeed
I gave up psychoanalysis long time ago. That is when I found Jungian psychology. The theoretical framework of psychoanalysis falls apart in many cases. This is not to say that the work done in clinical practice and research by some psychoanalysts is not valuable. But when things really get difficult and deep, as in character disorders (borderline, narcissistic, etc), you need archetypal psychology.
Well, then you're probably not going to be interested in Lacan. . . .
I did study some of his concepts long ago, (the idea of the mirror, the intersubjectivity by means of analyzing the language, etc), but I´m sure there are some concepts I don´t know about Lacan. I like to watch your vids. because you make difficult philosophers easy to understand, so I will watch a Lacan video if you do it.
"But when things really get difficult and deep, as in character disorders (borderline, narcissistic, etc), you need archetypal psychology." Why so?
ラカンを理解しないとフロイトがわからん。フロイトがわからんとドゥルーズがわからん。ドゥルーズがわからんとフランス思想がわからん。フランス思想がわからんとニーチェがわからん。ニーチェがわからんと近代文学がわからん。近代文学がわからんと明治の日本文学がわからん。日本文学がわからんと民俗学がわからん。繋がりが綿々と続く。きりがないので終わる😃
Both Freud and Lacan will always be inaccessible to a narcissistic society. I'd never have been able to make heads or tails of either without having been traumatized out of my self, studying the theories, and actually going through psychoanalysis to completion. I'm living proof Freud works, but who the hell is going to believe me. Lacan is mind-blowing, his writing style is not his fault - he's French, they don't do anything without overflowing flair.
That's totally false about French writing
whats the truth to him being a fraud?
its ok, I got to the end of the video :)
more eye contact less aah uhm
Less unasked-for advice. More links to your own no-doubt excellent videos
Psychoanalysis has earned it's status as a pseudoscience from quite a while now. I wonder if you ever read Popper's, Mario Bunges or Grunbaum's critique of the whole thing. Seems like continental philosophers never got the memo. Lacan was a charlatan, the fact that he missapropriated scientific concepts that he didn't understand at all, such as mathematical topology shows that he is full of it. Sokal did a great job of showing what a hack he is in his "fashionable nonsense".
If philosophers want to be taken seriously, they should ditch outdated theories and nonsensical writers like Lacan from their syllabus.
No idea why you bothered commenting here. Yeah, I've read Popper, way back in grad school Pretty unimpressive. That's about all the time I'll give to this conversation. Good luck with your studies
Gregory B. Sadler Seriously? Not even going to bother on why psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable. Or why modern clinical psychology has dispensed with Freuds (and by extension Lacan's ) ideas?
I just wanted to point out how philosophers of science have rendered psychoanalysis as an obvious case of pseudoscience, before your listeneres get the right picture of how Seriously Lacan is taken before they commit the same mistake of wasting their time on him. Psychoanalysis is basically the astrology of the social sciences.
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A free thinker must overcome scientism. You have not grasped philosophy if you are dogmatic of any system of thought.
It is not science, but it should not be and does not need to claim to be science. It is a wonderful playground to do philosophy. Very valuable in that sense