Lacan

[Hiero]

Do people tend to think Lacan is structuralist or post-structuralist.

I tend to think of him as a Structuralist, at least I am reading works by others who read Lacan as a structuralist.

I have read Zizek's "How to read Lacan", which is very structuralist, in that the subjects communicates, gains meaning and understanding through the symbolic order which as I understand a subconcisous of ordering symbols/signfiers and creating a structure so we can understand each other.

The other work I am reading through now is "Jacques Lacan" by Anika Lemaire. This is a older book writen in 1970, so at this time the French structuralism was in it's heyday with Lacan being heavily influcence by structural liguistics and anthropolical linguistics (Levi-Strauss). This book is much more coherent then Zizek, but it deals with alot more indepth Lacan.

I tend to think he is a structuralist, from where Zizek picks off. But I read an aritcle last year, something I have to go through again noted how the post-structuralis loved Lacan.

Anyway I think in regards to Lacan's theory, and what Zizek does to use pyschoanalysis in a wider context it would be interesting to show the symbolic manifestations of the class war, between proleteriat and bourgeiosie.

[gilhyle]

Structuralist through and through

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

More charlatan than structuralist.

[Blackscare]

More charlatan than structuralist.

Could you elaborate?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Blackscare:


Could you elaborate?

For one thing, he relied on Freud, who was a liar, a bully and a fraud:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

For another, his ideas make not one ounce of sense:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

[JimFar]

For a time, Lacan was Althusser's therapist. That did him a whole fat lot of good.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Good point Jim.

[gilhyle]

More charlatan than structuralist.

Interesting to see you counterposing the two, Rosa

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Interesting to see you counterposing the two, Rosa

You clearly do not know what 'counterposing' means.

[Bolshevik-Leninist]

For a time, Lacan was Althusser's therapist. That did him a whole fat lot of good.

Can you cite this? I do not recall it to be true.

[Leo]

For one thing, he relied on Freud, who was a liar, a bully and a fraud:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...2&postcount=55 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55):lol: Neither calling Freud names like "liar", "bully" or "fraud" nor linking to a few lame professional Freud-bashers is going to repute Freud or his scientific psychoanalysis method.

[black magick hustla]

I'm sorry Leo but I'll have to disagree. Freud sucked and there was very little science in his method involved. Nobody does psychoanalysis except literary critics for a reason.

[Leo]

I'm sorry Leo but I'll have to disagree.Fair enough, of course.


Freud sucked You have to admit that arguements like this aren't really convincing though.


and there was very little science in his method involved. and there was very little science in his method involved.Yes, professional Freud-bashers claim that also. I haven't really seen any real refutation in their works though. Most who claims this approach is unscientific either approaches it from a crypto-conservative (or openly conservative approach) due to some taboos about sexual development among others being severely damaged on the Freud-bashers' parts due to a study on him. What they write is mostly based on a very "scientific" criticism of psychoanalysis, that is repeating the old bourgeois slogans about Freud being a "pervert", a "fraud", a "liar", an "immoral" person and so forth. Of course, there is also the fact that psychoanalysis still is one of the most significant alternatives to immediately drugging people with psychological issues.

There was one valid early criticism of psychoanalysis. Early critics of it believed that its theories were based too little on quantitative and experimental research, and too much on the clinical case study method. Since then though, an increasing amount of empirical research from psychologists and psychiatrists has begun to address this criticism.


Nobody does psychoanalysis except literary critics for a reason.Oh this is not true though. Psychoanalysis is widely practiced by world clinical psychologists, there are thousands of practicing psychoanalysts even today. The unconscious is now a popular topic of study in the fields of experimental and social psychology. Recent developments in neuro-science have resulted in some scientists arguing that it has provided a biological basis for unconscious emotional processing in line with psychoanalytic theory even: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychoanalysis

On the other hand, what you say actually is true for Freud-bashers who, aside from drug-proponents like the psychiatrist Torrey, most Freud-bashers are either working on the literary field (like the two Rosa linked, Crews who actually is a literary critic and Webster who is a graduate of English literature and a cultural historian) or are "modern philosophers" (like Popper or Derrida).

[Holden Caulfield]

I was tought that psychoanalysis was largely rejected by psychologists because it relied on case studied and was too subjective in both its approach, its analysis, and its conclusions.

Things like cognitive theory and social learning theory are more popular amongst psychologists.

Not to say that Freud didn't make some good contributons (the unconscious, importance of childhood etc) its more like he was a pioneer, basically making things up in the way that Hippocrates did with medicine. I find psychoanalysis interesting, i like alot of the Frankfurt school works on him, but ultimately its bollocks.

Plus he was a pervert, he was a bully, (the case of Anna O) and he did tell his friend who had addiction problems that cocaine would cure him. His friend then died.

[Blackscare]

he did tell his friend who had addiction problems that cocaine would cure him. His friend then died.


Oh come on, there was a lot of ignorance/false ideas about drugs like cocaine back then, among everybody.


It's not like he said that today.


Hell, heroin was once sold by the bottle because it was a great household cure-all tonic.


There are valid criticisms one can make of Freud, but this one totally ignores the time the Freud lived in.

[Holden Caulfield]

There are valid criticisms one can make of Freud, but this one totally ignores the time the Freud lived in.
I know, lighten up.

[Leo]

I was tought that psychoanalysis was largely rejected by psychologists because it relied on case studied and was too subjective in both its approach, its analysis, and its conclusions.Yes, that was one of the earliest criticisms but more and more empirical data in support of the psychoanalytic approach is coming up.


Things like cognitive theory and social learning theory are more popular amongst psychologists.Yes, the cognitive theory is more popular amongst psychologists - both psychoanalysis (and the behaviorist/biopsychological approaches as well) in my opinion are still too radical for todays capitalist world and are only being conducted by a minority, although a significant one in the scientific community.


Not to say that Freud didn't make some good contributons (the unconscious, importance of childhood etc) its more like he was a pioneer, basically making things up in the way that Hippocrates did with medicine. I find psychoanalysis interesting, i like alot of the Frankfurt school works on him, but ultimately its bollocks. Plus he was a pervert, he was a bullyYet I don't think calling his work bollocks or calling him a pervert or a bully refutes psychoanalysis. While I am not in any way at all a fan of the Frankfurt school, actually I think Trotsky's writings on Freud are quite valid, even for today to an extent:


Pavlov's reflexology (...) destroys for all time the wall between physiology and psychology. The simplest reflex is physiological, and a system of reflexes gives us "consciousness." The accumulation of physiological quantity yields a new "psychological" quality. The method of Pavlov's school is experimental and painstaking. Generalizations are being won step by step: from a dog's saliva to poetry, i.e., to its psychological mechanics (but not its social content). Of course, the paths leading to poetry are yet to be seen.

The school of the Viennese psychoanalyst Freud takes a different approach to the problem. It assumes in advance that the driving force behind the most complex and refined psychic processes is physiological need. In this general sense it is materialistic, if we leave aside the question of whether or not it places too much emphasis on the sexual element at the expense of others, for this is already a debate within the confines of materialism. But the psychoanalyst doesn't approach the problem of consciousness experimentally, from lower phenomena to higher, or from simple reflex to complex; he tries to take all these intermediate steps with a single bound, going from the top down, from religious myth, lyrical poem or dream – straight to the physiological foundation of the psyche.

Idealists teach that the psyche is independent, and that the "soul" is a bottomless well. Both Pavlov and Freud consider that physiology is the bottom of the "soul." But Pavlov, like a diver, descends to the bottom and painstakingly investigates the well from the bottom up. Freud, on the other hand, stands above the well, and with a penetrating stare tries to capture or guess the outlines of the bottom through the depths of the ever-changing and murky water. Pavlov's method is the experiment. Freud's method is conjecture, and sometimes fantastic. The attempt to declare psychoanalysis "incompatible" with Marxism and to simply turn one's back on Freudianism is too simple, or, to be more precise, simplistic. (...) It is a working hypothesis which can give and undoubtedly does give conclusions and conjectures which go along the lines of materialist psychology.In order to try to bring this a contemporary perspective, it is of course true that not everything Freud says is true (in fact some of the things he saw as universal facts were more or less proven to be mere tendencies). On the other hand, psychoanalysis today is exactly based on the things you have highlighted as his significant contributions. As for Pavlov's approach as described by Trotsky, I would say infact that modern biopsychology and neurobiology are basically in the same line, although much more developed, obviously. As for Trotsky's talk of the two approaches looking at the same well, I would say that there is a potential for them meeting in the middle in the future, with things like neuropsychoanalysis.

[Holden Caulfield]

About what Leo said (i cba with quotes within quotes):

I find that very interesting, especially the whole 'meeting in the middle' view of things, psychology has always been something which captures my attention.

Perhaps when I have some more time to waste I will read up more on the subject. All i know on Freud is from A level psychology and dribs and drabs of Frankfurt School works.

Do you have any links to particularly good works on the subject? Or can you reccomend something to me?

[Leo]

Well, I would recommend you to start from the original source if you want to examine psychoanalysis. I would recommend most of his major works, like The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Three Essays on Human Sexuality, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Beyond the Pleasure Principle and The Ego and the Id. The work I specifically would not recommend you to read would be Civilization and its Discontents, which had turned out to be quite a disappointment for me. Among his works which are less famous but equally significant in my opinion, I would say 'Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern Neurosis and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego are good reads. Thoughts for the Times of War and Death was also an interesting read.

For an interesting article regarding psychoanalysis and the Russian revolution: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/freu-j11.shtml & http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/freu-j12.shtml

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leo:


I haven't really seen any real refutation in their works though. Most who claims this approach is unscientific either approaches it from a crypto-conservative (or openly conservative approach) due to some taboos about sexual development among others being severely damaged on the Freud-bashers' parts due to a study on him. What they write is mostly based on a very "scientific" criticism of psychoanalysis, that is repeating the old bourgeois slogans about Freud being a "pervert", a "fraud", a "liar", an "immoral" person and so forth. Of course, there is also the fact that psychoanalysis still is one of the most significant alternatives to immediately drugging people with psychological issues.

In fact, I have listed several books that succeed in refuting Freud's ideas, as well as exposing Freud's invention of 'evidence' to support his a priori 'psychology' (among other things):

As I noted in another thread:


Why does anyone bother with that charlatan Freud?

Freud's life and work was characterised by a level of duplicity, fraud, fabrication, intellectual dishonesty, invention, plagiarism, monomania, cocaine-induced madness, hero-worship, client maltreatment (and abuse), bluster, dissembling, lying and bullying (protected by a level of hero-worship among his disciples that merits its own analysis), unmatched in the career of almost any other prominent figure in recent history outside of big business, politics and organised crime.

Check out the essays posted here:

http://www.richardwebster.net/

And consult the following:

Cioffi, F. (1999), Freud And The Question Of PseudoScience (Open Court).

Crews, F., et al. (1995), The Memory Wars (Granta Books).

--------, (1998) (ed.), Unauthorized Freud (Viking).

Dufresne, T. (2003), Killing Freud. Twentieth Century Culture And The Death of Psychoanalysis (Continuum).

Ellenberger, H. (1970), The Discovery Of The Unconscious (Harper Collins); reprinted in 1994 (Fontana).

Thornton, E. (1986), The Freudian Fallacy (Paladin).

Webster, R. (1995), Why Freud Was Wrong (Harper Collins).

Welsh, A. (1994), Freud's Wishful Dream Book (Princeton University Press).

Wilcocks, R. (1994), Maelzel's Chess Player. Sigmund Freud And The Rhetoric Of Deceit (Rowman and Littlefield).

See also:

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, 'How Fabrications Differ from a Lie', London Review of Books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01_.html).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In fact, here is the above article:


‘Was Freud a liar?’ Ever since Frank Cioffi had the audacity to ask this question in 1973, it has continued to rock the world of psychoanalysis. Till then, things had been so simple. Children of the ‘Freudian century’, we had all learned to venerate in Sigmund Freud a man of ‘absolute honesty’ and ‘flawless integrity’, as his loyal biographer Ernest Jones called him. How many times were we told that? It was his passion for truth that enabled him to confront the demons of his own unconscious and to lift the multisecular repression that weighed on sexuality, despite the ‘resistance’ of his patients and the attacks of his colleagues. It was this scientific probity, too, which made him acknowledge his error about the fantastic ‘scenes’ of incest and sexual molestation that his patients had been bringing to him, despite the stinging professional setback that this represented for him. In Freud, science coincided with the moral fibre of the scientist, whose edifying biography we never tired of reading: Anna O.’s miraculous ‘talking cure’, the break with Josef Breuer regarding sexuality, the solitary crossing of the desert, the painful abandonment of the ‘seduction theory’, the heroic self-analysis, the tearing away from the transference on Wilhelm Fliess, the stoicism in the face of his colleagues’ attacks.

It is a nice story, but we now know it to be nothing but a vast ‘legend’ (Henri Ellenberger). One after another, historians of psychoanalysis have come forward to show us that things did not happen in the way Freud and his authorised biographers told us. No, Anna O.’s ‘talking cure’ never was the ‘great therapeutic success’ later vaunted by Freud. No, Breuer in no way denied the role of sexuality in the neuroses. No, Freud was not as intellectually isolated as he claimed, and the reactions of his colleagues were far from being unfavourable at the beginning. On the contrary, many of them – notably his friend Fliess – had a deep interest in sexuality, including infantile sexuality. Wrong again that Freud’s patients ever spontaneously told him pseudo-memories of infantile sexual seduction: it was Freud himself who extorted these scenes of perversion, despite the patients’ vehement protests. Freud had lied to us; we could no longer trust him. The era of suspicion had begun. Suddenly, scholars started to notice that he disguised fragments of his self-analysis as ‘objective’ cases, that he concealed his sources, that he conveniently antedated some of his analyses, that he sometimes attributed to his patients ‘free associations’ that he himself made up, that he inflated his therapeutic successes, that he slandered his opponents. Some even go so far as to suggest – supreme lèse-majesté – that Sigmund cheated on his wife with his sister-in-law Minna. The defenders of psychoanalysis are indignant and speak of gutter-press journalism, of paranoia, of ‘Freud bashing’, but they are obviously on the defensive.

It is one thing, however, to plumb the depths of Freud’s rewriting of history, another to understand its motives. Why on earth did the founder of psychoanalysis feel the need to tell all these fibs? Was it sheer boastfulness? A childish desire to establish his originality and intellectual priority? A shrewd marketing strategy? A way of promoting a personality cult within the movement he had created? In a book published in Dutch in 1993 and now translated into German as Der Fall Freud (it could be translated into English as The Freud Case: The Birth of Psychoanalysis out of Lying), the historian Han Israëls proposes an explanation that has at least the merit of simplicity. Freud, Israëls claims, was so confident in his first theories that he publicly boasted of therapeutic successes that he had not yet obtained. When they did not materialise, forcing him to revise his theories, Freud had to explain why he had abandoned them without being able to give the real reason: that would have entailed admitting that he had committed serious scientific fraud. Just like a child who has been caught in the act, he resorted to further lies, accusing the others of having lied to him. It was all the fault of that Victorian, Breuer, who had concealed from him Anna O.’s ‘transference love’ and its disastrous outcome. Or again, it was the fault of his female patients, who had told him all this nonsense about their daddies. By blaming it on convenient fall guys, Freud even allowed himself the luxury of changing his failures into victories. After all, was it not he who had managed to unearth the secret reason for all the lies he had been told? The myth of the hero was launched.

This pattern of deception seems to have begun very early in Freud’s career, even before the beginning of psychoanalysis. In this regard, Israëls sheds new and disturbing light on the so-called ‘cocaine episode’, Freud’s first great professional fiasco. In an article published in July 1884, Freud championed that newly introduced substance, recommending it for ailments as diverse as digestive disorders, seasickness, neurasthenia, facial neuralgias, asthma and impotence. Based on information published in medical journals in the United States, he also recommended the administration of cocaine in the treatment of morphine addiction and stated that he had successfully cured a case of this type: ‘During the first days of the cure [the patient] consumed [i.e. orally] 3 dg of cocainum muriaticum daily, and after ten days he was able to dispense with the coca treatment altogether.’

In March of the following year, Freud repeated this claim in a lecture given to the Psychiatric Society of Vienna and published it a few months later. He was still talking about the same patient, but bizarrely, both the duration of the treatment, the dosage of cocaine and the method of administration had changed. The patient now


took about 0.40 g of cocaine per day, and by the end of 20 days the morphine abstinence was overcome. No cocaine habituation set in; on the contrary, an increasing antipathy to the use of cocaine was unmistakably evident . . . I have no hesitation in recommending the administration of cocaine for such withdrawal cures in subcutaneous injections of 0.03-0.05 g per dose, without any fear of increasing the dose.

Freud’s patient was very fortunate, for when Albrecht Erlenmayer, an eminent specialist in morphine addiction, tested Freud’s method on his own patients, they did not get any better. Worse yet, Erlenmayer strongly warned against the dangers of cocaine habituation. Dr Freud, he wrote, had added to morphine and alcohol ‘the third scourge of humanity, cocaine’. The slap in the face was monumental. Forced to respond, Freud justified himself by declaring in an article that Erlenmayer’s results were altered by his administering the cocaine subcutaneously, not orally, as Freud had prescribed. No one seems to have pointed out at the time that it was that very method that he himself had enthusiastically recommended in his 1885 article. After that, Freud ‘forgot’ the compromising article and never mentioned it again among his publications. Apart from a few veiled allusions in The Interpretation of Dreams, where he accused his patient of having given himself injections of cocaine against his advice, Freud was never to return publicly to this subject.

And for good reason. As was revealed in the early 1950s, in an article by Siegfried Bernfeld and in the biography by Jones, to whom Anna Freud had given access to Freud’s letters to Martha Bernays during their engagement (the famous and classified Brautbriefe), things had in reality gone exactly as Erlenmeyer predicted. Freud’s patient was none other than Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, one of his colleagues and friends who was using morphine to combat excruciatingly painful neuromas due to the amputation of several fingers, and his detoxification treatment, which started at the beginning of May 1884, had been a complete disaster. After hardly a week, Jones tells us, Freud and his colleagues Obersteiner and Exner found Fleischl lying on the floor, ‘almost senseless with pain’. Not only had Fleischl continued to take morphine, but after Freud gave him cocaine injections in January 1885 in an attempt to fight the pain, he started injecting himself with ‘enormous doses’ of that substance (1 gram per day). By June, Fleischl had developed a ‘delirium tremens with white snakes creeping over his skin’ and had to be sent to the countryside by his family. He died six years later, addicted to both morphine and cocaine.

Reading Jones’s report, one gets the impression of a tragic mistake, which Freud bitterly reproached himself for (indeed, this is the explanation given by the ever trusty Jones for Freud’s later denials regarding his use of the needle: these ‘could only have been unconsciously determined’ by his feeling of guilt). Until now, however, it has not been possible to gain access to the letters on which Jones relied, because of the impenetrable censorship exercised by the Sigmund Freud Archives. Israëls’s book fills this gap. By a stroke of luck such as seldom occurs in the life of a researcher, he happened to stumble across the transcripts of nearly 300 of these Brautbriefe, which were sleeping in the drawers of the Sigmund Freud Copyrights, the commercial branch of the Freud empire. The story he found there is, as one would expect, singularly more complex and bizarre than that told by Jones.

Jones carefully omitted to note that, at the moment of writing his first article on cocaine, in mid-June 1884, Freud could not have entertained any illusions about the treatment which he presents to his readers as a success. The treatment had begun on 7 May 1884 and, even if it had seemed promising during the first couple of days, Freud wrote as early as 12 May: ‘With Fleischl things are so sad that I cannot enjoy the cocaine successes at all.’ The cocaine, which Fleischl took ‘continually’, did not prevent him from suffering extreme pain and having ‘attacks’ that left him nearly unconscious. Significantly, Freud added: ‘Whether in one of these attacks he took morphia, I do not know, he denies it, but a morphinist . . . cannot be believed.’ On 20 May, cocaine having suppressed neither the pain nor the withdrawal symptoms, the physician Theodor Billroth tried a new operation on the stump and recommended to Fleischl ‘to take considerable amounts of morphia . . . and he was given he does not know how many injections’ (letter of 23 May). A month later, Freud triumphantly wrote in his article that ‘after ten days he was able to dispense with the coca treatment altogether.’ He only forgot to mention that it was because the treatment had been a complete fiasco!

Fleischl had quickly started taking cocaine again – if in fact he had ever stopped. On 12 July, shortly after the article appeared, Freud mentioned in passing that he was taking cocaine ‘regularly’. On 5 October, he wrote: ‘Interesting . . . that he [Fleischl] has received a request from the big manufacturer Merck in Darmstadt, whose attention has been drawn by his large coca consumption, and who wanted to know what he knew about the value and effects of the substance.’ Compare that with what Freud told his audience five months later, in his lecture of March 1885: ‘No cocaine habituation set in; on the contrary, an increasing antipathy to the use of cocaine was unmistakably evident.’ One understands why Jones, when summarising this passage, felt the (unconscious?) need to add this pious parenthesis: ‘This was before Fleischl had suffered from cocaine intoxication.’

What is most shocking in all this is not that Freud lied through his teeth, but that he seems not to have noticed. As Israëls notes, he continued to consider Fleischl’s treatment a success despite all the proofs to the contrary. Three days after Billroth’s operation, he wrote to Martha: ‘Until then he [Fleischl] had managed excellently with the cocaine. So the cocaine has stood the test very well’ (23 May 1884). Likewise, when it became evident that Fleischl had become addicted, Freud obstinately refused to admit his error: ‘Since I have given him the cocaine, he has been able to suppress the faints and he could better control himself, but he took it in such enormous quantities . . . that in the end he suffered from chronic intoxication’ (26 June 1885). In other words, it was the patient who had ruined the experiment. Such complete indifference to reality is staggering and it inevitably reminds us of what Freud himself later described as the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’. Clearly Freud was so convinced of the correctness of his theory that he was ready to modify the facts when they didn’t conform.

By the same token, it becomes difficult to reduce Freud’s lies to cynical scientific frauds, designed to promote or protect his career. After all, his articles were going to be read by his colleagues and seniors: Breuer, Exner, Billroth and Obersteiner, who had all witnessed the Fleischl fiasco at first hand. Freud must therefore have convinced himself of his imaginary success, otherwise he would not have so recklessly invited their criticism. Similarly with his response to Erlenmayer: as Israëls points out, it was insanely risky to lie so transparently when anyone – especially Erlenmayer – could at any time confound him by citing his own article. Even supposing that this was a brilliant bluff, one must concede that it presupposes an uncommon confidence in the magic of words. No wonder Freud became the theorist of fantasy, wish-fulfilment and primary narcissism: he himself had a remarkable propensity to hallucinate his theories, to dream up clinical data.

Israëls finds this magic behaviour everywhere in Freud and makes it the key to the properly mythical birth of psychoanalysis. Officially, Freud dated psychoanalysis to the day when Breuer managed to eliminate the hysterical symptoms of his patient Anna O. by having her narrate the traumatic events which had started them off. Israëls explodes this version, as others have done before him. In reality, as we know from a letter Freud wrote to his fiancée, Breuer had terminated Anna O.’s treatment because his wife was jealous of the somewhat overzealous interest he was showing towards his patient. He then placed Anna O. in a private clinic, where she continued to display the same hysterical symptoms as before. She made three more visits to clinics between 1883 and 1887, and it was not till the end of the 1880s that she began to improve, the ‘talking cure’ evidently having played no role in this recovery. This did not prevent Freud from making false claims for the ‘method’ of his friend Breuer, starting in 1888, at a time when nothing allowed him to think that Anna O. would get better and he himself had not yet applied the cathartic method to a single one of his patients. In an encyclopedia article that Israëls does not quote but which adds grist to his mill, Freud evoked Breuer’s ‘method’ and continued: ‘This method of treatment is new, but it produces curative successes [Heilerfolge] which cannot otherwise be achieved.’

Once again, Freud was indulging in wishful thinking and proclaiming successes that never were. And, once again, he had to rewrite history when this bragging was not justified. Disappointed with the cathartic method, Freud had indeed broken with Breuer shortly after the publication of Studies on Hysteria. But then, how to explain this turnaround if the method achieved such brilliant results? The solution, as pieced together by Israëls, consisted in recognising its meagre results while blaming them on Breuer’s alleged resistance to admitting the role of sexuality in the aetiology of hysteria. This was a particularly blatant (and thus irrational) untruth, since anyone could read what Breuer had written in Studies on Hysteria: ‘I do not think I am exaggerating when I assert that the great majority of severe neuroses in women have their origin in the marriage bed . . . It is perhaps worthwhile insisting again and again that the sexual factor is by far the most important and the most productive of pathological results.’

But Freud went further. In On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement and in An Autobiographical Study, he wrote that Breuer had abruptly terminated the treatment of Anna O. when he realised that she had ‘developed a condition of “transference love”’ towards him. (In private, Freud even told an extravagant story of hysterical childbirth.) He intimated, however, that this was a ‘reconstruction’ on his part, based on remarks made in passing by Breuer. To my knowledge, Israëls is the first to note that Freud had in fact no reason to ‘reconstruct’ the story, since he knew it – or at least its kernel of truth: Breuer’s infatuation with his patient – right from the start. By proceeding in this manner, he not only suggested that Breuer had hidden the truth from his readers, but also that he had concealed it from his younger colleague, which exonerated the latter from any complicity in the misleading statements about Anna O.’s ‘talking cure’. (Freud knew, of course, that he could count on Breuer’s embarrassed silence: this lie, at least, was not risky.)

Same scenario when Freud launched his ill-fated ‘seduction theory’. In his lecture of 21 April 1896 on ‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’, he proposed that the symptoms of hysteria be attributed to sexual traumas in early childhood, and proclaimed loud and clear that ‘in some 18 cases of hysteria I have been able to discover this connection in every single symptom, and, where the circumstances allowed, to confirm it by therapeutic success.’ It seems that ‘circumstances’ never allowed in any of the cases in question, for two weeks later Freud confessed to Fliess that ‘none of the old [treatments] is completed.’ And in his famous letter of recantation of 21 September 1897, he explained to his friend that one of the main reasons he had come to doubt his theory was ‘the continual disappointment in my efforts to bring a single analysis to a real conclusion’. But since it was impossible to reveal why he had abandoned his seduction theory without revealing at the same time the truth about his famous ‘therapeutic successes’, Freud carefully avoided communicating his doubts to his colleagues. It wasn’t until 1914, after 17 years of equivocation, that he finally admitted publicly to having been wrong about the ‘seduction scenes’. No mention, however, of the therapeutic fiasco and its role in the abandonment of his theory. No, Freud had been led astray by the ‘reports [Berichte] made by patients in which they ascribed their symptoms to passive sexual experiences in the first years of childhood’, until the moment he realised that these were fantasies expressing the ‘child’s sexual life’.

This story has since become one of the high points of the Freud legend, but Israëls has no trouble showing that it bears no relation to the facts. Far from his patients spontaneously confiding stories of sexual abuse, Freud described in detail in his articles how he had to force them to admit the veracity of the scenes that he himself hypothesised. Indeed, a quick or spontaneous confession on their part would have conflicted with the theory, since Freud attributed hysteria to the repression of memories of early sexual traumas: ‘Before they come for analysis the patients know nothing about these scenes. They are indignant as a rule if we warn them that such scenes are going to emerge. Only the strongest compulsion of the treatment can induce them to embark on a reproduction of them.’ Anyone consulting one of the articles written by Freud at that time was bound to notice the fallacy of his retrospective presentation. Here again, his misrepresentation is so gross, so blatant, that one wonders how he could reasonably have hoped to put it over. Had he come to believe his own tall tales?

Israëls’s demonstration is meticulous, relentless, devastating. Even if his demystifying zeal occasionally (rarely) leads him to be unfair to Freud, his book on the whole leaves no doubt as to the answer to Cioffi’s question: yes, Freud was an inveterate liar who would not hesitate for a moment to rewrite reality if that allowed him to get out of trouble. This observation, evidently, goes far beyond simple biography. Indeed, unlike modern experimental sciences, psychoanalysis rests on ‘observations’ which, because of medical confidentiality, are not available to other researchers (unless they become patient-analysts themselves) and which, by the same token, cannot give rise to a consensus based on the possibility of replicating the experiment (except through the cloning of analysts). It is therefore absolutely crucial in psychoanalysis that the witness who reports these ‘observations’ – the analyst – is credible. As Lacan candidly recognised, this is what likens psychoanalysis to a pre-modern practice such as alchemy, which required ‘purity of the soul of the operator’. But then, if we can no longer believe in the purity of Freud’s soul, what remains of psychoanalysis? It is no accident that psychoanalysts cry out in indignation whenever Freud’s integrity is cast in doubt, even at the trivial level of his escapades with his sister-in-law: without consensus on the person of the arch-witness, the whole edifice crumbles.

And yet, once we have made the diagnosis of mendacity, are we really done with the ‘Freud case’? Israëls describes Freud as a specialist in damage control, clever at dressing up his therapeutic failures as advances in science. But this ignores the bizarrely puerile and mythomaniacal character of Freud’s lies, which Israëls underscores so well. Is it likely that a man who so easily blinded himself to reality would have abandoned his first theories because they were not borne out by the facts? It seems to me that Israëls places too much confidence here in the model of scientific ‘falsification’, at the very moment he reproaches Freud for having departed from it. The truth is that Freud knew from the very start that Fleischl, Anna O. and his 18 patients were not cured, and yet he did not hesitate to build grand theories on these non-existent foundations. So why would the absence of therapeutic results have caused him subsequently to abandon his theories when they had not prevented him from adopting them in the first place? It is much more likely that he abandoned them for the same reason he adopted them: because he had a new idea, a better theory. Before adopting the cathartic method, for example, Freud was already interested in Charcot and Janet’s theories about the de-suggestion of traumatic memories under hypnosis. Similarly, before abandoning the theory of seduction, he was already toying with Fliess’s biogenetic hypotheses on infantile sexuality and speculating about the origin of the incest prohibition. Contrary to Israëls’s contention, Freud’s (or Breuer’s) therapeutic results probably played no decisive role, either positive or negative, in all these theoretical developments. Even if they do account for Freud’s subsequent evasions and obfuscations, they do not explain the birth of psychoanalysis itself.

In a way, the whole situation is simultaneously much worse and much more innocent than Israëls imagines: despite Freud’s positivist rhetoric, psychoanalysis was, from the very beginning, a purely speculative (a purely ‘metapsychological’) enterprise in which facts and evidence played, at best, a role of marginal importance. In that respect, to establish that Freud lied about clinical matters is not enough to account for that ‘longest error’, psychoanalysis. We must also, as Henri Ellenberger and Frank Sulloway have done, reconstruct the theoretical context from which Freud drew his inspiration and which alone explains why he so easily mistook his speculations for reality – and, above all, why he so easily managed to convince others to do the same......

Indeed, we all but forget that Freud’s patients and colleagues swallowed his lies, including the biggest and (to us) the most blatant. Now this is precisely what must be explained if we want to account for the extraordinary cultural success of psychoanalysis: how come the fib fared so well? How did it become real for so many people in the 20th century? To attribute the becoming-true of the Freudian fable solely to the duplicity of the Great Liar is clearly insufficient. Israëls describes how Freud skewed the reality of what took place in his office, like a physicist or chemist tampering with the results of his experiments. But this ignores the fact that the human beings whom doctors and psychologists deal with are not atoms or molecules: the latter are indifferent to our theories about them, whereas the former react to these theories, be it to reject or to accept them. It so happens that Freud’s patients, for the most part, found his theories quite acceptable, so much so that it is hard to claim without further qualification that Freud lied about his clinical ‘material’. Even poor Fleischl seems to have been sincerely convinced that cocaine did him good: when the drug manufacturer Merck contacted him, believing that he was doing experiments with cocaine, he did not disabuse him and readily corroborated the findings of his colleague, Dr Freud. (As a result, Merck published an article in which he attributed these results to Fleischl!) Similarly, when Freud began to apply Breuer’s ‘method’ to his patients Emmy von N. and Cäcilie M., they rushed to confirm his theory by remembering a plethora of ‘traumas’ (in the case of Emmy von N., nearly forty in the space of nine days). And when Freud set off in quest of memories of infantile ‘seduction’, his patients – at least those who didn’t slam the office door on their way out – were quite happy to supply them. (Even though it is often difficult to discern what is Freud’s construction and what is ‘authentic’ reliving by the patients, the letters to Fliess, for the most part, leave little doubt).

It is thus one thing to say, as Israëls does, that these ‘memories’, these ‘scenes’ (and later, these ‘fantasies’) were not spontaneous, because they were the product of Freud’s theories and hermeneutic hubris. It is quite another to consider them as mere fictions, mere non-realities. The fact is that these theoretical fictions did become real in Dr Freud’s office, because of his patients’ willingness to accept his ‘solutions’. To speak of lies in regard to this fabrication of ‘psychical reality’ is too shortsighted: in the domain of psychotherapy, just as in that of human affairs in general, such a co-construction of reality is inevitable and normal. There, one never finds facts, only artefacts. In the end, if psychoanalysis must be criticised, it is not because it fabricates the evidence it adduces, nor because it creates the reality it purports to describe. It is because it refuses to recognise this and attempts to cover up the artifice.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01_.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And here is an article by Frederick Crews:


CONFESSIONS OF A FREUD BASHER

In its issue of November 18, 1993, the New York Review of Books published an essay-review of mine, 'The Unknown Freud', to which the adjective 'controversial' hardly seems adequate. The article attracted, and continues to attract, more attention than all of my previous writings combined, dating back to my fledgling literary-critical efforts in 1957. For several ensuing months, an unprecedented number of protesting letters to the editor poured in, mostly from psychoanalysts outraged by the indignities I had heaped on their honorable profession and its founder. Two rounds of published exchanges, the first of which alone consumed more ink than the New York Review had ever devoted to the aftermath of an article, left the overwhelming majority of complainants fuming on the sidelines.

As several correspondents remarked in injured tones, the main burden of 'The Unknown Freud' could have been predicted from several earlier essays of mine. Since the appearance of 'Analysis Terminable' in 1980, I had repeatedly made the same two-pronged argument: that Freud's scientific and ethical standards were abysmally low and that his brainchild was, and still is, a pseudoscience. But why, then, had this recent essay proved so upsetting?

A number of answers come to mind. For one thing, loyalists were shocked to find my judgments aired in the pages of the New York Review, where discussion of Freudian issues had more often than not been awarded to such sympathetic observers as Richard Wollheim, Carl Schorske, and William McGrath. My essay also contained some disturbing biographical information which, though known to Freud scholars, either was new to most analysts--for example, the story of Freud's greedy and fatal meddling in the life of his disciple Horace Frink--or had been discounted by them as atypical and insignificant, such as the infamous sequel to Emma Eckstein's nasal surgery, when Freud made so bold as to accuse that unfortunate of 'bleeding for love' of himself.

Then, too, there was my report of what a number of scholars have independently discovered about the birth of psychoanalysis--namely, that Freud, amid the ruins of his untenable 'seduction theory', peremptorily and gratuitously saddled his patients with a repressed desire for the incestuous acts that he had until then been unsuccessfully goading them to remember. (His later contention that they had told him about having been molested in early childhood was a characteristic reshaping of facts to comply with theory.) My readers were thus being invited to confront the unsettling fact that psychoanalysis arose from nothing more substantial than a confused effort on Freud's part to foist his explanatorily worthless hobbyhorse onto the fantasy life of his patients -- patients who, moreover, far from being cured by his revised ministrations as he would eventually claim, had for the most part already lost faith in him and abandoned his practice. My essay left a plain impression that such opportunistic improvising, which was to become Freud's chronic way of handling theoretical crises, could not have been the work of a genuine scientific pioneer.

Beyond those provocations, however, a more general factor must have affected the uproar over 'The Unknown Freud': the gradual but accelerating collapse of psychoanalysis as a respected institution. The 'fear and rage' that one analyst (David S. Olds) noted among his colleagues when my essay appeared would not have spread so rapidly without a preexisting sense that Freudianism could ill withstand another setback. Indeed, one sign of that desperation pervaded the very letters disputing the conclusions of my article. Whereas the original objectors to 'Analysis Terminable' in 1980 had flatly denied my entire case against psychoanalysis, these recent statements mostly took the plaintive form of 'yes, but. . . .' Although virtually all of my charges were conceded in one letter or another, each correspondent clung to some mitigating point that might justify the continuation of psychoanalytic business as usual. Yes, one analyst granted, Freudian grand theory is a mess, but some of its lower-level formulations still prove helpful when patients invest belief in them (Herbert S. Peyser). Yes, the idea of repression remains undemonstrated, but can't we acknowledge that it possesses 'heuristic value in generating research and further theory-building' (Morris Eagle)? Yes, 'Freud's tendentious arguments . . . were extremely harmful to some of his patients and to the field he tried so hard to establish,' but 'psychoanalytic scholars continue to study Freud's theories and case histories as part of the ongoing effort to . . . widen knowledge about a still largely "unknown" psychological universe. . . .' (Marian Tolpin). Yes, Freud was a bit of a scoundrel, but at least 'he did not sleep with his patients, nor found a lucrative ashram' (David S. Olds). And yes, American psychoanalysis is in decline, but the blame can be laid entirely on tight-fisted insurance companies that fail to appreciate the need for lengthy treatment (Lester Luborsky). To judge from such temporizing, psychoanalysis appears destined to end not with a bang but with a querulous whine.

Meanwhile, many Freudians who were stung by my article answered it with a tactic that Freud himself had perfected in combat with such defectors as Fliess, Jung, Adler, Rank, and Ferenczi. Instead of addressing my criticisms, they blended ad hominem argumentation with question begging by treating me personally as a Freudian mental case. 'I wonder,' wrote one unpublished correspondent, 'if Frederick Crews was aware when he wrote his vitriolic attack on Freud, that he laid himself bare to Freudian interpretations that would be numerous enough to fill as much space as his article.' Another agreed: 'We are all post-modern enough to understand the writing of his review as an act, an act about himself and not . . . about psychoanalysis itself.'

These and other writers, though they usually deem years of daily clinical inquiry to be scarcely sufficient for grasping a patient's deep unconscious structures, did not scruple to diagnose my own fixations by return post. Crews, wrote one petitioner to the New York Review, cannot see 'that he is trapped in a transference which began as an idealization of [Freud], and which proceeded in normal fashion to hostile rejection. . . . [Thus] he is stuck on Freud-bashing.' Peter Aspden said much the same thing in these very pages. The problem is oedipal, my old student Murray Schwartz explained to the American magazine of academic issues Lingua Franca: 'He's after the sins of all the fathers.' And the psychoanalyst and sociology professor Jeffrey Prager, writing in Contention, depicted me as a 'jilted lover' with an irrational vendetta against my erstwhile soulmate, Freud. By persecuting Freud, Prager divined, I am attempting to repress my Freudian past--'to pretend that it never happened'.

Other Freudians looked beyond my individual sickness to that of the age. Critiques like mine, said Eli Zaretsky in Tikkun, 'are continuous with the attack on the Left that began with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. . . . They continue the repudiation of the revolutionary and utopian possibilities glimpsed in the 1960s. . . .'

Whatever their specific hypotheses about my motives, virtually all Freudian commentators agreed that 'The Unknown Freud' had been composed in a state of bitter anger by a malcontent with a vicious disposition. Indeed, this assumption was so common that Adam Begley, writing a profile of me in Lingua Franca some months later, considered it newsworthy to report that I am 'quiet, unassuming, the kind of guy you just have to call mild-mannered', and that my academic associates consider me 'a kind and gentle man'. Am I a Jekyll-Hyde, or could it be that the taking of an uncompromising line toward Freud and Freudianism is actually consistent with human decency? Even Begley, to be sure, added that Crews 'really hates Freud'--but he was wrong. Rather, I am completely lacking in respect for Freud, a very different matter. I don't hate Freud any more than, say, Karl Popper hated him, or than Ralph Nader hated General Motors, or than Stephen Jay Gould now hates the race-and-IQ theorists Herrnstein and Murray. In each case the sceptical writer feels prompted to denounce a combination of unsubstantiated claims, inflated reputation, and deleterious practical consequences. The act of denunciation can be cheerful and confident as well as public-spirited. That, I clearly recall, was my mood during the writing of 'The Unknown Freud'.

In theory at least, Freudians ought to have been well equipped to guard against mistaking their anger for my own. Their pertinent doctrine of projection, after all, lay ready at hand for acts of ironic self-scrutiny. In failing to make use of it, however, my adversaries were being loyal to the Freudian tradition in a more fundamental sense. Despite Freud's own self-analysis and the training analyses that came later, psychoanalysis has been tacitly employed as a psychology for the others, not for the interpreter him- or herself. As Ernest Gellner has shown, Freudianism rests on an outlook of 'conditional realism' whereby psychological truth is thought to be monopolized by, and fully available to, those who have removed their deeply programmed barriers to clarity. The analyzed and the doctrinally faithful are thus exempt from their own otherwise remorseless hermeneutic of suspicion. Since the quintessential Freudian assertion is, in Gellner's words, 'I am freer of inner veils than thou', recourse to ad hominem argument becomes all but irresistible. This is why the numerous slurs on my personality that circulated in the wake of 'The Unknown Freud' were not deviations from but typical instances of the Freudian way with dissenters.

In rendering their diagnoses-at-a-distance, my critics appear to have been guided by a principle that struck them as too obviously warranted to bear articulating--namely, that 'Freud bashing' is itself a sign of mental dysfunction. They simply knew, after all, that Freud, despite some occasional missteps and out-of-date assumptions, had made fundamental discoveries and permanently revolutionized our conception of the mind. As three of the unpublished New York Review correspondents put it, Freud proved once and for all that unconscious beliefs and emotions play a large role in our behavior; that the human mind is at once capable of the clearest distinctions and the most devious twists and that that mental illness stems in large part from an imbalance within the human being between real and ideal, between our rational and irrational selves, and between what we want to do and what we have to do.

These and similar formulations were noteworthy for their high quotient of generality and vagueness, approaching, in freedom from determinate content, the perfect vacuum achieved by the historian and Freud apologist Peter Gay, who has characterized Freud's "central idea" as the proposition that 'every human is continuously, inextricably, involved with others . . .' It is hard to dispute any of these statements about 'humans', but it is also hard to see why they couldn't be credited as easily to Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or Nietzsche--if not indeed to Jesus or St. Paul--as to Freud. Was it really Freud who first disclosed such commonplaces? Or, rather, has the vast cultural sway of Freud's system caused us to lose focus on his more specific, highly idiosyncratic, assertions, to presume that a number of them must have been scientifically established by now, and to transform him retrospectively into the very personification of 'human' complexity and depth?

Freud bashing begins to look less self-evidently pathological when we lower our sights to Freud's actual, far from modest, claims to discovery in four major categories of knowledge. First, the causes and cure of neurosis. We need not pause over Freud's pretensions in this realm, since scarcely anyone, including Freudian practitioners, can now be found who takes them seriously. The 'oedipal repression etiology' of neurotic complaints is a dead letter, and psychoanalysis as a therapeutic institution has backed away from all of its original boasts about curative power. Second, the meaning of symptoms, dreams, and errors. Freud's greatest novelty lay here, in his widening of intentionality to cover phenomena that had been thought to lack expressive content or, in the case of dreams, to be expressive only in random flashes. When we get down to the details, however--for example, Freud's attribution of 'Dora's' asthmatic attacks to her once having witnessed an act of parental intercourse--we find that the symptomatic interpretations rest on nothing more substantial than vulgar thematic affinities (heavy breathing in coitus=asthma) residing in Freud's own prurient mind. So, too, the heart of his dream theory, the contention that every dream expresses a repressed infantile wish, was merely an extrapolation from his etiology of neurosis; it is counterintuitive and has never received an iota of corroboration. As for the theory of errors, Sebastiano Timpanaro among others has shown that it suffers from Freud's usual overingeniousness and wanton insistence on universal psychic determinism and that it is unsupported, in its emphasis on repressed causes of slips, by any of the examples provided in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Having serially applied the same style of license to the decoding of symptoms, dreams, and errors, Freud was able to delude himself into imagining that the resultant 'convergence of findings' had proved him correct in all three areas. All it really proved is that the imperiousness of Freudian interpretation knows no bounds.

Third, methodological principles for investigating the mind. Chief among these, in Freud's view, was free association, the correct handling of which can supposedly allow us not merely to discover the meaning of a dream but also to trace a symptom to its traumatic source in childhood. As Ludwig Wittgenstein suspected and as Adolf Grunbaum and Malcolm Macmillan have shown in laborious detail, the claim is hollow. A patient's ramblings, which Freud took to be a direct window on the invariant repressed unconscious, are channeled and contaminated by the psychoanalytic exchange itself, and instead of establishing the causes of earlier events, they merely show what is on the patient's mind at the moment of their utterance. Of greater intuitive appeal are the numerous 'mechanisms of defence' that Freud invoked for retracing the psychic compromises behind a given expression or symptom. (I have already mentioned one of them, projection.) Here, too, however, the prospect of reliable hermeneutic power turns to dust. In the absence of any guidelines for knowing which 'mechanism' (if any) shaped a given phenomenon, the application of these tools by different interpreters yields a cacophony of incompatible explanations--and, ultimately, an indefinite proliferation of squabbling sects.

Finally, the structure and dynamic operation of the mind. Even when he sounded most tentative in this realm, Freud's speculations about conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mental systems, or about the ego, the superego, and the id, or about instincts of self-preservation and sex, or of life and death, went far beyond any data that he could legitimately claim to have unearthed. On close inspection, the Freudian 'dynamic unconscious' turns out to be not only a tissue of contradictions between primitive and sophisticated functions but also an ontological maze peopled by absurd homunculi possessing their own inexplicable sets of warring motives. Freud was occasionally willing to admit the mythic status of his 'metapsychological' constructs--which, however, he nevertheless persisted in endowing with quasi-physical energies and seemingly precise functions that his followers have further elaborated. The result has been a legacy of utter conceptual murk. Where, then, are Freud's authenticated contributions not to ethics or mores or hermeneutics but to actual knowledge of the mind? So far as I am aware, no uniquely psychoanalytic notion has received independent experimental or epidemiological support--not repression, not the Oedipus or castration complex, not the theory of compromise formation, nor any other concept or hypothesis. Nor is this negative result anomalous in view of the reckless, conquistadorial manner in which psychoanalytic theory was launched and maintained in the teeth of rational criticism. What passes today for Freud bashing is simply the long-postponed holding of Freudian ideas to the same standards of noncontradiction, clarity, testability, cogency, and parsimonious explanatory power that prevail in empirical discourse at large. Step by step, we are learning that Freud has been the most overrated figure in the entire history of science and medicine--one who wrought immense harm through the propagation of false etiologies, mistaken diagnoses, and fruitless lines of inquiry. Still, the legend dies hard, and those who challenge it continue to be greeted like rabid skunks.

A year after 'The Unknown Freud' appeared, I published another long article in the New York Review, this one attacking the pernicious 'recovered memory movement' and detailing its rather obvious origins in some of the deepest premises of Freudianism. The first of many lamentations--seven grandiloquent pages, signed by a psychoanalyst--arrived on the very day that the first half of my two-instalment essay hit the newsstands. Having been 'made physically ill' by my earlier effort, the writer thought it best to quit this time 'after reading less than a full page'. Thus restored to equanimity, he set about the task of refutation. --The Times Higher Education Supplement, March 3, 1995

Frederick Crews

http://www.human-nature.com/freud/crews.html

[Leo]

In fact, I have listed several books that succeed in refuting Freud's ideas

As I said, I am not impressed by the attempts of literary critics, cultural historians, "modern philosophers" and other professional Freud-bashers from the non-scientific academic circles. Excuse me for not taking seriously the "criticisms" of people like the literary critic Frederick Crews on psychoanalysis. I can, on the other hand, link to several actually scientific articles in defense of Freud's work, since as mentioned there are thousands of actual scientists who practice psychoanalysis.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leo:


As I said, I am not impressed by the attempts of literary critics, cultural historians, "modern philosophers" and other professional Freud-bashers from the non-scientific academic circles. Excuse me for not taking seriously the "criticisms" of people like the literary critic Frederick Crews on psychoanalysis. I can, on the other hand, link to several actually scientific articles in defense of Freud's work, since as mentioned there are thousands of actual scientists who practice psychoanalysis.

In denial, I see...

In fact, it is precisely the job of historians to expose the lies and fabrications Freud inflicted on humanity.

Anyway, several of those I listed are professional psychologists.

Finally, your defence is no more impressive than would be that of an economist who argued that he/she was not interested in Marx's 'bashing' of capitalism, since Marx was not a qualified economist.

[gilhyle]

Rosa wont understand this because in her world there is no role for play, but the value of Freud's writings lies not in seeing it as a positivist scientific model of the mind, but as a framework for engagement in the explorations of possibilities, ambiguities, metaphors and riddles of self-perception.

Thus anyone who still tries to defend Freud as positivist science is, indeed, in error. But anyone who thinks by rejecting Freud's ideas as inadequate to a positivist science they have dealt with Freud have equally fallen into error.

What is being critiqued by these historians is not Freud's ideas but his tactic for placing Psychoanalytical theory at the heart of medical practice - something he did successfully do for a period of time and something he did by relentless politicking.

The cocaine story as currently read is interestingly complex. For example, the addict clearly lied himself about his condition - did he lie to Freud ? More importantly there is substantial anachronism in reading the modern fear of addiction back into the late 19th century in the way that is done. Thirdly, of what real importance is it that Freud could lie ?

Rosa lives in an early Enlightement-type world that involves uncovering charlatans and mystics to get back to truth; if you live in that world, entranced by the mythical promise of natural science, you will be repulsed by Freud, but if you live in the world he actually illuminated (rather than the world he pretended to join) then the route to insight involves the loving examination of illuminating shards to sustain our weak capacity for understanding with every hint that poetry, language, accident and the incidental can provide.....the two perspectives dont communicate very well.

Certainly these critics put the last nails in the coffin of Freud's search for respectability; but when that is done Freud remains, still a great toy, however worn.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Rosa wont understand this because in her world there is no role for play, but the value of Freud's writings lies not in seeing it as a positivist scientific model of the mind, but as a framework for engagement in the explorations of possibilities, ambiguities, metaphors and riddles of self-perception.

Ah, yet more invention, and this fits well with Freud's lies and deception too.

Where have I even so much as hinted at this?


in her world there is no role for play

And I note once more, that you can only rescue this charlatan by making what he had to say 'metaphorical', a ploy used to great effect by theologians keen to make the Book of Genesis consistent with modern science -- and no less dishonest for all that.


Thus anyone who still tries to defend Freud as positivist science is, indeed, in error. But anyone who thinks by rejecting Freud's ideas as inadequate to a positivist science they have dealt with Freud have equally fallen into error.

But this is exactly what Freud himself wanted to do; establish his work as a new science of the mind. It's only you amateur arts faculty academics, who like to indulge your own flights of unqualified psychoanalysis, who think otherwise.

Unfortunately, in doing that, he exposed himself to the usual canons of scientific proof. And we all now know the result: it is now claer that Freud made up the alleged 'evidence' supporting his a priori psychology.

Now, we already know from our earlier 'debate' over Engels's lamentably poor book (Anti-Duhring), that you mystics do not bother too much with supporting evidence (in fact you make a virtue out of its dearth) in favour of your own dogmatic 'theory', but the science of psychology, or at least those who practice it, think otherwise, and are right to do so.


The cocaine story as currently read is interestingly complex. For example, the addict clearly lied himself about his condition - did he lie to Freud ? More importantly there is substantial anachronism in reading the modern fear of addiction back into the late 19th century in the way that is done. Thirdly, of what real importance is it that Freud could lie ?

1) The evidence is clear: Freud lied.

2) If Freud lied here (and elsewhere, many times), he was a liar. Now, we also know you too like to tell porkies, so it is no surprise to see you defending a proven liar here.

3) On this Gilhylean basis, we should perhaps revise our opinion of the many other frauds that have been perpetrated in the name of science. We should, in that case, accept Piltdown Man as authentic, Cyril Burt's manufactured data on IQ as valid, Nazi 'anthropology' as accurate, as well as Lysenko's whacko ideas, and a host of other suspect theories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct


Rosa lives in an early Enlightenment-type world that involves uncovering charlatans and mystics to get back to truth; if you live in that world, entranced by the mythical promise of natural science, you will be repulsed by Freud, but if you live in the world he actually illuminated (rather than the world he pretended to join) then the route to insight involves the loving examination of illuminating shards to sustain our weak capacity for understanding with every hint that poetry, language, accident and the incidental can provide.....the two perspectives don't communicate very well.

I may or may not live in such a world, but I am disgustingly modern next to you, for you seem to live in ancient, fabulous world where everyone spins a yarn and is believed, since you appear capable of swallowing every mystical tale and pre-scientific fable you encounter (so long as it can be interpreted 'metaphorically) --, just as you seem to prefer the word of proven liars.

By the way, there is a Nigerian general who has $12,000,000 tucked away in a Swiss vault -- all you have to do is send him your bank details and the loot is yours.

And after you have been ripped off, you can console yourself with the happy thought that this general was merely being 'metaphorical', and these dolts at the BBC clearly have no role in their lives for 'play':

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1431761.stm

[gilhyle]

Sorry I pissed off your super ego so much, Rosa.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Sorry I pissed off your super ego so much, Rosa.

Not half as happy as I am that I made you project your own hang-ups onto me.

[Zazaban]

I propose we rename this thread, as nobody seems to be discussing Lacan.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Is there anything to discuss about that charlatan?

[Zurdito]

I'm sorry Leo but I'll have to disagree. Freud sucked and there was very little science in his method involved. Nobody does psychoanalysis except literary critics for a reason.

where did you get this from? the dominant school of psychology in Argentina is Freudian for example, and it is the country with most psycholgoists per capita in the world.

FWIW I am not a psychologist, but I was interested with the claim of David Harvey that Freud's method is very similar to that of Marx, in that it does not rely on a formal "cause and effect" model, but supposes a dialectical relationship between outward appearance and underlying causes.

FWIW2: Ironically Freud was also a literary and art critic among many other things, and had a cultural level comparable to Marx's, which can be said about only a handful of great thinkers throughout history. Marxists should not resent cultured people, we should embrace them. Saying "literary critic" with an air of disdain is a pretty philistine attitude.

[Hiero]

Is there anything to discuss about that charlatan?

The usually anti-intellectual bullying tactic from Rosa.

Let's just not discuss anything.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


The usually anti-intellectual bullying tactic from Rosa.

Yet another 'hero of the revolution' bullied by little old me...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zurdito:


where did you get this from?

Maybe from here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447838&postcount=20

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447846&postcount=21

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447855&postcount=22


FWIW I am not a psychologist, but I was interested with the claim of David Harvey that Freud's method is very similar to that of Marx, in that it does not rely on a formal "cause and effect" model, but supposes a dialectical relationship between outward appearance and underlying causes.

FWIW2: Ironically Freud was also a literary and art critic among many other things, and had a cultural level comparable to Marx's, which can be said about only a handful of great thinkers throughout history. Marxists should not resent cultured people, we should embrace them. Saying "literary critic" with an air of disdain is a pretty philistine attitude.

In fact, as the above shows, Freud was a lying charlatan.

Marx wasn't.

There's your difference.

[Hiero]

Hiero:



Yet another 'hero of the revolution' bullied by little old me...

Are you this bizare in real life?

[Zurdito]

Maybe from here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447838&postcount=20

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447846&postcount=21

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447855&postcount=22


In which case you have discredited those links without me even clicking them: as I said, Argentina has the highest number of psychologists per capita in the world, and Freudianism is the dominant school. So, I know for a fact that not only "literary critics" take Freudianism seriously (though why I would take literary critics opinions on psychology less seriously than phsyics students is a mystery to me)



In fact, as the above shows, Freud was a lying charlatan.

Marx wasn't.

There's your difference


He may have been a lying charlatan. don't see what relevance that has to his theories. In order to find out, I am not likely to sift through great chunks of text with no emphasis added and which begin with 6 long paragraphs of irrelevant and sensationalistic personality smears and read like a CPGB publication.:rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


Are you this bizare in real life?

Indeed, I am less odd than you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zurdito:


In which case you have discredited those links without me even clicking them: as I said, Argentina has the highest number of psychologists per capita in the world, and Freudianism is the dominant school. So, I know for a fact that not only "literary critics" take Freudianism seriously (though why I would take literary critics opinions on psychology less seriously than phsyics students is a mystery to me)

What has Argentina got to do with the fact that Freud was a complete charlatan (except perhaps to confirm there are more gullible people there than anywhere else)?


He may have been a lying charlatan. don't see what relevance that has to his theories.

The relevance is this: his 'theory' is devoid of evidential support. In that case, it can't be scientific.

Now, you might want to continue to swallow this guff; in which case, you should find belief in Big Foot and the Tooth Fairy equally congenial.


In order to find out, I am not likely to sift through great chunks of text with no emphasis added and which begin with 6 long paragraphs of irrelevant and sensationalistic personality smears and read like a CPGB publication

Ignorance is bliss, eh?

[Zurdito]

What has Argentina got to do with the fact that Freud was a complete charlatan (except perhaps to confirm there are more gullible people there than anywhere else)?


Maybe you aren't aware of the claim I was refuting. Here is a clue: the factI was giving was not intended in itself as a refutation of the claim that he was a "charlatan":rolleyes:

As for ignorance being bliss, if this were so I would not be gathering an interest in Freud, who put forward political views incompatible with my own political views.

I am writing something now, in between glancing at the forum. Later I will get home I will continue reading a book I am reading on trotskyism in the period 1969-1971. So apologies that reading poorly presented chunks of text which inthe first 6 paragraphs say nothing relevant is not my priority. If you go can manage a synthesis of the points made or quote me a particularly relevant paragraph, I may be interested.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Maybe you aren't aware of the claim I was refuting. Here is a clue: the factI was giving was not intended in itself as a refutation of the claim that he was a "charlatan"

That's not what this says:


In which case you have discredited those links without me even clicking them: as I said, Argentina has the highest number of psychologists per capita in the world, and Freudianism is the dominant school. So, I know for a fact that not only "literary critics" take Freudianism seriously (though why I would take literary critics opinions on psychology less seriously than phsyics students is a mystery to me)

That suggests you did think there was some sort of link.


As for ignorance being bliss, if this were so I would not be gathering an interest in Freud, who put forward political views incompatible with my own political views.

I am writing something now, in between glancing at the forum. Later I will get home I will continue reading a book I am reading on trotskyism in the period 1969-1971. So apologies that reading poorly presented chunks of text which inthe first 6 paragraphs say nothing relevant is not my priority. If you go can manage a synthesis of the points made or quote me a particularly relevant paragraph, I may be interested.

Sounds like you are still ignorant, and still blissful...

[JimFar]

Rosa wont understand this because in her world there is no role for play, but the value of Freud's writings lies not in seeing it as a positivist scientific model of the mind, but as a framework for engagement in the explorations of possibilities, ambiguities, metaphors and riddles of self-perception.

Thus anyone who still tries to defend Freud as positivist science is, indeed, in error. But anyone who thinks by rejecting Freud's ideas as inadequate to a positivist science they have dealt with Freud have equally fallen into error.


Well. the first thing to be said about this is that Freud himself embraced a positivist philosophy of science and he claimed that his own work conformed to the dictates of positivism. In 1912, Freud was one of a group of prominent scholars and scientists who decided to establish the Gesellschaft fur positivistische Philosophie—the Society for Positivistic Philosophy. Other members of this group included Ernst Mach, Jacques Loeb, and Albert Einstein.

It is true that since that time any number of philosophers have been able to show that Freud's actual methodology deviated in many significant ways from the dictates of positivist understandings as to how science works. This has led many philosophers of science to question whether Freud actually adhered to any sort of a viable scientific methodology, i.e. Karl Popper, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook, and Adolf Grunbaum. There has been some debate among these writers as to whether Freud's propositions qualify as science in any meaningful sense at all. Popper, along with Nagel and Hook, argued that Freud's theories were not falsifiable and hence do not qualify as science. Grunbaum argues that Freud did formulate falsifiable hypotheses, so his theories did qualify as being scientific. The problem with them, in his view, is that these theories were subsequently falsified by empirical evidence, so while they are scientific, they are bad science.

Some writers like Jurgen Habermas and Paul Ricouer acknowledge that Freud's actual methodology was not positivist and that his self-understanding of his work was to that extant mistaken, but they contend that the validity of his work can be defended on a hermeneutic basis. Apparently, Gil is of that viewpoint too, but if this interpretation of psychoanalysis is accepted then. as Rosa points out, it grounds psychoanalysis on the same epistemological basis as theology.

[Hiero]

So anyone want to talk about Lacan's use of Levi-Strauss?

[Zurdito]

That suggests you did think there was some sort of link.


Sorry, but what do you think my question "Where did you get this from" which you were replying to with three links, was originally referring to? Could it possibly have been the quote directly above it?:confused:

[More Fire for the People]

My impression of Lacan: there is something of worth in the incomprehensibility of his work but I don't know if it's worth my time. Even Zizek obfuscates Lacan, and he's a 'populist' writer.

[Hiero]

My impression of Lacan: there is something of worth in the incomprehensibility of his work but I don't know if it's worth my time. Even Zizek obfuscates Lacan, and he's a 'populist' writer.

That is generally my opinion too. I can't read Lacan, though I am starting to understand small portions through other text. Through Anika Lemaire's work Jacques Lacan I am starting to get some understanding, on such things as ego, how people submerge into the symbolic order through ascension into language structures. But also general functions like how language positions the individuals as an individual.

Then alot of the stuff I am finding in Lacan, or atleast the things that I am understanding I can find in Levi-Strauss' structuralis through his work on kinship and myth. So I am not sure wether to jump ship and go back to the straigh anthropological work.

My interest in Lacan is pureuly anthropological. So the interesting things about the real, symbolic and the imaginary take up my interest, though I am not sure how well i grasp them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Sorry, but what do you think my question "Where did you get this from" which you were replying to with three links, was originally referring to? Could it possibly have been the quote directly above it?

That answer relates to a comment made by Marmot, but this response to me suggests you think that referring to Argentina is in some way relevant to responding to me:


In which case you have discredited those links without me even clicking them: as I said, Argentina has the highest number of psychologists per capita in the world, and Freudianism is the dominant school. So, I know for a fact that not only "literary critics" take Freudianism seriously (though why I would take literary critics opinions on psychology less seriously than phsyics students is a mystery to me)

And even if it were, that would only show that there are more psychologists in Argentina than anywhere else who are prepared to rip their 'clients' off, just as there are more Argentinians who have more money than sense.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for those comments Jim; always measured in tone!

[Zurdito]

Z:



That answer relates to a comment made by Marmot, but this response to me suggests you think that referring to Argentina is in some way relevant to responding to me:



And even if it were, that would only show that there are more psychologists in Argentina than anywhere else who are prepared to rip their 'clients' off, just as there are more Argentinians who hav more money than sense.

yes, I am aware of your opinion, as you have repeatedly stated it. The point however was only to defenestrate the false claim that all psycholgoists share the same opinion. They don't. The country with most psychologists per capita in the world is dominated by freudianism. Your dislike of that fact is duly noted, but it doesn't change the fact.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


yes, I am aware of your opinion, as you have repeatedly stated it.

About the same number of times you have told us about the level of gullibilty in Argentina, in fact.


The point however was only to defenestrate the false claim that all psycholgoists share the same opinion. They don't. The country with most psychologists in the world is dominated by freudianism. Your dislike of that fact is duly noted, but it doesn't change the fact.

And there are more Christian Fundamentalists in the USA -- so what?

[Zurdito]

so Rosa you think someone who stated that there are no christian fundamentalists in the USA shouldn't be corrected? :rolleyes: Very scientific. I think you should go get some fresh air, I'm about to do the same. bye for now.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


so Rosa you think someone who stated that there are no christian fundamentalists in the USA shouldn't be corrected?

Not the point I wished to make.

If someone claimed that the Population of the USA was uniquely wary and questioning, it would not do to be told that there are more Christian Funadamentalists there than anywhere else.

In a similar fashion, if someone were to tell us that the people of Argentina were uniquely wary and questioning, it would not do to tell us that there are more Freudians there than anywhere else.


I think you should go get some fresh air

And I think you should go get some fresh theories.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I propose we rename this thread, as nobody seems to be discussing Lacan.

Agreed. The fact of the matter is that Lacan uses Freud heavily, but attempts to situate Freud within the structuralist language rather than the crude biologism the Freud is often accused of. I'll make a brief sketch a bit later.


Is there anything to discuss about that charlatan? Yes Rosa. Please inform us the specific refutations of Lacan's Mathemes. Don't you find it at all interesting that the dogmatic "charlatan" who was little more than a devotee of Freud credited the first formulation of the Sympton (the core of Lacanian Psychoanalysis) to Marx? Doesn't that pique your curiosity AT ALL?

Why don't you explain to us what Lacan meant by that, and why he was wrong? You've very good and throwing a whole stack of literature at people, but on closer examination has little or nothing to due with the subject at hand. When you explain what Lacan meant by that, and then refute it then I'll accept you're actually engaged with Lacan (even if in a negative way). Until then, it seems like you're grinding the old analytic axe.


So anyone want to talk about Lacan's use of Levi-Strauss? I think his use of Saussure and especially the sign is far more important, but I'd be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.


Z:



Not the point I wished to make.

If someone claimed that the Population of the USA was uniquely wary and questioning, it would not do to be told that there are more Christian Funadamentalists there than anywhere else.

In a similar fashion, if someone were to tell us that the people of Argentina were uniquely wary and questioning, it would not do to tell us that there are more Freudians there than anywhere else.



And I think you should go get some fresh theories.
Is this helpful? Those of you attacking Rosa, do you think that what you're doing is helpful? Could we attempt to have a discussion upon Lacan? Rosa, could you please explain Freud's influcence on Lacan and why your attacks on Freud are at all relevant to Lacan? Those of you defending Freud, could you please explain how Freud's theories are taken up by Lacan how it is relevant?

I'd like to pose this as a basis for understanding early Lacan. Lacan in the Purloined Letter and especially the Introduction added later, makes the following arguments.

1) All symbols are grounded in presense and absense.

A Defense of 1)He argues that before any object can be assigned particular predicates, there must be or not be an object to have the predicates attached.

B Defense of 1)He uses Freud's work on Thanatos as a young child deriving pleasure from using his or her hands to blot out and then reveil objects. You may disagree with this, but it was "scientific" at the time since it was based on clinical research of child developement.

2) All symbols must be formalized since it is not the object itself at issue.

A Defense of 2) Individuals use language between each other and so the object itself must be formalized so that individuals may use it with others. This becomes the "sign."

3) All symbols must follow certain structural rules by the very nature of their existence.

A Defense of 3) All symbols must be minimally formalizable at the basic binary of presense and absense (see 1). Thus, they would have a least the bare structural elements of the binaries.

B Defense of 3) Lacan points out that the binary may be grouped in sets of three. These sets of three can be categorized as a symmetry of constancy (+++,---), a symmetery of alteration (+-+,-+-), or a dissymmetry(+--,-++,++-,--+). Lacan notes that at this most basic level the rules of transition upon adding a new symbol to the set of 3 only allows for the transition from certain sets of signs to other sets of signs. For example, a +-- can ONLY transition to a --+ or a ---. In this case, other possiblities are necessarily excluded. He uses a higher order to language to demonstrate this more clearly, but ultimaely those excluded possibilites constitute what Lacan means by the "unconscious."

C) The conclusion for this rough sketch, is that psychoanalysis is about exploring and revealing the structural impossibilities from a certian position. Lacan makes this point explicitly when he says that the imaginary is meaningless if one does not connect it to the symbolic. In other words, all that free associate, inturrpreting dreams, etc is completely worth it until you attempt to order it within a theory of language (the symbolic).

Why it should matter to revolutionary politics? It should matter because the overthrow of capital with entail new forms of interaction, and to move beyond our old forms of interaction. Lacan's analysis of language can provided a tool for this. In fact, Marx makes a similar move in his criticisms of Prodhon. He points out that Prodhon's "remedies" simply recreate the effects of capital.

I'm tired and will continue this later... I eagerly await your scathing attacks and denunciations.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other:


Yes Rosa. Please inform us the specific refutations of Lacan's Mathemes. Don't you find it at all interesting that the dogmatic "charlatan" who was little more than a devotee of Freud credited the first formulation of the Sympton (the core of Lacanian Psychoanalysis) to Marx? Doesn't that pique your curiosity AT ALL?

1) It's not possible to refute non-sense.

2) Dogmatic, a priori 'psychology', based on the work of a known fabulist (Freud) interests me about as much as the contents of the Tatler. You are welcome to it.

3) It 'piques my curiosity' only in so far as wondering why so many 'intelligent' individuals swallow this guff.


Why don't you explain to us what Lacan meant by that, and why he was wrong? You've very good and throwing a whole stack of literature at people, but on closer examination has little or nothing to due with the subject at hand. When you explain what Lacan meant by that, and then refute it then I'll accept you're actually engaged with Lacan (even if in a negative way). Until then, it seems like you're grinding the old analytic axe.

Grind, grind...


Is this helpful? Those of you attacking Rosa, do you think that what you're doing is helpful? Could we attempt to have a discussion upon Lacan? Rosa, could you please explain Freud's influcence on Lacan and why your attacks on Freud are at all relevant to Lacan? Those of you defending Freud, could you please explain how Freud's theories are taken up by Lacan how it is relevant?

It's not meant to be 'helpful'. It's meant to expose the charlatanry at the heart of modern French 'Philosophy' -- unless you want to deny the influence on Lacan of Freud?

And thanks for taking the trouble to post this:


I'd like to pose this as a basis for understanding early Lacan. Lacan in the Purloined Letter and especially the Introduction added later, makes the following arguments.

1) All symbols are grounded in presense and absense.

A Defense of 1)He argues that before any object can be assigned particular predicates, there must be or not be an object to have the predicates attached.

B Defense of 1)He uses Freud's work on Thanatos as a young child deriving pleasure from using his or her hands to blot out and then reveil objects. You may disagree with this, but it was "scientific" at the time since it was based on clinical research of child developement.

2) All symbols must be formalized since it is not the object itself at issue.

A Defense of 2) Individuals use language between each other and so the object itself must be formalized so that individuals may use it with others. This becomes the "sign."

3) All symbols must follow certain structural rules by the very nature of their existence.

A Defense of 3) All symbols must be minimally formalizable at the basic binary of presense and absense (see 1). Thus, they would have a least the bare structural elements of the binaries.

B Defense of 3) Lacan points out that the binary may be grouped in sets of three. These sets of three can be categorized as a symmetry of constancy (+++,---), a symmetery of alteration (+-+,-+-), or a dissymmetry(+--,-++,++-,--+). Lacan notes that at this most basic level the rules of transition upon adding a new symbol to the set of 3 only allows for the transition from certain sets of signs to other sets of signs. For example, a +-- can ONLY transition to a --+ or a ---. In this case, other possiblities are necessarily excluded. He uses a higher order to language to demonstrate this more clearly, but ultimaely those excluded possibilites constitute what Lacan means by the "unconscious."

C) The conclusion for this rough sketch, is that psychoanalysis is about exploring and revealing the structural impossibilities from a certain position. Lacan makes this point explicitly when he says that the imaginary is meaningless if one does not connect it to the symbolic. In other words, all that free associate, inturrpreting dreams, etc is completely worth it until you attempt to order it within a theory of language (the symbolic).

Why it should matter to revolutionary politics? It should matter because the overthrow of capital with entail new forms of interaction, and to move beyond our old forms of interaction. Lacan's analysis of language can provided a tool for this. In fact, Marx makes a similar move in his criticisms of Proudhon. He points out that Prodhon's "remedies" simply recreate the effects of capital.

Since this confirms my assessment: dogmatic, a priori 'psychology', with a few meaningless neologisms and symbols thrown in for good measure.

You might as well try to explain the Christian Trinity to us.


I'm tired and will continue this later...

Don't bother on my account -- if anyone else wants to wade through this stuff, good luck to them too. I had to study this guff as an undergraduate. Only a loaded shotgun pointed at my head would make me even think about diving back in, and even then, I'd have to mull over the options.


I eagerly await your scathing attacks and denunciations.

No you don't.

[Asoka89]

for a time, lacan was althusser's therapist. That did him a whole fat lot of good.

qft!

[Bolshevik-Leninist]

qft!

Please read the other posts too. As I pointed out, this does not appear to be true. Please either verify it or do not continue to repeat it.

[Asoka89]

well.. it was funny anyway

[Bolshevik-Leninist]

I guess there isn't really anything further to contribute to the question of whether Lacan was a good analyst for Althusser because it is clear that Lacan was not at all Althusser's analyst. If anyone is interested in exploring further their relation, the two exchanged letters which are published in English in a posthumously published volume by Althusser entitled Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan. I just came across a remark in Jeffrey Mehlman's translator's preface pointing out that René Diatkine, Althusser's actual analyst, was in fact "a fervent anti-Lacanian."

To get back at the point of why I was insisting against the "quoting for truth" or "good point" compliments, it is quite simply that Althusser had a different analyst. But beyond that, one's analyst certainly should not be held accountable for one's behavior. If anyone is interested in taking seriously the issues involved, I suggest reading Althusser's memoirs, The Future Lasts Forever in which you may get a better, less humorous sense of the man's pain.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other:



1) It's not possible to refute non-sense.

Begging the question: It must be proven it is non-sense.



2) Dogmatic, a priori 'psychology', based on the work of a known fabulist (Freud) interests me about as much as the contents of the Tatler. You are welcome to it.Begging the question: How is it "dogmatic, a priori?"
Ad Hominem: How is Freud a "fabulist"
Guilt by association: How is it relevant Lacan is "based" on Freud?

3) It 'piques my curiosity' only in so far as wondering why so many 'intelligent' individuals swallow this guff.
Ad Hominem/Begging the question: How is the intelligence of these people implicitly questioned and why is this "guff"?



It's not meant to be 'helpful'. It's meant to expose the charlatanry at the heart of modern French 'Philosophy' -- unless you want to deny the influence on Lacan of Freud?It's worth noting you're NOT being helpful. You're not helping discussion, you're not helping any progressive movement, and you're fallaciously attempting to disrupt conversation. The only thing you've exposed is your own fallacious position and intellectual dishonesty. Until you can actually READ the things your criticize or give anything resembling anything like an argument about it, you're not doing anything.

Also, once again you seem to imply the fallacious claim (so long as it remains unsubstantiated [How is Lacan precisely related to Freud?]) that because Freud had an influence on Lacan it's false.



And thanks for taking the trouble to post this:



Since this confirms my assessment: dogmatic, a priori 'psychology', with a few meaningless neologisms and symbols thrown in for good measure.

You might as well try to explain the Christian Trinity to us.Begging the question: You haven't shown how any of this fits the criteria of "dogmatic, a priori" nor have you shown how the neologisms or symbols are "meaningless." Also, please demonstrate how drawing out principles from observed phenomena is “a priori” and “dogmatic.”

As for the Christian Trinity and Lacan, one provides an specific set of explanatory postulates to predict events in the world the other does not. "God loves the world" tells us nothing about what sort of actual situations may obtain. God can love the world by letting us win the lottery or sending us to Auschwitz.

However, the claim "Given the intersubjective modulus of the repetitive action, it remains to recognize in it a repetition automatism in the sense that interests us in Freud's text. The plurality of subjects, of course, can be no objection for those who are long accustomed to the perspectives summarized by our formula: the unconscious is the discourse of the Other. "
It means that one can treat a particular form of psychic disorder (similar to obsessive compulsion) one cannot simply look for the unconscious in some mystical notion of the body, but instead the treatment will be found by exploring particular relations between individuals.


Don't bother on my account -- if anyone else wants to wade through this stuff, good luck to them too. I had to study this guff as an undergraduate. Only a loaded shotgun pointed at my head would make me even think about diving back in, and even then, I'd have to mull over the options.I don't do it for your sake. I do it because if your fallacious and intellectually dishonest statements are left to stand, people might believe what you espouse corresponds to philosophy. Philosophy usually includes arguments and reasoning. Your positions do not seem to include any of those elements.


I'm sorry that you had an unpleasant undergraduate experience. I'm sorry that your colleges don't give you the respect you feel you reserve. However, until you're willing and able to read, understand, and create arguments, it seems that you're doing nothing but empty mysticism. Once you've managed to make some basic arguments that aren't riddled with obvious fallacies, why don't you join the discussion?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ReClaimed Something-Or-Other: I am sorry, but I only have limited access to the internet right now. I will respond to you in August when my new internet connection has been set up.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other:


It must be proven it is non-sense.

Done it, here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm


Begging the question: How is it "dogmatic, a priori?"

Read Kant for the answer.


Ad Hominem: How is Freud a "fabulist"

Like many others on the internet, you confuse abuse (or in this case, an accurate description) with argumentum ad hominem.

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

Also check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

And consult the following:

Cioffi, F. (1999), Freud And The Question Of PseudoScience (Open Court).

Crews, F., et al. (1995), The Memory Wars (Granta Books).

--------, (1998) (ed.), Unauthorized Freud (Viking).

Dufresne, T. (2003), Killing Freud. Twentieth Century Culture And The Death of Psychoanalysis (Continuum).

Ellenberger, H. (1970), The Discovery Of The Unconscious (Harper Collins); reprinted in 1994 (Fontana).

Thornton, E. (1986), The Freudian Fallacy (Paladin).

Webster, R. (1995), Why Freud Was Wrong (Harper Collins).

Welsh, A. (1994), Freud's Wishful Dream Book (Princeton University Press).

Wilcocks, R. (1994), Maelzel's Chess Player. Sigmund Freud And The Rhetoric Of Deceit (Rowman and Littlefield).

See also:

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, 'How Fabrications Differ from a Lie', London Review of Books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01_.html).

This material has in fact already been posted in this thread, on page One!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447838&postcount=20

So, you have no excuse.


Guilt by association: How is it relevant Lacan is "based" on Freud?

Just as Roman Catholicism is based on Christianity, and the latter is arrant nonsense, so is Roman Catholicism.

Same with Freud and Lacan.


Ad Hominem/Begging the question: How is the intelligence of these people implicitly questioned and why is this "guff"?

Once more, you confuse ad hominem with personal attack. I was expressing an opinion, and I did so in response to you asking for it. And I wasn't questioning the intelligence of such individuals, just expressing surprise that they took this guff seriously, just as I wonder why intelligent people believe in 'god'.

And it's guff for the reasons I indicated -- it's nonsense on stilts, to use Bentham's happy phrase.


It's worth noting you're NOT being helpful. You're not helping discussion, you're not helping any progressive movement, and you're fallaciously attempting to disrupt conversation.

On the contrary, I am being helpful in exposing this charlatan for what he is.


The only thing you've exposed is your own fallacious position and intellectual dishonesty. Until you can actually READ the things your criticize or give anything resembling anything like an argument about it, you're not doing anything.

As I have already told you, I had to study this guff as an undergraduate; if you want to waste your time with it, that's your problem. Just don't say you weren't warned.


Also, once again you seem to imply the fallacious claim (so long as it remains unsubstantiated [How is Lacan precisely related to Freud?]) that because Freud had an influence on Lacan it's false.

Where did I make this inference, or say that Lacan's ideas are "false"? Non-sense cannot be false.


Begging the question: You haven't shown how any of this fits the criteria of "dogmatic, a priori" nor have you shown how the neologisms or symbols are "meaningless." Also, please demonstrate how drawing out principles from observed phenomena is “a priori” and “dogmatic.”

But they haven't been 'drawn out' from observation. Freud made all his 'evidence' up. [See the above books, etc.]

So, Freud dreamt all this guff up, and then imposed it on the phenomena; and so did Lacan. As I said: a priori and dogmatic.


As for the Christian Trinity and Lacan, one provides an specific set of explanatory postulates to predict events in the world the other does not. "God loves the world" tells us nothing about what sort of actual situations may obtain. God can love the world by letting us win the lottery or sending us to Auschwitz.

Well, Christians will tell you that they can predict certain events with 100% certainty, but that does not mean that their ideas make an ounce of sense.

But, even if you were right, that would not affect the point: if the original thesis makes no sense, and is a priori and dogmatic, with enough determination, anything at all can be made to conform with it. So, the alleged capacity to 'predict' is irrelevant. There are countless non-sensical theories the supporters of which claim they can predict events in the world (by fitting events to their theory, who then explain away apparent refutations and failed predictions, etc.).

Exhibit A for the Prosecution:


However, the claim "Given the intersubjective modulus of the repetitive action, it remains to recognize in it a repetition automatism in the sense that interests us in Freud's text. The plurality of subjects, of course, can be no objection for those who are long accustomed to the perspectives summarized by our formula: the unconscious is the discourse of the Other. "

It means that one can treat a particular form of psychic disorder (similar to obsessive compulsion) one cannot simply look for the unconscious in some mystical notion of the body, but instead the treatment will be found by exploring particular relations between individuals.

I can only thank you for posting yet more guff to confirm the fact that this is indeed the mother lode.


I don't do it for your sake. I do it because if your fallacious and intellectually dishonest statements are left to stand, people might believe what you espouse corresponds to philosophy. Philosophy usually includes arguments and reasoning. Your positions do not seem to include any of those elements.

My argument against a priori dogmatism can be found here, as I noted above (I have posted summaries at RevLeft too):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm

Summaries here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-t105849/index.html?p=1408653#post1408653

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1511783&postcount=30


I'm sorry that you had an unpleasant undergraduate experience. I'm sorry that your colleges don't give you the respect you feel you reserve. However, until you're willing and able to read, understand, and create arguments, it seems that you're doing nothing but empty mysticism. Once you've managed to make some basic arguments that aren't riddled with obvious fallacies, why don't you join the discussion?

In fact, others on my course, like you, but unlike me, swallowed this b*llocks; so my former University cannot be blamed. I have in fact read far too much Frege and Wittgenstein to fall for it, even if any of it made the slightest sense to begin with.

[berlitz23]

The nexus of psychoanalysts embracing and espousing Oedipus are truly advocating repression, hiearchies, inhibition all the characteristics that one can associate with fascism. Lacan and Freud confined and circumscribed Desire within thei mmurement of Oedpus and the family, where both function as delegated agents of repression in capitalist society. The Family and Oedipus is a flagrant straightjacket to revolution because this is the locus where one acquires an affinity for authoritarian figure, the family and oedipal triangulation is the catalyst for psychic and societal despotism, it is the seed where fascism blooms in the unconscious. I think we should approach the concept of desire in a radically new framework, where desire is "revolutionary" in its essence, and that closed structures in our society tame and dam desire or territorialize and code into something like materialism and the socius. Desire in this sense is fundamentally positive and productive where it is not in search of a lost ojbect but rather out of its abudant energy propells itself to seek new connections and instantiations in society. Desire is essentially a machine.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Berlitz, as I noted in my earlier posts, this is just a priori psychology, based on the fraudulent work of that charlatan Freud.

[gilhyle]

Apparently, Gil is of that viewpoint too, but if this interpretation of psychoanalysis is accepted then. as Rosa points out, it grounds psychoanalysis on the same epistemological basis as theology.

I dont have too much of a problem with that as it is an idealist delusion to think that any cognitive practise is grounded on an epistemological basis. I prefer to see them as grounded in social relations. I find this more effective.

But on the point as to whether Freud's practice was grounded on empiricial study, it is clear that he did attempt to test his theories through exemplary case studies. This methodology was far from air tight. Few actual scientific practices have access to air tight empirical verification or falsification procedures - a few do due to the exceptionally stable character of the empirical realities they investigate but these the welcome exceptions to the broad complexities of reality which are not susceptible to such secure methodologies. However, the reliance of pychology on statistical methodolgies is a welcome improvement on Freud's method - although it is difficult for such statistical methodologies to facilitate testing of the more complex hyptheses which can be put forward. When a significant element of analogical thinking regarding hidden (mental) structures is involved then there is really no possibility of using statistical methodologies effectively.

In Freuds case, there was one significant achievement in his own lifetime which - I think - ceased to be the case once Melanie Klein and Anna Freud had left the stage (and maybe earlier) That achievement is that there was built up a substanntial communitiy of researchers testing and refining or rejecting each others ideas. This is an important part of scientific practice.

However, it was not sustained. And Lacan was an important of its degeneration. Lacan's work is, it seems to me, speculative in a way that neither Freud, nor Saussure nor Levi Strauss were. His influence was cultish. His work is almost entirely without empirical reference points. It applies - with great speculative verve - the logic of a certain view of language, symbols and ego to the restatement of Freud's perspective.

It is far too long ago since I read Lacan. I remember being interested in an early essay on the Family but finding the later work intensely oppresive and in a Freudian sense sadistic. But I dont have the detailed memory of what I read or thought to contribute to this thread effectively.

It seems to me that Lacan's work, as with Althusser and various other French thinkers in the 60s and 70s is involved in taking up the opportunity provided by Levi Strauss to extend a powerful (but flawed) theoretical perspective across a range of disciplines by dint solely of speculative effort. In that sense, the influence of French structuralism across those range of disciplines was predominantly negative, being mechical in method (i.e. drawing conclusions by extended analogy) and having little or no openness to empirical research - in a way that Freud always remained open, however difficult it was in practice for that openness to be beneficial.

BTW I did think Althusser did a session or two with Lacan....is that not in the autobiography ? My memory may let me down. But I seem to recall Althusser writing about going to some lectures by Lacan at the Ecole etc.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


I dont have too much of a problem with that as it is an idealist delusion to think that any cognitive practise is grounded on an epistemological basis. I prefer to see them as grounded in social relations. I find this more effective.

In other words, evidence is irrelevant for you. That makes you yet another a priori dogmatist -- but we knew that already.


But on the point as to whether Freud's practice was grounded on empiricial study, it is clear that he did attempt to test his theories through exemplary case studies. This methodology was far from air tight. Few actual scientific practices have access to air tight empirical verification or falsification procedures - a few do due to the exceptionally stable character of the empirical realities they investigate but these the welcome exceptions to the broad complexities of reality which are not susceptible to such secure methodologies. However, the reliance of pychology on statistical methodolgies is a welcome improvement on Freud's method - although it is difficult for such statistical methodologies to facilitate testing of the more complex hyptheses which can be put forward. When a significant element of analogical thinking regarding hidden (mental) structures is involved then there is really no possibility of using statistical methodologies effectively.

The historical recod in fact shows that his attempt to 'test' his theories against empirical evidence amounted to making it all up.

So, your attempt to test Freud's own 'attempts' to test his theory against empirical reality amounts to little more than accepting the myth Freud put about that he did in fact have genuine evidence supporting his whacko ideas, when he didn't.


In Freuds case, there was one significant achievement in his own lifetime which - I think - ceased to be the case once Melanie Klein and Anna Freud had left the stage (and maybe earlier) That achievement is that there was built up a substanntial communitiy of researchers testing and refining or rejecting each others ideas. This is an important part of scientific practice.

Which is no more impressive than the attempts made over several centuries by, for example, the medical profession to look for and find evidence supporting the humoural theory of disease. If the original concepts were flawed, and were a priori, as they are in both cases, and with enough determination, we know from the hsitory of science that practically anything can be made to fit a theory held for other reasons.

[gilhyle]

If the original concepts were flawed, and were a priori, as they are in both cases

The humoural theory in medicine wasnt a priori - might not have been very good science by our standards, but it was still science with an empirical element to its use and even formulation. Galen was an exceptional scientist.


In other words, evidence is irrelevant for you.

No I quite like evidence - and I also know that the reason I like it is because of the material context within which I exist; not because of my epistemological basis.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


The humoural theory in medicine wasnt a priori - might not have been very good science by our standards, but it was still science with an empirical element to its use and even formulation. Galen was an exceptional scientist.

It most certainly was (it wasn't a posteriori, for obvious reasons) -- and it wasn't invented by Galen. The idea is Presocratic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism


Hippocratic medicine remains one of Ancient Greece's lasting contributions to the field of science. Lacking the equipment physicians today take for granted when diagnosing and healing their patients, Hippocratic physicians were forced to create a novel system for explaining and curing disease based upon the prevalent scientific theories of their era. This system became known as the humoral theory of disease. Humoral theory incorporated the theories of Presocratic philosophers in order to explain disease and offer help for a cure. Two themes characterizing Presocratic philosophical thought dramatically influenced humoral theory. The humoral theory approach of Hippocratic medicine was based upon Presocratic philosophical musings about the relationship of man to the world. By the time humoral theory was vogue, philosophers had concluded that both man and the world were governed by the same natural laws. Humoral theory also was based upon Presocratic theories about change and how it occurred in the world; humoral theory depended upon the assertion that contrasting elements constantly contradicted each other, leading to continuous change on one level and stability on another.

Sound familiar? You mystics are all the same. A priori dogmatists...

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Chad/pre-soc.html


No I quite like evidence - and I also know that the reason I like it is because of the material context within which I exist; not because of my epistemological basis.

Well, you seemed to regard it as non-relevant it when it came to discussing Engels's egregious Anti-Duhring last year and the lack of evidence there is supporting his wild 'theories' ('quantity into quality', etc.), just as you now ignore the evidence that Freud simply made his 'evidence' up as he went along.

[gilhyle]

Freud simply made his 'evidence' up as he went along.

You need to distinguish between the logically distinct concepts of Freud making some evidence up and Freud making it all up.


It most certainly was (it wasn't a posteriori, for obvious reasons) -- and it wasn't invented by Galen. The idea is Presocratic.


This thread is not about Greek and Roman medicine (although Lacan would probably like a discussion of him turning into a discussion of Galen). But you start a thread about Greek Medicine and I will contribute.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


You need to distinguish between the logically distinct concepts of Freud making some evidence up and Freud making it all up.

Ok, but either way, he made it all up.


This thread is not about Greek and Roman medicine (although Lacan would probably like a discussion of him turning into a discussion of Galen). But you start a thread about Greek Medicine and I will contribute.

You are the one who dragged Galen in!

[gilhyle]

Ok, but either way, he made it all up.


I think you cannot prove THAT ! That is probably not even true of Lacan.


You are the one who dragged Galen in!

Only because you said this:


Which is no more impressive than the attempts made over several centuries by, for example, the medical profession to look for and find evidence supporting the humoural theory of disease.

The potency of scientific hypotheses is not determined by the accidents of their origin. Many scientific hypotheses are actually guesses radically under-determined by the evidence in the context of which they were formulated - if first formulated in the context of a scientific practice at all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


I think you cannot prove THAT ! That is probably not even true of Lacan.

But, according to you, I do not need to prove anything with evidence, all I have to do is dream up an a priori thesis, like Hegel, Engels and Freud did, and everything would be peachy.


Only because you said this:


Which is no more impressive than the attempts made over several centuries by, for example, the medical profession to look for and find evidence supporting the humoural theory of disease.

The potency of scientific hypotheses is not determined by the accidents of their origin. Many scientific hypotheses are actually guesses radically under-determined by the evidence in the context of which they were formulated - if first formulated in the context of a scientific practice at all.

But Galen didn't invent it -- so even if I did mention this theory, there was no real need for you to drag Galen in.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other:



Done it, here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm




Now, those inclined to doubt this (i.e., that metaphysical theses and forms-of-thought are readily accepted by highly educated people) cannot ever have studied Metaphysics at College or University. There, the inordinate respect shown toward the vast majority of metaphysical bumblers is as universal as it is sickening.
And that observation also applies to the respect Marxists show this alien-class thought-form, too.
You doubt this?
Well, read through any randomly-selected Marxist book or article on Philosophy (or surf through the Marxist 'Blogosphere') -- or just leaf through Radical Philosophy and Historical Materialism. Unless you are incredibly unlucky, you will find comrade after comrade accepting with open mouths -- and eulogising it as if they had just read the one true gospel -- the a priori dogmatic stipulations of the likes of Hegel, Kojève, Heidegger, Marcuse, Derrida, Lukács, Žižek, Freud, Lacan, Sartre, Kristeva, Althusser...
[The Kojève, Lukács and Žižek links at Wikipedia appear not to be working; the accents seem to be causing mayhem in the address bar. In that case, click on Kojeve, Lukacs and Zizek. Two of these look like they aren't working either! In which case, see here and here.]
If such comrades have any qualms about these 'theories', they will be centred around their own aprioristic, idiosyncratic and similarly jargon-bound criticisms, or around those of some other preferred apriorist.


Notice how none of that has anything to do with Lacan? Usually arguments have premises, conclusions, and lines of reasoning connecting them. Notice what your allege refutation of Lacan doesn't include? Almost any reference to Lacan. Why don't you give particular arguments against Lacan? You know... besides the fact that you're intellectually dishonest and have no idea what you're talking about?


Read Kant for the answer.
Cool. Now tell me how using clinical experience as the basis for your theoretical assumptions is apriori. Classic Physics presupposes a frictionless plane as the formalization of empirical observations. So classical physics is just a priori dogmatism right? Also, appeal to authority.




Like many others on the internet, you confuse abuse (or in this case, an accurate description) with argumentum ad hominem.

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

Actually, since it's Lacan (and by extension apparently Freud's very character) that are under attack it's not an argumentum ad hominem since that's what's meant to be demonstrated. However, I wouldn't expect you to understand the distinction or nuance in arguments since you don't seem to engage critical thinking in almost any of your arguments.


Also check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

And consult the following:

Cioffi, F. (1999), Freud And The Question Of PseudoScience (Open Court).

Crews, F., et al. (1995), The Memory Wars (Granta Books).

--------, (1998) (ed.), Unauthorized Freud (Viking).

Dufresne, T. (2003), Killing Freud. Twentieth Century Culture And The Death of Psychoanalysis (Continuum).

Ellenberger, H. (1970), The Discovery Of The Unconscious (Harper Collins); reprinted in 1994 (Fontana).

Thornton, E. (1986), The Freudian Fallacy (Paladin).

Webster, R. (1995), Why Freud Was Wrong (Harper Collins).

Welsh, A. (1994), Freud's Wishful Dream Book (Princeton University Press).

Wilcocks, R. (1994), Maelzel's Chess Player. Sigmund Freud And The Rhetoric Of Deceit (Rowman and Littlefield).

See also:

Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, 'How Fabrications Differ from a Lie', London Review of Books.

This material has in fact already been posted in this thread, on page One!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447838&postcount=20

So, you have no excuse.

Cool. Notice how you in now way substantiate any of these arguments so you just have an appeal to a disputed authority. Perhaps you'd learn something from a secondary algebra class. Show your work.


Just as Roman Catholicism is based on Christianity, and the latter is arrant nonsense, so is Roman Catholicism.

Same with Freud and Lacan.

Sure and we can tell that Roman Catholicism is based on Christianity because they hold certain propositions.

1) There is an after life.
2) Jesus was the son of God.

So, what are the propositions that Lacan shares with Freud? Congratulations on a false analogy. Unless you show their theoretical similarities... Which, given your track record, I'm pretty sure you are unable or unwilling.




Once more, you confuse ad hominem with personal attack. I was expressing an opinion, and I did so in response to you asking for it. And I wasn't questioning the intelligence of such individuals, just expressing surprise that they took this guff seriously, just as I wonder why intelligent people believe in 'god'.

And it's guff for the reasons I indicated -- it's nonsense on stilts, to use Bentham's happy phrase.

Cool. Let's see exactly how it's “nonsense on stilts.” Maybe the reason why people are interested in this “guff” is because some of them actually do the intellectual work necessary to understand it. Admittedly, some do not.


On the contrary, I am being helpful in exposing this charlatan for what he is. Again. Show your work.



As I have already told you, I had to study this guff as an undergraduate; if you want to waste your time with it, that's your problem. Just don't say you weren't warned.
Oh, so sad for you. You had a bad undergraduate experience which has apparently impaired your ability to make arguments. Again, show your work.



Where did I make this inference, or say that Lacan's ideas are "false"? Non-sense cannot be false. Cool. Now show no sense can be made of the ideas. Also, what are Lacan's ideas? Or please show which of his statements are non-sense. Show your work.



But they haven't been 'drawn out' from observation. Freud made all his 'evidence' up. [See the above books, etc.]

So, Freud dreamt all this guff up, and then imposed it on the phenomena; and so did Lacan. As I said: a priori and dogmatic.
Sure. Show your work. Either show exactly what Lacan "dreamt up" or show what statements Lacan shares with Freud.


Well, Christians will tell you that they can predict certain events with 100% certainty, but that does not mean that their ideas make an ounce of sense.

Which Christians claim this? Also, Lacan specifically says that theory should always be abandoned in the face of any empirical contradictions. Would you like a citation? I would imagine not since you seem deathly adverse to rigorous scholarship. If you're going to attribute things to Lacan, it seems obvious you should find a place where he actually writes or says that thing.


But, even if you were right, that would not affect the point: if the original thesis makes no sense, and is a priori and dogmatic, with enough determination, anything at all can be made to conform with it. So, the alleged capacity to 'predict' is irrelevant. There are countless non-sensical theories the supporters of which claim they can predict events in the world (by fitting events to their theory, who then explain away apparent refutations and failed predictions, etc.). Cool. Show that Lacan is one of those.


Exhibit A for the Prosecution:

However, the claim "Given the intersubjective modulus of the repetitive action, it remains to recognize in it a repetition automatism in the sense that interests us in Freud's text. The plurality of subjects, of course, can be no objection for those who are long accustomed to the perspectives summarized by our formula: the unconscious is the discourse of the Other. "

It means that one can treat a particular form of psychic disorder (similar to obsessive compulsion) one cannot simply look for the unconscious in some mystical notion of the body, but instead the treatment will be found by exploring particular relations between individuals.

I'm sorry you haven't bothered to actually study the field of psychoanalysis, but Lacan is writing to other psychoanalysts. In this case, the meaning of these statements obtains within that discourse (language game for those of you with bad predilections).

In the first paragraph, repetition isn't just something that occurs individually, but always occurs intersubjectively (between people). Also, if you've read more Lacan "the unconscious is the discourse of the Other" means that the unconscious is the set of statements which cannot be integrated into a subjects discourse.

For example, I ate dinner down town with my friends. The city puts on a night concert series. I wore my Mao shirt and I noticed someone wearing a che shirt. I said, "Hey, nice che shirt. What do you think of Mao?" The man responded, "I hate Che, I mean Mao." Here we have a clear manifestation of the unconscious. It's an utterance that can't be integrated with his liberal conception of "revolution" and his "support" for Che. It's not a mystical entity in the brain, it's a type of speech act. If you were intellectually honest, you'd admit there's nothing more mystical about Lacan's conception of the unconscious than Wittgenstein's conception of either a greeting or certainty. I won't hold my breath.



In the second paragraph, he's identifying a certain set of actions a patient takes and recommending a course of action for treating it through exploring that patient's relationships with others instead of trying to attribute it to some mystical “bodily drive.”




I can only thank you for posting yet more guff to confirm the fact that this is indeed the mother lode. Sure, demonstrate it's guff. I'm sorry somethings actually require intellectual effort to understand and that you're unwilling to expend that effort. That, in no way, makes a thing valuable or worthless.



My argument against a priori dogmatism can be found here, as I noted above (I have posted summaries at RevLeft too):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm

Summaries here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-t105849/index.html?p=1408653#post1408653

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1511783&postcount=30


Yeah, since you don't link to any actual relevant information and you just spew your garbage and expect the rest of us to pick through it, I didn't read all of these all the way since nothing seemed relevant. However, at least one point needs to be made clear. Language is not representational for Lacan. His commitment to the fact that language is symbolic (for communication with others) rather than representational is evinced by his interest in the formal properties and formal structures of mathematics and game theory. He did not view truth as correspondence, but a matter of social production. So basically all of your alleged criticisms against Lacan don't really seem to hold except “I don't understand it and I'm not going to read it.” Which, again, seems to show more about your intellectual honesty than Lacan.


In fact, others on my course, like you, but unlike me, swallowed this b*llocks; so my former University cannot be blamed. I have in fact read far too much Frege and Wittgenstein to fall for it, even if any of it made the slightest sense to begin with. Cool. Which bollocks? Since you don't know anything about Lacan except he's SOMEHOW related to Freud, I think you should just admit you're being intellectually dishonest and disengage this conversation.



Also, I don't want to hear “"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” since your two heroes Frege and Wittgenstein actually were from the ruling class and actually had reactionary ideas. Of course, they are somehow immune for your trite dictum appropriated from Marx. Since this is a topic about Lacan, please tell me what works by Lacan you've read or what specific ideas about Lacan you're reacting to.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other -- I'll reply to your post tomorrow; I am busy studying a complicated paper Gilhyle has recommended I read.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Reclaimed-Something-Or-Other (quoting Essay Twelve Part One at my site):


Notice how none of that has anything to do with Lacan? Usually arguments have premises, conclusions, and lines of reasoning connecting them. Notice what your allege refutation of Lacan doesn't include? Almost any reference to Lacan. Why don't you give particular arguments against Lacan? You know... besides the fact that you're intellectually dishonest and have no idea what you're talking about?

Where did I say that it did in that Essay? There, I am concerned to attack academic Marxists (or those who have been heavily influenced by Hegel and 'materialist dialectics'), not radically confused bumblers like Lacan.

However, the same a priori dogmatism appears in Lacan's work, so I could have alleged this of Lacan, if I could summon up the will to do so.


besides the fact that you're intellectually dishonest and have no idea what you're talking about

Well, you can keep saying this if it makes you feel better -- but I think Freud had a word for this propensity of yours to say things like this (and omit the evidence): projection.


Cool. Now tell me how using clinical experience as the basis for your theoretical assumptions is a priori. Classic Physics presupposes a frictionless plane as the formalization of empirical observations. So classical physics is just a priori dogmatism right? Also, appeal to authority.

In fact, these a priori 'psychologists' dogmatically imposed their confused ideas on their 'clinical practice' -- rather like astrologers who do the same with the observations of astronomers.


Actually, since it's Lacan (and by extension apparently Freud's very character) that are under attack it's not an argumentum ad hominem since that's what's meant to be demonstrated. However, I wouldn't expect you to understand the distinction or nuance in arguments since you don't seem to engage critical thinking in almost any of your arguments.

Well, it was you who used this phrase, not me, sunshine. So, may I suggest you turn that accusing finger through 180 degrees.


Cool. Notice how you in now way substantiate any of these arguments so you just have an appeal to a disputed authority. Perhaps you'd learn something from a secondary algebra class. Show your work.

Two 'cools' in one reply; I am doing well.

And, it is quite usual to quote such historical material (which you plainly haven't read, or you would see these charlatans for what they are) in support of the kind of claims I make.

And, I hesitate to say this, since you seem a well-meaning sort of plonker -- but this isn't algebra. If you can't tell the difference between historical evidence and algebra, no wonder you like Lacan.


Sure and we can tell that Roman Catholicism is based on Christianity because they hold certain propositions.

1) There is an after life.
2) Jesus was the son of God.

So, what are the propositions that Lacan shares with Freud? Congratulations on a false analogy. Unless you show their theoretical similarities... Which, given your track record, I'm pretty sure you are unable or unwilling.

I am, of course, relying on what Lacan himself said (see my earlier posts); if that's not good enough for you...


Cool. Let's see exactly how it's “nonsense on stilts.” Maybe the reason why people are interested in this “guff” is because some of them actually do the intellectual work necessary to understand it. Admittedly, some do not.

Three 'cools', now. I am indeed doing well.

As I said if you want to waste your time on this guff, that's up to you. As Chomsky noted of this sort of material:


I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions --- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.

As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).

The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.

The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.

Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.

These are very easy requests to fulfil, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.

To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.

The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges --- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.

It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.

Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.

He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion --- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.

So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.

Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible --- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.

For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.

Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.

Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.

What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know --- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.

Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any preteens that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."

To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty uninteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.

Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.

Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.

It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.

A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behavior of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, skeptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.

End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

Now, I'd go further than Chomsky, but the above largely represents my view of 'French Philosophy' and a priori psychology.


Show your work.

Stop repeating yourself -- check out my references.


Oh, so sad for you. You had a bad undergraduate experience which has apparently impaired your ability to make arguments. Again, show your work.

May I refer you to my previous comment.


Cool. Now show no sense can be made of the ideas. Also, what are Lacan's ideas? Or please show which of his statements are non-sense. Show your work.

A fourth 'cool; I am honoured.

And, I think you need professional treatment for that verbal tick of yours.

[Here's a piece of advice: avoid consulting an a priori psychologist like Lacan or Freud, since I think they are partly responsible for your repetitive plight.]


Which Christians claim this? Also, Lacan specifically says that theory should always be abandoned in the face of any empirical contradictions. Would you like a citation? I would imagine not since you seem deathly adverse to rigorous scholarship. If you're going to attribute things to Lacan, it seems obvious you should find a place where he actually writes or says that thing.

For example, ask a born again Christian, and he/she will predict with 100% certainty that they are going to heaven -- check these nutters out:

http://www.allaboutgod.com/once-saved-always-saved.htm

http://www.gotquestions.org/once-saved-always-saved.html

There are plenty of other examples. Begin here:

http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/


Cool. Show that Lacan is one of those.

A fifth 'cool'. You'll have my head swelling soon.

Check out this sad display:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URsYj-TVFjc

Full of a priori gobbledygook.


I'm sorry you haven't bothered to actually study the field of psychoanalysis, but Lacan is writing to other psychoanalysts. In this case, the meaning of these statements obtains within that discourse (language game for those of you with bad predilections).

Ah, you've read a bit of Wittgenstein -- but clearly do not know how to apply it. Wittgenstein introduced this metaphor as an object of comparison, not a metaphysical thesis. But I'd like to see where he said that the meaning of certain statements 'obtains' within that discourse.

But, even if you weren't alluding to Wittgenstein, I'd like to see your proof that:


In this case, the meaning of these statements obtains within that discourse

Anyway, you have no idea what I have or haven't studied --, but even if you were right about this:


you haven't bothered to actually study the field of psychoanalysis

your confused state of mind (with its attendant ticks) would be enough to put anyone off.


In the first paragraph, repetition isn't just something that occurs individually, but always occurs intersubjectively (between people). Also, if you've read more Lacan "the unconscious is the discourse of the Other" means that the unconscious is the set of statements which cannot be integrated into a subjects discourse.

Ah, yet more a priori dogmatics. Keep it up, the more you post the stronger my case becomes!


For example, I ate dinner down town with my friends. The city puts on a night concert series. I wore my Mao shirt and I noticed someone wearing a che shirt. I said, "Hey, nice che shirt. What do you think of Mao?" The man responded, "I hate Che, I mean Mao." Here we have a clear manifestation of the unconscious. It's an utterance that can't be integrated with his liberal conception of "revolution" and his "support" for Che. It's not a mystical entity in the brain, it's a type of speech act. If you were intellectually honest, you'd admit there's nothing more mystical about Lacan's conception of the unconscious than Wittgenstein's conception of either a greeting or certainty.

This is your 'scientific evidence' is it?

I fear you are in danger of giving TV psychics a good name!


I won't hold my breath

I'm glad to hear it. A tantrum from you is the last thing we need.


Sure, demonstrate it's guff. I'm sorry somethings actually require intellectual effort to understand and that you're unwilling to expend that effort. That, in no way, makes a thing valuable or worthless.

I rather think you are doing an excellent job in this regard yourself; I can only take my hat off to you.


Yeah, since you don't link to any actual relevant information and you just spew your garbage and expect the rest of us to pick through it, I didn't read all of these all the way since nothing seemed relevant. However, at least one point needs to be made clear.

Stay ignorant then -- see if I care.


Language is not representational for Lacan. His commitment to the fact that language is symbolic (for communication with others) rather than representational is evinced by his interest in the formal properties and formal structures of mathematics and game theory. He did not view truth as correspondence, but a matter of social production. So basically all of your alleged criticisms against Lacan don't really seem to hold except “I don't understand it and I'm not going to read it.” Which, again, seems to show more about your intellectual honesty than Lacan

I'm glad to hear it, but where did I say he thought it was?

And, in fact, this seems to be your tactic, on your own admission:


“I don't understand it and I'm not going to read it.”

So, this applies to you, it seems:


Which, again, seems to show more about your intellectual honesty than Lacan


Cool.

Yet another 'cool' -- I don't think I'll be able to get my head through the door...


Which bollocks?

The dog's:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dog's%20bollocks.html

Lacan and Freud are right up there. The dog's bollocks of a priori gobbledygook.


Since you don't know anything about Lacan except he's SOMEHOW related to Freud, .

Since you don't know what I do or do not know about Freud and Lacan, it is, once again, you that this seems to fit:


I think you should just admit you're being intellectually dishonest and disengage this conversation

In relation to this:


Also, I don't want to hear “"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” since your two heroes Frege and Wittgenstein actually were from the ruling class and actually had reactionary ideas. Of course, they are somehow immune for your trite dictum appropriated from Marx. Since this is a topic about Lacan, please tell me what works by Lacan you've read or what specific ideas about Lacan you're reacting to.

1) Fine, then if you do not want to hear anything from Marx, stop posting at RevLeft.

2) The characters you mention in fact helped extend Marx's demolition of the sort of ruling-class apriorism that has clearly colonised your brain.


Since this is a topic about Lacan, please tell me what works by Lacan you've read or what specific ideas about Lacan you're reacting to

I will, just soon as you show you have read the historical material I linked to earlier.

[Hiero]

Reclaimed Dasein To answer your earlier question.


I think his use of Saussure and especially the sign is far more important, but I'd be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.

Well Levi-Strauss' Structuralism is dependent on Saussure, and my understanding is both Lacan and Levi-Strauss departed from Saussurian linguistics. Of course Lacan also departed from Frued, but as I understand it, Lacan re-read Frued and used pyschoanalysis within a structuralist framework "the unconcious is structured like language".

The sign in Levi-Strauss and Lacan is quite similar. Human beings for Levi-Strauss in kingship system are sign both signifer and signified. They are human matter with a term "cousin, father, aunties husband etc" but also carry information. Each human being is a sign to be read and understood through some system (Kingship or Symbolic order).

I find it very similar to Lacan. The father is the sign of the symbolic order for the new born child. When coming out of the imaginary from the mother (? correct my if I am wrong) the child learns the term father as a symbol of western patriarchy for phalus and the symbolic order begins for the child.

In both cases humans are human-matter (signfier) but carry information (signfied).

Have you read System and Structure: Essays in Communication and Exchange by Anthony Wilden?

He does a reading of such authors as Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Marx, Frued etc and reads them side by side. Then compares them to information systems. Such as elements in the myth, synchornic elements like Odeipus killing his father are binary and the overall myth when read diachronous is analog. With this framework he provides a critique of Levi-Strauss and Lacan and claims there major problem is their confusion between language and communication.

I am going to do my honours on somethign surrounding Lacan and his application in anthropology. So before the year starts I am building up a knowledge base of Lacan and Levi-Strauss.

[Hiero]

I'm sorry you haven't bothered to actually study the field of psychoanalysis, but Lacan is writing to other psychoanalysts. In this case, the meaning of these statements obtains within that discourse (language game for those of you with bad predilections).

I have been told this. How do you think students outside of any pyschoanalytical circles can approach Lacan, I have so far only approach Lacan through other authors, Wilden (1983), Zizek and a lessor knwon but close student of Lacan Anika Lemaire.


Language is not representational for Lacan. His commitment to the fact that language is symbolic (for communication with others) rather than representational is evinced by his interest in the formal properties and formal structures of mathematics and game theory. He did not view truth as correspondence, but a matter of social production. So basically all of your alleged criticisms against Lacan don't really seem to hold except “I don't understand it and I'm not going to read it.” Which, again, seems to show more about your intellectual honesty than Lacan.

Can it also be imaginary? For it to be symbolic we all must have the same unconcious/structure for the vocab to represent something other then it is. For instance the baby is the imaginary because objects and terms etc have no symbolic meaning?

[spiltteeth]

Can it also be imaginary? For it to be symbolic we all must have the same unconcious/structure for the vocab to represent something other then it is. For instance the baby is the imaginary because objects and terms etc have no symbolic meaning?

I just noticed the thread and I;m not sure what you mean, but Lacan is using the word 'imaginary' as in images. Consciousness is a fragmented thing, and a 'whole' unified Self is an illusion. But in the Mirror stage the infant is constantly told, while looking at the image in the mirror, or in the reflection in its mothers eyes, that this image is it, (a mother says 'thats you!' look!) and it confuses the simple whole image of its reflection with its actual fragmented being. So what we call a Self is really just an illusion based on confusing a reflected image with what we actually are.
Because of this various psychic mechanisms come into being to constantly convince the subject he/she is a unified whole person. 

[spiltteeth]

Also Hiero, for understanding Lacan I really recommend Bruce Fink - he's absolutely great.
Zizek...is confusing.

[Hiero]

I just noticed the thread and I;m not sure what you mean, but Lacan is using the word 'imaginary' as in images. Consciousness is a fragmented thing, and a 'whole' unified Self is an illusion. But in the Mirror stage the infant is constantly told, while looking at the image in the mirror, or in the reflection in its mothers eyes, that this image is it, (a mother says 'thats you!' look!) and it confuses the simple whole image of its reflection with its actual fragmented being. So what we call a Self is really just an illusion based on confusing a reflected image with what we actually are.
Because of this various psychic mechanisms come into being to constantly convince the subject he/she is a unified whole person. 

Well could you explain the oedipal process?

I thought the association with the mother is when the baby is in the imagery stages, everything is images without any symbolic meaning. Learning the father's name, the baby enters the symbolic?

[spiltteeth]

Well could you explain the oedipal process?

I thought the association with the mother is when the baby is in the imagery stages, everything is images without any symbolic meaning. Learning the father's name, the baby enters the symbolic?

Thats kind of right. Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.
At this point the baby's oneness with the mother's desire is broken and the baby enters the symbolic realm.
Basically the whole Castration complex is when subject renounces his/her attempts to be the phallus for the mother. In renouncing its attempts to be the object of the mother's desire, the subject gives up a certain jouissance which is never regained despite all attempts to do so. How the baby reacts to the castration will determine its sexuation.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Thats kind of right. Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

So, which babies took part in this survey? Or, weren't they asked their opinions?

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



So, which babies took part in this survey? Or, weren't they asked their opinions?

Ah, I can see why you would think this was a survey, rather it is a theory with clinical applications.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Ah, I can see why you would think this was a survey, rather it is a theory with clinical applications.

I see; so, as part of these 'clinical applications' the views of the participating babies were ascertained, were they?

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



I see; so, as part of these 'clinical applications' the views of the participating babies were ascertained, were they?

Theorized upon. The word theory is hidden within 'theorized.'

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Theorized upon. The word theory is hidden within 'theorized.'

Indeed, it is, and well spotted!

So, I take it there is no evidence at all to support the rather odd idea that babies know all about 'Phalluses'.

Perhaps these wise infants also know all about DVD players, chaos theory and electrons, too?

[spiltteeth]

Lacan's contention that self-image begins as a reflection of others’ image of the self is well-supported by the research (see The Construction of the Self, 1999 by Susan Harter)
There is no hard evidence, yet, that his theories can be validated by, however this should not be disconcerting, look at how many years it was that Einstein’s Law of Special Relativity was accepted on the basis of belief before any experimental evidence
was proffered to support this theory or the majority of theoretical physicists that today subscribe to string theory, a theory that has no foreseeable means for experimental verification.
Lacan's is an elegant theory that explains much in a coherent manner that has clinical applications.
Although I am intrigued by the concept that truth must past through you and your superior knowing in order to be validated. Rather a religious manner of thinking...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Lacan's contention that self-image begins as a reflection of others’ image of the self is well-supported by the research (see The Construction of the Self, 1999 by Susan Harter)
There is no hard evidence, yet, that his theories can be validated by, however this should not be disconcerting, look at how many years it was that Einstein’s Law of Special Relativity was accepted on the basis of belief before any experimental evidence
was proffered to support this theory or the majority of theoretical physicists that today subscribe to string theory, a theory that has no foreseeable means for experimental verification.
Lacan's is an elegant theory that explains much in a coherent manner that has clinical applications.


The analogy with relativity is lame since that theory was an extension of a well confirmed theory invented by Newton.

I agree with you about String Theory, but it is a theory that might one day be confirmed. There is no way we could ascertain whether or not babies have any understanding at all of what a 'Phallus' is -- indeed the idea is as ludicrous as supposing they know about the four chambers of the heart or the antomy of the kidneys.


Although I am intrigued by the concept that truth must past through you and your superior knowing in order to be validated. Rather a religious manner of thinking...

I asked for something as simple as supporting evidence, and you, once again, turn thus in a personal attack on me.

In that past, credulous individuals like you burnt critics like me at the stake. Now, that's more like 'religious thinking' than asking for evidence is.

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



The analogy with relativity is lame since that theory was an extension of a well confirmed theory invented by Newton.

I agree with you about String Theory, but it is a theory that might one day be confirmed. There is no way we could ascertain whether or not babies have any understanding at all of what a 'Phallus' is -- indeed the idea is as ludicrous as supposing they know about the four chambers of the heart or the antomy of the kidneys.



I asked for something as simple as supporting evidence, and you, once again, turn thus in a personal attack on me.

In that past, credulous individuals like you burnt critics like me at the stake. Now, that's more like 'religious thinking' than asking for evidence is.

I apologize for turning it into a personal attack.

I do acknowledge there is little empirical evidence concerning etiology, at the moment, but I don't see this as a drawback.
There is plenty of evidence done on the efficiency of analysis done based on Lacanian etiology, and psychoanalysis in general, a few short papers I can recommend could be
Follow-up of Psychoanalysis Five to Ten Years after Termination: III. The Relation between the Resolution of the Transference and the Patient-Analyst Match by Kantrowitz, Judy; Katz, Ann L.; and Paolitto, Frank As for eventual evidence,

studies on the Efficacy of Child Psychoanalysis
by Fonagy, Peter and Moran, George S.

The famous Göttingen Study of Psychoanalytic Therapy
by Biskup, Joachim; Kreische, Reinhard; Leichsenring, Falk; and Staats, Hermann

And "The effectiveness of psychoanalysis and longer-term psychodynamic psychotherapy: A meta-analysis" APSAA 2009.
Which actually just came out 2 or 3 months ago, a good review can be found here :http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/APsaA/12510

Usually Lacanian's decline to offer extensive empirical evidence in the form of, for instance, case studies demonstrating the efficacy of Lacan's concepts because of Lacan's wish to avoid reifying analysis by placing the always-particular practice of therapy too firmly under the heading of a fixed, general theoretical framework, which might transform his theories into a simple instrument for the mindless application of rigid, inflexible therapeutic guidelines, BUT empirical illustrations of Lacanian treatment does appear in several books discussing actual cases of analysands : Stuart Schneiderman's anthology Returning to Freud, Serge Leclaire's Psychoanalyzing and A Child is Being Killed, and Bruce Fink's A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis.

Empirical evidence of, say, the mirror stage is problematical. Really it belies a search for truth (of the unconsciousness) that cannot be objectively justified, due to its largely conjectural and subjective status as evidence. How can interpretations and ‘knowledge’ of the unconscious mind be free from subjective irrationality and self-truth? How can we prove that such ‘evidence’ is universal in nature, culture, and the individual subject’s imagination/psyche, without definitive and evidential proof of the mind’s processes and memories from the mirror stage or the unconscious?

Of course a baby has no idea what a 'phallus' is etc, but your observations are a misunderstanding since the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.
So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says :
"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I do acknowledge there is little empirical evidence concerning etiology, at the moment, but I don't see this as a drawback.
There is plenty of evidence done on the efficiency of analysis done based on Lacanian etiology, and psychoanalysis in general, a few short papers I can recommend could be
Follow-up of Psychoanalysis Five to Ten Years after Termination: III. The Relation between the Resolution of the Transference and the Patient-Analyst Match by Kantrowitz, Judy; Katz, Ann L.; and Paolitto, Frank As for eventual evidence,

It's not so much a matter of the lack of evidence, but the implausibilty of the thesis, that babies actually know what a 'phallus' is.

In fact, anyone who looks for evidence that they do shows a level of credulity sufficient to throw into doubt their capacity to distinguish fact from fancy.

For example, what would we think of a psychologist who was looking for evidence that babies know how to solve partial differential equations, how to fly jet airliners and design advanced computers?

But then you say:


Of course a baby has no idea what a 'phallus' is etc, but your observations are a misunderstanding since the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.

But, if babies do not know what a 'phallus' is, then how can this be true?


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says : "It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Bold added.

These implausible claims alone are sufficient to discredit Lacan, and that is quite apart from his reliance of the work of a known charlatan -- Freud.

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



It's not so much a matter of the lack of evidence, but the implausibilty of the thesis, that babies actually know what a 'phallus' is.

In fact, anyone who looks for evidence that they do shows a level of credulity sufficient to throw into doubt their capacity to distinguish fact from fancy.

For example, what would we think of a psychologist who was looking for evidence that babies know how to solve partial differential equations, how to fly jet airliners and design advanced computers?

But then you say:



But, if babies do not know what a 'phallus' is, then how can this be true?



Bold added.

These implausible claims alone are sufficient to discredit Lacan, and that is quite apart from his reliance of the work of a known charlatan -- Freud.

I assume you didn't read what I wrote, I offered those papers as evidence done on the efficiency of analysis done based on Lacanian etiology
Bold added.


For example, what would we think of a psychologist who was looking for evidence that babies know how to solve partial differential equations, how to fly jet airliners and design advanced computers?

Not much. I'd compare those people to you, since babies have rarely been seen to fly planes or use computers, yet they have been seen to interact with mirrors, not to mention the mother's behavior, across cultural boundaries, of practicing games that enforce body image.
Regardless, although it's so obvious usually it needs no preamble, I've said babies do not know what a 'phallus' is.
I'll repeat what I said AND add the bold :


Of course a baby has no idea what a 'phallus' is etc, but your observations are a misunderstanding since the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.
So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says :
"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Get it? It's the meaning the adult subject retroactively gives to his/her experience as a baby, which varies in every individual in some degree, hence, I'll repeat,
Lacanian's decline to offer extensive empirical evidence in the form of, for instance, case studies demonstrating the efficacy of Lacan's concepts because of Lacan's wish to avoid reifying analysis by placing the always-particular practice of therapy too firmly under the heading of a fixed, general theoretical framework, which might transform his theories into a simple instrument for the mindless application of rigid, inflexible therapeutic guidelines which is determined by universal structures (again, the particulars are unique in each case) that can be uncovered by working by, I'll repeat Lacan,
starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Now you can disagree, but first you ought to at least understand what it is your disagreeing with since, I'll repeat,
your observations are a misunderstanding since the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adultt

[spiltteeth]

I feel that I ought to, in order to drive home the point, declare that Lacan quote a third time and embolden the word 'supposedly', just to be extra sure, here:

"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I assume you didn't read what I wrote, I offered those papers as evidence done on the efficiency of analysis done based on Lacanian etiology

I did, but I failed to see the relevance.

The problem is that success is no criterion of truth; there have been plenty of theories in the history of science that were successful (sometimes for centuries) which turned out to be completely false. Incorrect theories often make successful (practical and theoretical) predictions -- as, for example, Ptolemy's system did for many centuries.

The additional point here is that it is totally implausible, if not incredible, to believe that babies know about the 'phallus', whether this is 'retroactively' attributed to babies, or not.

Hence, any alleged 'confirmatory' evidence for the supposed truth of Lacan's overall mehtod is not the least bit reassuring.


I'd compare those people to you, since babies have rarely been seen to fly planes or use computers, yet they have been seen to interact with mirrors, not to mention the mother's behavior, across cultural boundaries, of practicing games that enforce body image.

But, babies are not seen running sex clinics either.


Regardless, although it's so obvious usually it needs no preamble, I've said babies do not know what a 'phallus' is.
I'll repeat what I said AND add the bold :

Yes, I noticed that, and I replied as follows:


But, if babies do not know what a 'phallus' is, then how can this be true?


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says : "It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Bold added.

These implausible claims alone are sufficient to discredit Lacan, and that is quite apart from his reliance of the work of a known charlatan -- Freud.

You:



Of course a baby has no idea what a 'phallus' is etc, but your observations are a misunderstanding since the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.

So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says : "It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Get it? It's the meaning the adult subject retroactively gives to his/her experience as a baby, which varies in every individual in some degree, hence, I'll repeat,

This is no more help than if an adherent of medieval astronomy were to argue that angels do indeed push the celestial spheres around, but we must not ask for any evidence of this since critics fail to understand other parts of the theory.

Especially if that theory is based on the ideas of that charlatan Freud.


Lacanian's decline to offer extensive empirical evidence in the form of, for instance, case studies demonstrating the efficacy of Lacan's concepts because of Lacan's wish to avoid reifying analysis by placing the always-particular practice of therapy too firmly under the heading of a fixed, general theoretical framework, which might transform his theories into a simple instrument for the mindless application of rigid, inflexible therapeutic guidelines

This is rather like the 'shyness' effect to which adherents of paraspychological phenomena appeal to explain why, when their claims are investigated by scientists, the effects do not work.

http://www.skepdic.com/shynesseffect.html

In other words, it is special pleading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading


starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences." ...

Now you can disagree, but first you ought to at least understand what it is your disagreeing with since, I'll repeat,

Of course I'll disagree with any theory that imputes such implausible beliefs to babies, even if this is only done 'retroactively'. 'Retroactively' or otherwise, babies cannot be attributed with such beliefs.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I feel that I ought to, in order to drive home the point, declare that Lacan quote a third time and embolden the word 'supposedly', just to be extra sure, here:


"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

This suggests that not even Lacan believed his own theory!

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



This suggests that not even Lacan believed his own theory!

You did not understand it at all. Lacan did not believe what you think is his theory.
I ...actually don't know how to make it any clearer.

I already said, according to Lacan, babies don't have those beliefs, if you won't accept it, what can I do...

I even quote Lacan and you respond "not even Lacan believed his own theory!"

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


You did not understand it at all. Lacan did not believe what you think is his theory.
I ...actually don't know how to make it any clearer.

What is there to 'understand' about a theory that retroactively attributes to babies a belief they cannot possibly have?


I already said, according to Lacan, babies don't have those beliefs, if you won't accept it, what can I do...

If so, this cannot be true:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


I even quote Lacan and you respond "not even Lacan believed his own theory!"

Indeed, since that is the implication of that quote.

[spiltteeth]

I re-read yr post and I'm baffled. If meaning is applied retroactively by an adult it's not possible, or important, to know the babies actual (hence supposed) subjective experience.
I've read quite a number of interpretations of Lacan and yours is the most bizarre, unless you don't understand what retroactive means?

And the relevance of Lacanian analysis being effective? I guess none if your interest is not in concrete humans but abstract 'truth.' The purpose of Lacanian analysis is to provide therapy and facilitate change within the context of a patients freedom and choice.

I've explained Lacan a number of times, he's not easy, but I honestly cannot break it down further or make it simpler.

All I can say is you do not understand, and I'm sorry I can not explain it any better. I recommend Bruce Fink, but I'm not sure what luck you'll have if even this little bit is confusing.

[spiltteeth]

Rosa Lichtenstein;1548313]Spiltteeth:



What is there to 'understand' about a theory that retroactively attributes to babies a belief they cannot possibly have?

That is not the theory, which I've said quite a few times, again, if you wish to believe this is the theory what can I do?


If so, this cannot be true:



You:


I was replying to Hiero and talking about a particular stage. I assumed he knew that that stages of development (unlike Freud's) are
structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.
Obviously I thought you would actually read what I wrote, although in my defense to emphasize the fact I did write this before (repeating) the explanation:
although it's so obvious usually it needs no preamble...



Indeed, since that is the implication of that quote.

You misunderstand the quote. I'm sorry I can not explain it to you in a clearer manner.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I re-read yr post and I'm baffled. If meaning is applied retroactively by an adult it's not possible, or important, to know the babies actual (hence supposed) subjective experience.
I've read quite a number of interpretations of Lacan and yours is the most bizarre, unless you don't understand what retroactive means?

Indeed I do, and that is why Lacan's theory is no less implausible.

What is being proposed is that babies can be viewed as if they had certain beliefs in order to explain their subsequent behaviour and states of mind, when they become adults. But, if it makes no sense even to suppose, even retroactively, that babies could have those beliefs, then any theory that says they can be said retroactivley to have them, cannot be correct.


And the relevance of Lacanian analysis being effective? I guess none if your interest is not in concrete humans but abstract 'truth.' The purpose of Lacanian analysis is to provide therapy and facilitate change within the context of a patients freedom and choice.

I have already covered this. And it matters not what the purpose of Lacanian therapy is, if it is theoretically flawed, that needs exposing.


I've explained Lacan a number of times, he's not easy, but I honestly cannot break it down further or make it simpler.

Why on earth do you think the problem is simplicity? The problem is plausibility.


All I can say is you do not understand, and I'm sorry I can not explain it any better. I recommend Bruce Fink, but I'm not sure what luck you'll have if even this little bit is confusing.

Again, as I have already said:


What is there to 'understand' about a theory that retroactively attributes to babies a belief they cannot possibly have?

You reply:


That is not the theory, which I've said quite a few times, again, if you wish to believe this is the theory what can I do?

And yet, you also said this:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Bold added.

This implies that babies have certain beliefs they cannot possibly have, even if these are 'retroactively' attributed to them.


I was replying to Hiero and talking about a particular stage. I assumed he knew that that stages of development (unlike Freud's) are

Then are you still committed to such implausible ideas?


Obviously I thought you would actually read what I wrote, although in my defense to emphasize the fact I did write this before (repeating) the explanation:


although it's so obvious usually it needs no preamble...


Indeed, since that is the implication of that quote.

You misunderstand the quote. I'm sorry I can not explain it to you in a clearer manner.

Again, what is there to 'understand' about a quote that implies babies have beliefs they cannot possibly have, even if these are attributed to them 'retroactively'?

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



Indeed I do, and that is why Lacan's theory is no less implausible.

What is being proposed is that babies can be viewed as if they had certain beliefs in order to explain their subsequent behaviour and states of mind, when they become adults. But, if it makes no sense even to suppose, even retroactively, that babies could have those beliefs, then any theory that says they can be said retroactivley to have them, cannot be correct.



I have already covered this. And it matters not what the purpose of Lacanian therapy is, if it is theoretically flawed, that needs exposing.



Why on earth do you think the problem is simplicity? The problem is plausibility.



Again, as I have already said:



You reply:



And yet, you also said this:



Bold added.

This implies that babies have certain beliefs they cannot possibly have, even if these are 'retroactively' attributed to them.



Then are you still committed to such implausible ideas?



Again, what is there to 'understand' about a quote that implies babies have beliefs they cannot possibly have, even if these are attributed to them 'retroactively'?

Again, babies don't have those beleifs, aparently I can not convinve you that this is not Lacan's theory.

And, for the 3rd time this :


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

was written assuming that a person would know this :


the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphisis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.
So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says :
"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

To put it a different way, these stages are to be understood as structures that the adult retroactively applies to make sense of/incorporate into his present person what he or her perceives as his or her (again, hence supposed) experiences as a baby.

Psychoanalysis is involved in subjectivity and SELF-TRUTH, not 'truth.'

Again, what you understand to be Lacan's theory is not Lacan's theory.
If not complexity then I haven't a clue why you don't understand, perhaps it is my own fault. Perhaps my explanations are muddled. Regardless, you do not understand his theory, I cannot make it clearer, and in my opinion Bruce Fink provides the clearest explanation of Lacan.

If however, you wish to persist in the belief that Lacan's theory involves babies having beliefs in the 'phallus,' I can not stop you.
Maybe it's a people thing...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Again, babies don't have those beliefs, apparently I can not convince you that this is not Lacan's theory.

I'm glad to hear it; in that case you will be equally happy to withdraw this earlier claim of yours, which implies they do:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Bold added.

But you now say:


And, for the 3rd time this :


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

was written assuming that a person would know this:


the mirror stage and the other stages are not nicely ordered chronological events that happen on cue, they are structures that are projected retroactively into the past by the adult, so "they are ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex" as Lacan points out, hence Lacan dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psychosexual stages by means of direct observation of the child and places emphasis on the reconstruction of the stages in the analysis of the adult.
So they are not observable biological phenomena which develop naturally, hence Lacan says :
"It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we must grapple, retrospectively, nachträglich, with the supposedly original experiences."

Which seems to imply that you do believe, or that Lacan believed, that babies can, retroactively, be attributed with beliefs they cannot possibly have had.

I think you need to make your mind up.


To put it a different way, these stages are to be understood as structures that the adult retroactively applies to make sense of/incorporate into his present person what he or her perceives as his or her (again, hence supposed) experiences as a baby.

If so, such an adult must be attributing to a baby a belief it cannot possibly have, even if that baby is that person as they were many years ago.


Psychoanalysis is involved in subjectivity and SELF-TRUTH, not 'truth.

Well, it can't even be 'self-truth' (whatever that means) if it involves attributing to a baby, even retroactively, a belief it could not possibly have.

Someone might be persuaded to believe that they used to be a shape-shifting lizard, but anyone who did this would be misleading that person if it is not possible for them to have been a shape-shifting lizard, even if this were a 'self-truth', and that can only mean that those involved in such a deception would be little other charlatans.


Again, what you understand to be Lacan's theory is not Lacan's theory.

If so, you should stop attributing to him beliefs he did not hold about beliefs babies could not possibly hold.


If not complexity then I haven't a clue why you don't understand, perhaps it is my own fault. Perhaps my explanations are muddled. Regardless, you do not understand his theory, I cannot make it clearer, and in my opinion Bruce Fink provides the clearest explanation of Lacan.

Again, what is there to 'understand' about a theory -- yours, Lacan's, or whoever's -- that attributes to babies, even if only retroactively, beliefs they cannot possible have held?


If however, you wish to persist in the belief that Lacan's theory involves babies having beliefs in the 'phallus,' I can not stop you.

Well, you are the one who misled me; if you now want to withdraw this, then fine:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Bold added.


Maybe it's a people thing...

In fact, it's a plausibility thing...

[Hiero]

Thats kind of right. Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.
At this point the baby's oneness with the mother's desire is broken and the baby enters the symbolic realm.
Basically the whole Castration complex is when subject renounces his/her attempts to be the phallus for the mother. In renouncing its attempts to be the object of the mother's desire, the subject gives up a certain jouissance which is never regained despite all attempts to do so. How the baby reacts to the castration will determine its sexuation.
I think to me it is not neccasirly the point whether this is the excact process that occurs. I believe that the overall point is there is a moment(s) over a period of time when a subject ascends to the symbolic order. I haven't read indepth study of this period, as I am coming from a anthropology degree, not pure psychoanalysists.

The other point that I draw from this is the analysis of people as human matter and information, people as signs.

[Hiero]

Although I am intrigued by the concept that truth must past through you and your superior knowing in order to be validated.

If that is a personal insult, than so is this:


In that past, credulous individuals like you burnt critics like me at the stake.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


If that is a personal insult, than so is this:

I only trade unsults if I have been insulted first -- I always give as good as I get, often worse.

[spiltteeth]

Rosa, has anyone told you that they love you today? I love you. I don't know you, but I love you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Rosa, has anyone told you that they love you today? I love you. I don't know you, but I love you.

Yes, each of my three daughters, not that it is any business of yours.

More relevant: Has anyone told you to stop making odd claims about babies' beliefs?

Other than me, of course.

[spiltteeth]

No one, perhaps because I never made those claims, perhaps because you have a unique misunderstanding.
Did you ask your daughters what they meant by 'love'? Or is that a conversation best left for the future, assuming you believe such a thing exists?
Regardless, you are loved. FOUR people have told you they love you. What a beautiful day for you!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


No one, perhaps because I never made those claims, perhaps because you have a unique misunderstanding.

Then, as I have already pointed out, you will be happy to withdraw this:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Bold added.


Did you ask your daughters what they meant by 'love'?

No more than you had to ask what it meant.


Or is that a conversation best left for the future, assuming you believe such a thing exists?

What, that the future exists? If it now exists, then it can't be the future. If it will exist one day, then it cannot now exist.

Take your pick.


Regardless, you are loved. FOUR people have told you they love you. What a beautiful day for you!

Except, that my daughters were sincere.

[spiltteeth]

=Rosa Lichtenstein;1549053]Spiltteeth:



Then, as I have already pointed out, you will be happy to withdraw this:



Bold added.

No, first I don't think you understand the nature of belief, second, I do not see the word belief there, third, this is, as I've explained and you do not understand, a phase that is retroactively constituted by the adult, fourth, I have given you a quote by Lacan that can either mean 1) You misunderstand him or else 2) He doesn't even believe in his own theories! You made a questionable decision to go with 2. Fifth, I told you Lacan has said it does not make sense to observe the child, now why would that be unless you misunderstand Lacan that these concepts can be applied to the infant? You must ignore this to hold your belief in your reading of Lacan which again, shows questionable reasoning, sixth, even if we ignore 1-5 you have given no reason why the phallus is incompatible with an infants experiential understanding.


No more than you had to ask what it meant.

What do they mean by love?


What, that the future exists? If it now exists, then it can't be the future. If it will exist one day, then it cannot now exist.

Take your pick.


I have a scientific, not some mystical, understanding of time, the pick is a choice based on misperceptions, see John Wheeler, the future does exist.


Except, that my daughters were sincere.

And how can you know your daughter's were sincere? I demand to see these surveys! When did they know they loved you? Unless you will happily retract your statement...
I was/am sincere, I would like to see the proof otherwise.
Perhaps you've heard the old italian naval saying, 'It is necessary to travel, it is not necessary to live'?
Well, I'm told it is not necessary to like a person, it is necessary to love them. This is an actual belief.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth


No, first I don't think you understand the nature of belief, second, I do not see the word belief there, third, this is, as I've explained and you do not understand, a phase that is retroactively constituted by the adult, fourth, I have given you a quote by Lacan that can either mean 1) You misunderstand him or else 2) He doesn't even believe in his own theories! You made a questionable decision to go with 2. Fifth, I told you Lacan has said it does not make sense to observe the child, now why would that be unless you misunderstand Lacan that these concepts can be applied to the infant?

Once more, what is there to 'understand' if someone attributes to babies -- even 'retrospectively' -- beliefs they cannot possibly hold.

So, it is not whether I 'understand the nature of belief', but whether someone who thinks babies can hold a belief they cannot possibly have does --, like this:


You must ignore this to hold your belief in your reading of Lacan which again, shows questionable reasoning, sixth, even if we ignore 1-5 you have given no reason why the phallus is incompatible with an infants experiential understanding

Again, this implies that a baby knows what a 'phallus' is, which is not just implausible, it is incredible.


What do they mean by love?

You are the one who raised this, so you tell us.


I have a scientific, not some mystical, understanding of time, the pick is a choice based on misperceptions, see John Wheeler, the future does exist.

Yes, I have a mathematics degree so I know all about Wheeler's implausible theory. But quite apart from that, if you believe the future exists (present tense) then it cannot be in the future, and thus cannot be the future, but must be the present. In which case, you have simply mis-identified it.

And the use of any other tense will only have similar results.


And how can you know your daughter's were sincere? I demand to see these surveys! When did they know they loved you? Unless you will happily retract your statement...

As I said, this is none of your business.


I was/am sincere, I would like to see the proof otherwise.

I'd like to see proof that you are.


Perhaps you've heard the old italian naval saying, 'It is necessary to travel, it is not necessary to live'?
Well, I'm told it is not necessary to like a person, it is necessary to love them. This is an actual belief.

Eh?:confused:

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

This thread has just taken a noise dive into the bizarre...

[Hiero]

This thread has just taken a noise dive into the bizarre...

Ignore Rosa.

Comment if you have something to say about the posts from the people who want to discuss Lacan.

[Hyacinth]

Ignore Rosa.

Comment if you have something to say about the posts from the people who want to discuss Lacan.
That seems to be the going strategy for those who wish to bury their heads in the sand about absurdity of these theories.

[black magick hustla]

oddly, i was discussing lacanian psychoanalysis with a critical theory prof today. the gist of rosa's argument, that you cant know the "mind" of someone is a really strong argument actually. nobody adresses this though. instead lacan pulls out of his ass a clusterfuck of mental objects that there is no possible way to know about. how the hell does someone know the baby sees itself as the "phallus"?????????'

[spiltteeth]

I really cannot comment further on Rosa's reading since it is not Lacan's or mine, it is a misunderstanding, she will not accept it as a misunderstanding, I cannot make myself clearer, we are at an impasse.

All I can say is that no one is attributing those beliefs to babies. It's a phase that's retroactively constructed by an adult.
As an example, I recall as a small child walking into my parents bedroom and being confused at what I saw. Years later as an adult I recalled that incident - and only then (by retroactively reconstituting the memory with what I know now) understood that they were having sex. Could I say as a young child I saw my parents having sex? At that time that was not my interpretation, I only came upon something I could not explain.

Psychoanalysis is about change, now you can argue vigorously that a neurotics behavior is irrational, but this will not result in any change. Rather we must deal with self-truths.

It's an eternal dilemma, can you know another's mind; perhaps ultimately we can say no, and then cease to communicate altogether and become a character in a Beckett play.

But actually, in psychoanalysis it is most important what the subject experiences, weather it's 'true' or not. Remember the pt who was convinced she was on the moon? After ceaseless questioning a doctor exclaimed, 'poor thing, you think your on the moon' at which Freud exploded "She IS on the moon!" Maps and images from Hubbell will not help this patient, it her subjective experience, however SHE interprets that, that is important.

But dada, like Rosa, you may misunderstand. First, it is about the adults subjective stance on his origin of personhood, which, according to Lacan, can be discovered to be structured, in specifically a patriarchal society, according to the Oedipus complex, hence the ACTUAL experience of the child 1)can never really be known and 2)doesn't matter to therapy, since it is only what the adult pt thinks/retroactively places meaning on those (supposed, since they may have even happened, but are still important to the way a subject constitutes their experiences) infantile experiences.

Even then, the 'phallus' is not an object. It is a signifier in the fantasy realm of a subjects experience. It actually functions on three levels, on the level of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic; but for simplicity sake, we can simply say the phallus is a perceived lack in the mother (or primary caregiver).
Does an infant experience lack? Desire? Some would say that we can never know this, if an infant cries who can truly say its cause is hunger. So there are basic presuppositions.
But there's also a lot of experimental data, which is the point of the Empirically Supported Treatment movement, they have a webpage. For instance , there has been A TON of research on Lacan's contention that self-image begins as a reflection of others’ image of the self and it is well-supported by the research (see The Construction of the Self, 1999 by Susan Harter.) But the actual theory does lack large empirical evidence, indeed empiricism of subjective truths is a fairly problematic request, specific aspects of psychoanalysis – unconscious processes and fantasies – are not as such directly measurable.

However, from a Lacanian perspective, therapy practice should not be understood as deduced from therapy theories (these are rarley able to give sufficient guidance in specific therapy situations), but as based on the character and the individual experiential background of the therapist. Theories may play a role mostly in the sense of enriching the therapist’s background. Psychoanalysis is a form of therapy that places much importance on the therapist’s character and individual therapy experience.
Psychotherapy is a PRAXIS - a specific non-theoretical form of knowledge that is acquired through individual experience and praxis as that kind of action that is based on this special kind of knowledge and is characterized by the absence of instrumental goals.Instead of pursuing specific therapy goals, it is a focus on the process itself as the goal.

Lastly, I will quote the great analyst Roger Perron's opinion, as regards empiricism, which is too radical for my taste, but perhaps will give you a better idea of where psychoanalysis is coming from :

He feels that such scientific criteria (observability of the phenomena on the part of experienced observers, use of quantification procedures, repeatability of observations, possibility of predicting the occurrence of specific events, falsifiability, use of a non-ambiguous terminology) are on the whole are not only difficult to fulfil in the psychoanalytic context and do not always seem fully relevant, but are also essentially incompatible with the psychoanalytic approach, since all the procedures that tried to use them would destroy their real object of enquiry.
Perron’s argument is:
- every scientific approach produces its own facts and organizes them within the territory marked out by its own theories and techniques;
- psychoanalytic facts constructed within the territory delimited by the psychoanalytic theories and techniques do not coincide with historical events and are organized at the level of the individual along the two dimensions of his/her history and his/her structure, a history simultaneously reconstructed during the psychoanalytic process itself;
- in the psychoanalytic approach, and this is what constitutes the peculiarity of psychoanalysis at the epistemological level, the subject and the method of study are identical;
This particular situation of facts and of the psychoanalytic approach gives rise to ambiguities in psychoanalytic terms and concepts: the adoption of a non-ambiguous language and the attempts to operationalize psychoanalytic concepts would deprive psychoanalysis of its multiple meanings, and end up denying and destroying the object of study;
- in the construction of psychoanalytic facts, theory plays a fundamental role;
- this theory, like other theories in the field of biology – and here Perron specifically refers to post-Darwinian evolutionary theories – makes it possible to explain and integrate a wide range of phenomena and, precisely due to its peculiarity, it cannot and must not be subjected to a process of empirical assessment.
According to Perron, therefore, any attempt to subject the data from sessions to the quantitative criteria and methods of the “hard sciences” destroys the real object of the research: in this sense the use of recording techniques to obtain material from which to extract the data is rejected not so much for ethical reasons, as for the fact that it seriously disturbs the transference-countertransference relationship and leads to a fragmentation of the material that no later statistical calculation, however sophisticated, will be able to put back together and return the data to its original unity.
Consequently the usefulness, the relevance and, in the final analysis, the very possibility of using empirical methods is excluded, and it is maintained that a useful increase in knowledge may come not only from traditional historical and conceptual research studies but also from efficacy studies, of which however Perron does not hide the specific problems (definition and measurement of change, operationalization of criteria, choice of judges, etc).

Even so, there are MANY outcome studies done, which I've previously mentioned, proving the efficiency of psychoanalysis, and although this does not matter to Rosa, since I see analysis as Praxis, it is highly relevant, not the least to the suffering mentally ill patients...

[Hyacinth]

Psychoanalysis is about change, now you can argue vigorously that a neurotics behavior is irrational, but this will not result in any change. Rather we must deal with self-truths.
Tell that to the cognitive behavioral therapists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy). Though, to be fair, there are indications that all psychotherapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy) is in quite a sorry state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy#Criticisms_and_questions_regarding_e ffectiveness). Which I suppose is hardly surprising given the relative underdevelopment of psychology as a science.


Lastly, I will quote the great analyst Roger Perron's opinion, as regards empiricism, which is too radical for my taste, but perhaps will give you a better idea of where psychoanalysis is coming from :

He feels that such scientific criteria (observability of the phenomena on the part of experienced observers, use of quantification procedures, repeatability of observations, possibility of predicting the occurrence of specific events, falsifiability, use of a non-ambiguous terminology) are on the whole are not only difficult to fulfil in the psychoanalytic context and do not always seem fully relevant, but are also essentially incompatible with the psychoanalytic approach, since all the procedures that tried to use them would destroy their real object of enquiry.
Perron’s argument is:
- every scientific approach produces its own facts and organizes them within the territory marked out by its own theories and techniques;
- psychoanalytic facts constructed within the territory delimited by the psychoanalytic theories and techniques do not coincide with historical events and are organized at the level of the individual along the two dimensions of his/her history and his/her structure, a history simultaneously reconstructed during the psychoanalytic process itself;
- in the psychoanalytic approach, and this is what constitutes the peculiarity of psychoanalysis at the epistemological level, the subject and the method of study are identical;
This particular situation of facts and of the psychoanalytic approach gives rise to ambiguities in psychoanalytic terms and concepts: the adoption of a non-ambiguous language and the attempts to operationalize psychoanalytic concepts would deprive psychoanalysis of its multiple meanings, and end up denying and destroying the object of study;
- in the construction of psychoanalytic facts, theory plays a fundamental role;
- this theory, like other theories in the field of biology – and here Perron specifically refers to post-Darwinian evolutionary theories – makes it possible to explain and integrate a wide range of phenomena and, precisely due to its peculiarity, it cannot and must not be subjected to a process of empirical assessment.
According to Perron, therefore, any attempt to subject the data from sessions to the quantitative criteria and methods of the “hard sciences” destroys the real object of the research: in this sense the use of recording techniques to obtain material from which to extract the data is rejected not so much for ethical reasons, as for the fact that it seriously disturbs the transference-countertransference relationship and leads to a fragmentation of the material that no later statistical calculation, however sophisticated, will be able to put back together and return the data to its original unity.
Consequently the usefulness, the relevance and, in the final analysis, the very possibility of using empirical methods is excluded, and it is maintained that a useful increase in knowledge may come not only from traditional historical and conceptual research studies but also from efficacy studies, of which however Perron does not hide the specific problems (definition and measurement of change, operationalization of criteria, choice of judges, etc).
So basically Perron is giving up even the pretense that psychoanalysis is scientific. In which case we can rightly commit it to the flames of Hume's bonfire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.


Even so, there are MANY outcome studies done, which I've previously mentioned, proving the efficiency of psychoanalysis, and although this does not matter to Rosa, since I see analysis as Praxis, it is highly relevant, not the least to the suffering mentally ill patients...
Setting aside the alleged efficacy of psychoanalysis—which is in doubt—it's effectiveness or lack thereof is irrelevant to the question of its truth. Patients respond to merely being treated, it is far more likely that the reported improvements from psychoanalytic therapy are a consequence of the placebo effect than that they are a result of this confused theory.

[spiltteeth]

Hyacinth;1549332]Tell that to the cognitive behavioral therapists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy). Though, to be fair, there are indications that all psychotherapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy) is in quite a sorry state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy#Criticisms_and_questions_regarding_e ffectiveness). Which I suppose is hardly surprising given the relative underdevelopment of psychology as a science.

I'll tell them. However CBT is only applicable to certain mental health issues, and many comparative studies have been done against psychoanalysis, with
CBT scoring quite well with some, and analysis better with others, depending on the nature of the problem. Although I've already mentioned a paper on this, they are collected in 'Clinical and Observational Psychoanalytic Research: Roots of a Controversy - Green. And obviously, from my previous post, it should be clear they have 2 different purposes.


So basically Perron is giving up even the pretense that psychoanalysis is scientific. In which case we can rightly commit it to the flames of Hume's bonfire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.


Peron's is a radical opinion. However subjective truths are largely out of the domain of empiricism. This doesn't mean infants or people don't have subjective experiences. I know Einstein would have been trashed, luckily it survived until the data vindicated it, and superstring theory would be trashed by you...Anything non-scientific is trash though? I'll hide my Shakespeare if ever your in charge. Also, I really can't imagine how CBT's evidence meets with your approval and not psychoanalysis, CBT still requires an interpretation by an analyst of a peron's cognition which is ultimately unverifiable...

But to appreciate it better I'll quote part of Edward Rothstein's response to the infamous Grünbaum report I mentioned before, which has to do with Freud, not Lacan, but the same problems apply :

It is not enough to say, for example, that the word "introspection" means, "of course," the "looking into our minds and reporting what we there discover," as William James had it. The nature of the "looking into" is the problem. And, despite James's assurance, not all of us would agree that "we there discover states of consciousness." What is a state of consciousness? Do I really find such a state when I look into my mind? How do we, in fact, look into our minds? I am speaking here not of the simple recognitions of sensation, but of the complexities of mental life which Grünbaum and Freud are intent upon. How do we know anything about our selves? When I say, for example, "I am thinking about" some disturbing problem in my life, how do I know what process is taking place, and what am I doing when I am "thinking"?

The great irony of all this is that I think (and I think Freud would have thought) that Nisbett and Wilson are right in the colloquial sense. We don't have simple introspective access to our mental processes or to mental causation. Freud's entire understanding of the mind is based upon that premise; the unconscious is never known "in-itself." For Freud, mental processes are always inferred, never observed. In his essay "The Unconscious" he writes: "Some special hindrance evidently deflects our investigations from ourselves and interferes with our obtaining true knowledge of ourself." If psychoanalysis is a "call to introspection," it is not a call in the colloquial sense attacked by Nisbett and Wilson and Grünbaum, but in a much more technical sense, founded upon Freud's belief in the mechanical nature of the mind and the power of interpretation to alter the mechanism.

Psychoanalytic "introspection" is a process that is founded first on the suspension of ordinary introspection and then on detached observation. Interpretation of dreams, for example, proceeds by "abandoning all these purposive ideas which normally govern our reflection" and then "taking note of whatever involuntary thoughts may occur to us in connection" with a part of the dream. The chain of associations, mechanically produced, is then reflected upon. But the reflection takes place not in some amorphous introspective realm, but with a concrete text of associations. The procedure for interpretation of dreams is a model for all psychoanalytic interpretation. And psychoanalytic "introspection," in the key sense of the term, is nothing other than this process—one which is only partly dependent upon "looking into oneself" in the colloquial sense. Again in "The Unconscious," Freud writes: "All the acts and manifestations which I notice in myself and do not know how to link up with the rest of my mental life must be judged as if they belonged to someone else."

his view is based upon a theory of mind which is far more sophisticated than is usually thought. In infancy, according to Freud, consciousness could receive excitations from perception of the outside world or from excitations of pleasure or unpleasure. But the "bitter experience of life" and the needs of infantile desire ultimately led to the development of another internal system in which mental processes are detached from simple experience of pleasure or unpleasure. These "secondary processes" are processes of thinking, in which ideas are connected without being distracted by intensities of excitation; new relations are established to free the individual from the simple rule of desire and hallucination. In the seventh chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams Freud argues that the "belated" appearance of such secondary processes is responsible for the fact that the "core of our being" remains inaccessible to us. He also argues that even thinking processes only reach consciousness (i.e., become perceptions) when linked to language. Language provides the surface through which we experience ourselves. As he wrote two decades later in The Ego and the Id, "The part played by word-presentations now becomes perfectly clear; by their interposition internal thought-processes are made into perceptions."

These views would take more space to examine. But in Freud's system, introspection brings our mental lives to consciousness through language. When we think about something, we either think in language, or we are unaware of our thoughts. Bringing mental activity into the realm of language, making articulate the inarticulate, is part of the activity of introspection.

The expansion of the interior dominion of language is related to the expansion of the domain of the ego; the non-verbal "wish" is "socialized," so to speak, brought into the realm of public articulation. We may indeed be converted to a theory, as Grünbaum would have it, because our understanding of ourselves is shaped by our language and the theories embedded in it. Psychoanalytic interpretation takes place in that public realm; it occurs in dialogue not dream; it is confirmed in the scrutiny of speech. As the inarticulate is brought into speech (through suspension of conscious interference) it is interpreted—connections are observed, repetitions outlined, causality inferred. The realm of "introspection" is curiously objective. Psychoanalysis does not take place simply through "looking into our minds and reporting what we there discover."

The psychoanalytic "self" is, then, no more accessible to direct experience than interior mental life is for Grünbaum and Nisbett and Wilson. But the differences are significant. For Grünbaum the "self" would seem to be a "theoretically inferred entity" that is simply inaccessible; its shape is imposed from without and is then "sensed" within—supposedly through introspection. All the complexities of our mental life—our beliefs, our understandings about our consciousness or our actions—have little epistemological value. A "self" would be a construct as based upon the beliefs of the "pertinent intellectual subculture" as Grünbaum believes patient reports are, and Nisbett and Wilson believe our reports about our interpretations of our more common processes are. And the entire procedure of psychoanalysis (the "call to introspection") would be a sham.

he psychoanalytic "self," however, grants a privileged epistemological status to "introspection." A self is still a theoretically inferred structure, but it speaks. The rhetorical structures of the mind give voice to an idiomatic language, shaped from within, rather than from without. The individual's language gives a translated vision of the unarticulated realm lying at the base of experience.

The question of whether a given "interpretation" of that speech has any sort of epistemological superiority to another is, of course, the most difficult one. Is the psychoanalytic interpretation "true" or verifiable? Is it, to a certain extent, a "conversion" in the way it shapes the articulation of the pre-linguistic activities of the mind? The result of tutored introspection may not have the sort of singular claim to truth that Freud and some of his followers make for it. But the origins and nature of interior mental forces may well be revealed, as psychoanalytic theory claims, through interpretation of their expressions in language and behavior. Whether adequate standards for assessing such interpretations can be developed by the scientific and psychoanalytic community at large remains, however, an open question; we cannot infer that no such standards can be derived from reflection on clinical practice.

The nature of psychoanalytic interpretation, then, which I tried to touch or in my essay, requires more examination. How is an account of one's past interpreted? How indeed is any text interpreted and what status do such interpretations have? Somehow, psychoanalysis claims, such interpretations have concrete effects on illness. A cure is a transformation worked upon the mind through speech, exercising its power like some ancient magical incantation.

But Freud clearly believed that the meanings of language and the forces pressing on the mind from within are intricately linked, as Paul Ricoeur has pointed out. The eruption of laughter after a good joke, which so intrigued Freud, may be similar to the catharsis of psychoanalytic cure. I still end where Grünbaum begins. But one way to approach the question of the confirmation of interpretations is through Freud's philosophy of language. When does language speak truth? Wittgenstein and Freud had more in common than their presence in fin-de-siècle Vienna.



Setting aside the alleged efficacy of psychoanalysis—which is in doubt—it's effectiveness or lack thereof is irrelevant to the question of its truth. Patients respond to merely being treated, it is far more likely that the reported improvements from psychoanalytic therapy are a consequence of the placebo effect than that they are a result of this confused theory.

As I say, it is more of a praxis, in my opinion, and what makes you say that about the placebo effect? Is this a scientific proposition, or blind ignorance?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


Ignore Rosa

Chickened out again, I see.

Or, are you one of those who thinks we can attribite to babies beliefs they cannot possibly hold and are ashamed to admit it -- or, indeed, one of those who denies this when found out (like Spiltteeth)?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dada:


the gist of rosa's argument, that you cant know the "mind" of someone is a really strong argument actually.

This is not my argument at all; I can't think what it is that led you to this conclusion.

In fact, we can often tell what another is thinking and feeling -- as Wittgenstein himself noted.

What I am saying is that it is absurd to attribute certain beliefs to babies they cannot possibly hold. Nothing there about 'minds', or even our knowledge of them.

----------------------------

Right, I am away for a few days -- I'll comment on Spiltteeth's post when I get back.

[Hyacinth]

Peron's is a radical opinion. However subjective truths are largely out of the domain of empiricism. This doesn't mean infants or people don't have subjective experiences. I know Einstein would have been trashed, luckily it survived until the data vindicated it, and superstring theory would be trashed by you...Anything non-scientific is trash though? I'll hide my Shakespeare if ever your in charge.
I'm not clear as to what exactly 'subjective truths' are suppose to be, but if they are truths about a subject (e.g., me) then I fail to see how they are beyond the domain of the empirical.

As for the Hume reference, the full quote is: "If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." Despite your continued assertion scientific theories the likes of general relativity, and, in this instance, even string theory, do not fail these criteria. Nor, for that matter, do the works of Shakespeare, as the latter do not pretend to be theories about the world. What is to be trashed are a priori speculations about the world; theories which not only outright ignore empirical results, but, to use your expression, are beyond the domain of the empirical while still claiming to be about the world.


Also, I really can't imagine how CBT's evidence meets with your approval and not psychoanalysis, CBT still requires an interpretation by an analyst of a peron's cognition which is ultimately unverifiable...
Nowhere did I say that it met with my approval—I am, on a whole, quite suspicious of much of psychology for numerous reasons—I merely cited it as a counterexample to your claim that demonstration of the irrationality of a neurosis cannot be therapeutically efficacious.

[spiltteeth]

By subjective truth i mean for instance, the belief that my parents never really loved me. Although in analysis its never what the patient says, but how he says it.
I believe analysis not as a theory but as praxis has been validated by numerous studies as to its efficiency. But, what's interesting about Edward Rothstein's quote above is his appeal to linguistics as a possible means of vindicating analysis. In fact, Lacan basis nearly all his theory on linguistics, indeed, if one were to some up Lacan's insight, you could say that it is "the unconscious is structured like a language." And from this basic insight, he goes on to build up his theory.
As to Rosa, I already said what I meant, and that her interpretation is incorrect. However, if s/he would like to interpret it even as an undying declaration of my affection, I cannot stop her/him any less.

[Hiero]

I am not so interested in the clinical applicatios of pyschoanalysis, like spiltteeth.

However I like pyschoanalysis due to it's anti-empicircism. Coming from a cultural anthropology major, I have come to see things such as human culture can not be quantified.

How can you empirically understand the relationship between two people, or the way someone walks down a street. The human world is outside the realm of empiricism. Ethnography can be used as a tool to submerged into a culture and into another's human world (symbolic order etc), and from there try to find hidden structures or meanings behing cultural practicies and relationships between people/kin.

Pysychoanalysis gives new field of puting the ethnography into a theory, or usesd in conjunction with the enthography.

What I get from people's arguements is that, if it can't be counted it probably doesn't exist.

What I like about Lacan is his reliance on linguistics, much the same as Levi-Strauss. Linguistics here doesn't seem to come under the same attack as pschoanalysis. We can see how people only know vocabulary, but are never conscious of the structure. People don't need to know that they are the subject of the sentance, or even know that spoken lanuage is a collection of phonemes. Them not knowing this does not mean we doubt they don't exist.

When we apply that from culture, for some reason the empiricists attack this. I don't find the point of pyschoanalysis to be to explain the "hidden mind" or try to tell people what they are thinking. I mean these ideas about the phalus people are criticise, seems to me to miss the whole point of the phalus as sign, as people as signs which we learn in infancy to asscend to the symbolic.


That seems to be the going strategy for those who wish to bury their heads in the sand about absurdity of these theories.

There is not point, I want to discuss Lacan.

Now since we have started, we have barely talked about "unconcious is structure like a language", Symbolic, Real and Imaginary and mirror phase.

If I want to discuss Lacan I will discuss these things, if I want to argue against Rosa's hiearchy of accpeted scientific theories I would do so in the mulitple dialectics threads.

I want to dicuss Lacan in Lacanian turns not deal with everybody's indivudal abstraction of how crazy Lacan is. If there is no meduim of debate and argeument, there really is no point.

[spiltteeth]

Yea, thats interesting Hiero, basically Freud identifies two mechanisms at work in the formation of unconscious fantasies: condensation (where on symbol stands for several things, like a dream of a cop could condense all the authority figures in yr life -yr dad, boss etc) and displacement (one symbol for another - a candle for a penis). Under Lacan's linguistic reading, condensation is identified with the linguistic trope of metaphor, and displacement with metonymy.
Metaphor : Condensation
Metonymy : Substitution : Displacement
As regards the oedipus complex, Lacan uses this idea of “signifying substitution” to deduce that the paternal function is a symbolic one whose role is to “represent, embody, and name something about the mother’s desire and her sexual difference: to metaphorize it” This representation of the mother’s desire allows the child entry into the symbolic order while the repression which happens at this time due to the castration complex helps form the unconscious. Lacan divides the Oedipus complex into three "times".
In the first time, the child perceives that the mother desires something beyond the child himself - namely, the imaginary phallus -- and then tries to be the phallus for the mother
In the second time, the imaginary father intervenes to deprive the mother of her object by promulgating the incest taboo; properly speaking, this is not castration but privation.
Castration is only realized in the third and final time, which represents the "dissolution" of the Oedipus complex when the child is forced to abandon his attempts to be the phallus and so renounces being the object of the mother's desire, but claims an independent desire, and so is born into language/the symbolic to express this desire.
The subject must renounce his attempts to be the phallus for the mother.
So castration doesn't refer to an "operation" -- the result of an intervention by the imaginary or realfather -- but to a state of lack which already exists in the mother prior to the subject's birth. This lack is evident in her own desire, which thesubject perceives as a desire for the imaginary phallus.
In other words the subject realises at a very early stage that the mother is not complete and self-sufficient in herself, nor fully satisfied with her child (the subject himself), but desires something else. This is the subject's first perception that the (M)Other is not complete but lacking.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I really cannot comment further on Rosa's reading since it is not Lacan's or mine, it is a misunderstanding, she will not accept it as a misunderstanding, I cannot make myself clearer, we are at an impasse.

Once more, and for the tenth time, what else is anyone doing other than attributing to babies, even 'retrospectively', beliefs that they cannot possibly hold, when they say things like the following?


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

If babies, per impossible, could hold these beliefs, then the above might be something worth considering -- but if they do not, indeed cannot, then the above is plainly ridiculous.

So, since they cannot, the conclusion is, alas, inescapable.

But, you say this:


All I can say is that no one is attributing those beliefs to babies. It's a phase that's retroactively constructed by an adult. As an example, I recall as a small child walking into my parents bedroom and being confused at what I saw. Years later as an adult I recalled that incident - and only then (by retroactively reconstituting the memory with what I know now) understood that they were having sex. Could I say as a young child I saw my parents having sex? At that time that was not my interpretation, I only came upon something I could not explain.

Sure, you can retrospectively say that as a child you saw your parents doing what you now say, but you are attributing to a baby (not a child) a knowledge of sexual anatomy, and more, knowledge of a word that probably only experts know -- indeed, that the:


the baby sees itself as 'the phallus'

A confused adult might do this, but not a baby.


Even so, there are MANY outcome studies done, which I've previously mentioned, proving the efficiency of psychoanalysis, and although this does not matter to Rosa, since I see analysis as Praxis, it is highly relevant, not the least to the suffering mentally ill patients...

Evidence does matter, but it isn't decisive, and for the reasons I indicated in an earlier post. What matters too is whether the theory being tested is plausible, and it just isn't plausible to attribute to a baby -- even if this is done 'retrospectively' -- a belief it cannot possibly have -- 'signifiers' or not.

[scarletghoul]

IMO the problem with Lacan is that he failed to grasp the dialectic.

[spiltteeth]

Rosa Lichtenstein;1550483]Spiltteeth:



Once more, and for the tenth time, what else is anyone doing other than attributing to babies, even 'retrospectively', beliefs that they cannot possibly hold, when they say things like the following?



If babies, per impossible, could hold these beliefs, then the above might be something worth considering -- but if they do not, indeed cannot, then the above is plainly ridiculous.

So, since they cannot, the conclusion is, alas, inescapable.

No ones saying that. You misinterpret the passage. I've exhausted my talent to make it clearer, perhaps the above post to Hiero will enlighten.


But, you say this:



Sure, you can retrospectively say that as a child you saw your parents doing what you now say, but you are attributing to a baby (not a child) a knowledge of sexual anatomy, and more, knowledge of a word that probably only experts know -- indeed, that the:



A confused adult might do this, but not a baby.

Sexual anatomy? What on earth are you talking about?! You really are confused!


Evidence does matter, but it isn't decisive, and for the reasons I indicated in an earlier post. What matters too is whether the theory being tested is plausible, and it just isn't plausible to attribute to a baby -- even if this is done 'retrospectively' -- a belief it cannot possibly have -- 'signifiers' or not.

Thats true, but were discussing Lacan, not an imaginary theory inside your amazing head. See numerous posts above.
In fact, I'll be a gentleman and explain Lacan's Oedipus complex all over, to show I'm fair.

In the first 'time' of the Oedipus complex, the child slowly comes to realize that it is not identical to, or the sole object of, the mother's desire, as her desire is directed elsewhere. He or she will therefore attempt to satisfy her desire by becoming the object of her desire. The dyadic relationship between the mother and child is thus turned into a triangular relationship between the child, the mother and the object of her desire. Lacan calls this third term the imaginary phallus. The imaginary phallus is what the child assumes someone must have in order for them to be the object of the mother's desire and, as her desire is usually directed towards the father, it is assumed that he possesses the phallus. Through trying to satisfy the mother's desire, the child identifies with the object that it presumes she has lost and attempts to become that object for her.
The second time of the Oedipus complex is characterized by the intervention of the imaginary father. The father (or name-of-the-father since remember it need not be an actual father but whatever provides this function) imposes the law on themother's desire by denying her access to the phallic object and forbidding the subject access to the mother. Lacan often refers to this intervention as the "castration" of the mother, even though he states that, properly speaking, the operation is not one of castration but of privation.
The third 'time' of the Oedipus complex is marked by the intervention of the Real (name-of-the-)father 'who' neither exchanges the phallus nor gives it, the real father castrates the child, in the sense of making it impossible for the child to persist in trying to be the phallus for the mother.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Scarletghoul:


IMO the problem with Lacan is that he failed to grasp the dialectic.

If so, he was in good company, since no one has been able to grasp it -- or if they did, they have managed to keep it a well hidden secret.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


No ones saying that. You misinterpret the passage. I've exhausted my talent to make it clearer, perhaps the above post to Hiero will enlighten.

In fact, it made things worse since it did not clear up the absurdity of attributing to babies -- even 'retrospectively' -- beliefs they cannot possibly hold.


Sexual anatomy? What on earth are you talking about?! You really are confused!

So, I take it from this that you do not think that a 'phallus' is part of male sexual anatomy, eh?

If so, either you do not have one, or you think no other male does.

And I am the one who is supposed to be 'confused'. I could take lessons from you.


Thats true, but were discussing Lacan, not an imaginary theory inside your amazing head. See numerous posts above.

Well, I'm going on what you have said about his 'theory':


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Which, incredibly, implies that babies have certain beliefs they cannot possibly have.

Of course, if you want to withdraw these absurd claims, be my guest.


In fact, I'll be a gentleman and explain Lacan's Oedipus complex all over, to show I'm fair.

In the first 'time' of the Oedipus complex, the child slowly comes to realize that it is not identical to, or the sole object of, the mother's desire, as her desire is directed elsewhere. He or she will therefore attempt to satisfy her desire by becoming the object of her desire. The dyadic relationship between the mother and child is thus turned into a triangular relationship between the child, the mother and the object of her desire. Lacan calls this third term the imaginary phallus. The imaginary phallus is what the child assumes someone must have in order for them to be the object of the mother's desire and, as her desire is usually directed towards the father, it is assumed that he possesses the phallus. Through trying to satisfy the mother's desire, the child identifies with the object that it presumes she has lost and attempts to become that object for her.
The second time of the Oedipus complex is characterized by the intervention of the imaginary father. The father (or name-of-the-father since remember it need not be an actual father but whatever provides this function) imposes the law on the mother's desire by denying her access to the phallic object and forbidding the subject access to the mother. Lacan often refers to this intervention as the "castration" of the mother, even though he states that, properly speaking, the operation is not one of castration but of privation.
The third 'time' of the Oedipus complex is marked by the intervention of the Real (name-of-the-)father 'who' neither exchanges the phallus nor gives it, the real father castrates the child, in the sense of making it impossible for the child to persist in trying to be the phallus for the mother.

Well, this is like trying to explain one section of Alice in Wonderland by means of passages from an Edward Lear novel.

If you want to believe ridiculous stuff like this, I think it's you who needs therapy.

[spiltteeth]

IMO the problem with Lacan is that he failed to grasp the dialectic.

Lacan's all about the dialectic!

In fact he compares the first stage of psychoanalytic treatment, when the analyst forces the analysand to confront the contradictions and gaps in his narrative, to how Socrates proceeds to draw out the truth from the confused statements of his opponent, likewise the analyst proceeds to draw out the truth from the analysand's free associations.
Thus Lacan argues that psychoanalysis is a dialectical experience since the analyst must engage the analysand in 'a dialectical operation."
It is only by means of an 'endless' dialectical process that the analyst can subvert the ego's disabling illusions of permanence and stability.
I'm really not sure how Hegel would see it, but following Kojève Lacan puts great emphasis on the particular stage of the dialectic in which the master confronts the slave, and on the way that desire is constituted dialectically by a relationship with the desire of the Other.
I'm no expert on Hegel, but for Lacan, there is no such thing as a final synthesis such as is represented by Hegel's concept of absolute knowledge; the irreducibility of the unconscious represents the impossibility of any such absolute knowledge.
For Lacan, "the Aufhebung is one of those sweet dreams of philosophy."
I've read that this denial of a final synthesis subverts the very concept of progress itself.
So Lacan contrasts his own version of the Aufhebung with that of Hegel, arguing that it repalces Hegel's idea of progress with"the avatars of a lack."
Again, I'm no expert on this part, but I know Lacan absolutely mistrusted ALL metaphysics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Lacan's all about the dialectic!

Which helps explain all that a priori dogmatics, and, indeed, the hopeless confusion he descends into.

[spiltteeth]

=Rosa Lichtenstein;1550600]Spiltteeth:



In fact, it made things worse since it did not clear up the absurdity of attributing to babies -- even 'retrospectively' -- beliefs they cannot possibly hold.



So, I take it from this that you do not think that a 'phallus' is part of male sexual anatomy, eh?

If so, either you do not have one, or you think no other male does.

Uh no. Hence in three of my previous posts I said you may misunderstand, the phallus, for Lacan, is, simplified, a perceived lack in the mother (or primary caregiver)
This kinda proves you haven't been reading my posts....





And I am the one who is supposed to be 'confused'. I could take lessons from you.

OK...


Well, I'm going on what you have said about his 'theory':

I've explained several times what I said. You misunderstand.


Which, incredibly, implies that babies have certain beliefs they cannot possibly have.

Of course, if you want to withdraw these absurd claims, be my guest.

Well, I've asked you what 'beliefs' you think this implies. Silence on yr end. Plus I've exhausted my professorial skills trying to explain how this does not in fact imply any beliefs, but if you're confusing the phallus with the penis or sexual difference your way lost.
It's odd you quite obviously do not understand the basics of Lacan, but disagree with him. What you disagree with is a fictitious theory you yourself have concocted.



Well, this is like trying to explain one section of Alice in Wonderland by means of passages from an Edward Lear novel.

If you want to believe ridiculous stuff like this, I think it's you who needs therapy.

Ah, now this IS interesting! What is interesting from an analytic perspective, is the pathologization of both Lacan and his readers; in other words, the assertion that both Lacan readers of Lacan are mentally ill in some way if we pretend (for, of course, there is no sense to be made of it) to understand what we are talking about. We are like mental patients locked in an asylum, inflicting our paranoid delusions on others. As arhetorical (persuasive) strategy this is very effective because it pre-supposes that you have a firm grip on reality and everything that you say or do is rational, logical and evidence-based.It effectively places you in a position of superiority to that of the sadly deluded individuals who read Lacan. psychoanalysis has consistently been attacked as having no firm basis in reality and therefore for being unverifiable. Such attacksalso generally assert that the lives of the analysts can be used to discredittheir theories. Second, it is precisely the assumptions underlying your comments that are questioned by psychoanalysis: the assumption that our theories and views of the world are detached from our position as subjects withinit. In other words, psychoanalysis questions the fact that we are purely rational objective beings and that our actions are alllogically and rationally driven. Psychoanalysis is not concerned with what is logical, what is rational and what is conscious; on the contrary,it is concerned with what is illogical, irrational and unconscious.Psychoanalysis looks at those aspects of thinking and behaviour forwhich we cannot rationally or consciously account.

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



Which helps explain all that a priori dogmatics, and, indeed, the hopeless confusion he descends into.

His dialectics have little to do with 'change' or 'synthesis', or Hegel. But I'm sure you understand Lacanian dialectics well enough to make an unbiased comment on it...your too honest to comment otherwise....

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Uh no. Hence in three of my previous posts I said you may misunderstand, the phallus, for Lacan, is, simplified, a perceived lack in the mother (or primary caregiver)

Then why call it 'the phallus'? And why attribute a baby with such complex, and implausible, beliefs?


I've explained several times what I said. You misunderstand.

And, as I have said several times, what is there to 'understand' about attributing to babies beliefs thay cannot possibly hold?


Well, I've asked you what 'beliefs' you think this implies. Silence on yr end. Plus I've exhausted my professorial skills trying to explain how this does not in fact imply any beliefs, but if you're confusing the phallus with the penis or sexual difference your way lost.
It's odd you quite obviously do not understand the basics of Lacan, but disagree with him. What you disagree with is a fictitious theory you yourself have concocted.

Once more, then why use this misleading term? And why say this:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

Which most definitely attributes to a baby beliefs it cannot possibly hold, whatever 'the phallus' means.


Ah, now this IS interesting! What is interesting from an analytic perspective, is the pathologization of both Lacan and his readers; in other words, the assertion that both Lacan readers of Lacan are mentally ill in some way if we pretend (for, of course, there is no sense to be made of it) to understand what we are talking about. We are like mental patients locked in an asylum, inflicting our paranoid delusions on others. As arhetorical (persuasive) strategy this is very effective because it pre-supposes that you have a firm grip on reality and everything that you say or do is rational, logical and evidence-based.It effectively places you in a position of superiority to that of the sadly deluded individuals who read Lacan. psychoanalysis has consistently been attacked as having no firm basis in reality and therefore for being unverifiable. Such attacksalso generally assert that the lives of the analysts can be used to discredittheir theories. Second, it is precisely the assumptions underlying your comments that are questioned by psychoanalysis: the assumption that our theories and views of the world are detached from our position as subjects withinit. In other words, psychoanalysis questions the fact that we are purely rational objective beings and that our actions are alllogically and rationally driven. Psychoanalysis is not concerned with what is logical, what is rational and what is conscious; on the contrary,it is concerned with what is illogical, irrational and unconscious.Psychoanalysis looks at those aspects of thinking and behaviour forwhich we cannot rationally or consciously account.

I'm afraid, this just reads as 'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah' to me.

[spiltteeth]

Rosa Lichtenstein;1550686]Spiltteeth:



Then why call it 'the phallus'? And why attribute a baby with such complex, and implausible, beliefs?


I'll just keep asking. What beliefs? In other words, you mention beliefs? What beliefs. OR As concerns your post about babies having beliefs - which beliefs might these be?


And, as I have said several times, what is there to 'understand' about attributing to babies beliefs thay cannot possibly hold?

As I keep saying, you are the only one, that I've met, who thinks Lacan attributes beliefs to babies. What beliefs might these be? Your secret apparently.
If you'd like, we can start another thread - What Rosa thinks Lacan means as regards to secret beliefs that Roa thinks Lacan attributes to babies.
The thing to understand : Lacan does not attribute beliefs to babies.


Once more, then why use this misleading term? And why say this:

I've answered this several different ways.


Which most definitely attributes to a baby beliefs it cannot possibly hold, whatever 'the phallus' means.

Oh. Thats nice. What beliefs?



I'm afraid, this just reads as 'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah' to me.

What!? Your saying....you don't understand? Hey, thats what I've been saying!
So, since you do not understand Lacan, you cannot disagree with him, correct?

[spiltteeth]

I'm afraid, this just reads as 'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah' to me.

Actually, this is possibly your most coherent response.
This must be how all my responses have been read by you.
I've completely re-explained the oedipus complex for you, I think it was pretty nice of me, but yr not interested in learning. You don't care.
After all this time trying to patiently explain some very basic concepts and this is yr response? Intellectually you are a revolting person. I'm thoroughly disgusted.
You've wasted enough of my time. Have a good night.

[spiltteeth]

I feel it would be remiss if I didn't include this pic as a learning aide.
I drew it for the celebration of the publication for the magizine Lacanian Ink 33 at the Jack Tilton Gallery, Zizek flew in and Josefina Ayerza hosted and I was invited and cheese was served.
It's a depiction of the mirror and oedipus phase, as the subject is born into the subjective realm of language.
It's a bad photo of the piece but,
Every image can be read in 2 sets of 3 ways, 1) As political, philosophical, and Idealist
AND 2) an artistic interpretation of the Lacanian concepts of the Real, Symbolic, Imaginary.
So, for instance, the blackened breast of the mother in the upper left corner can be seen as representing the bad mother, a cage of sexual desire, an illusion to Kierkagaard's Fear and Trembling and so our relationship with the Big Other, and so on


http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae191/spiltteeth/ziz.jpg
http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae191/spiltteeth/ziz2.jpg

I have a website I haven't updated for a few years with other old artwork :
insectdesires.com

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spilteeth:


I'll just keep asking. What beliefs? In other words, you mention beliefs? What beliefs. OR As concerns your post about babies having beliefs - which beliefs might these be?

In fact, you answer this yourself, so point that finger the other way:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


As I keep saying, you are the only one, that I've met, who thinks Lacan attributes beliefs to babies. What beliefs might these be? Your secret apparently.

In fact, there are two of us, you and me -- here's the proof:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


If you'd like, we can start another thread - What Rosa thinks Lacan means as regards to secret beliefs that Roa thinks Lacan attributes to babies.

No need to; we already have this from you:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


The thing to understand : Lacan does not attribute beliefs to babies.

Fine, then withdraw this:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


I've answered this several different ways.

And yet not one of them explained how babies can have beliefs they cannot possibly hold.


What beliefs?

These:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


Your saying....you don't understand? Hey, thats what I've been saying!
So, since you do not understand Lacan, you cannot disagree with him, correct?

Actually, this is possibly your most coherent response.
This must be how all my responses have been read by you.
I've completely re-explained the oedipus complex for you, I think it was pretty nice of me, but yr not interested in learning. You don't care.
After all this time trying to patiently explain some very basic concepts and this is yr response? Intellectually you are a revolting person. I'm thoroughly disgusted.
You've wasted enough of my time. Have a good night.

It's not easy to understand gobbledygook.

I follow Chomsky here:


I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions --- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.

As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).

The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.

The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.
Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.

These are very easy requests to fulfill, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.

To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.

The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges --- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.

It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.
Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.

He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion --- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.

So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.

Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible --- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.

For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.

Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.

Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.

What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know --- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.

Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any pretense that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."

To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty unininteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.

Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.

Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.

It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.

A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behavior of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, skeptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.
End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I feel it would be remiss if I didn't include this pic as a learning aide.
I drew it for the celebration of the publication for the magizine Lacanian Ink 33 at the Jack Tilton Gallery, Zizek flew in and Josefina Ayerza hosted and I was invited and cheese was served.
It's a depiction of the mirror and oedipus phase, as the subject is born into the subjective realm of language.
It's a bad photo of the piece but,
Every image can be read in 2 sets of 3 ways, 1) As political, philosophical, and Idealist
AND 2) an artistic interpretation of the Lacanian concepts of the Real, Symbolic, Imaginary.
So, for instance, the blackened breast of the mother in the upper left corner can be seen as representing the bad mother, a cage of sexual desire, an illusion to Kierkagaard's Fear and Trembling and so our relationship with the Big Other, and so on

Thanks, but this was yet mere gobbledygook, and the picture was not much better.

[spiltteeth]

gobbeldygook. Powerful argument. I'm guessing much of yr time is spent around small children. Whats the proper response? - no, yr gobblydgook.
So if you can't understand it a)it's gobbledegook which is surly not an empty term but means you can dismiss it, and others 'ought' to as well or 2) The people who do claim to understand it are insane, but you can never know this because this proposition transforms into the words ''Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah.' Do sentences often transform before your eyes? And is it often that the psychologists words become 'gobbledegook'?

This may be hard for you to believe rosa, but the pic was not meant for you.

Since you unable to understand Lacanian analysis, I'll address this to the Others, However,the Wittgensteinian point to make is that just because
Chomsky thinks he doesn’t follow any ideological rules, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t.

This is from Henrik Bjerre, whose simply queer for ol' Witti:

"According to the Lacanian definition of subjectivity, the subject of the enunciated is the subject that is articulated in language. The subject of enunciation, on the other hand, is the subject that speaks, thinks,
occupies the position from which something is enunciated. When Chomsky for instance says that “There is a kind of a margin for survival in the Third World that relates to the degree of American dissidence” (Chomsky 2003: 12), the enunciated is what he says in this statement. Chomsky as the
subject of the enunciated is the one that is in as far as he says this. In a specific sense he is the enunciated, much as when Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus (5.542) that “A says p” has the same form as “’p’ says p”. What there is, the fact, is that “p” is said. The position of the enunciation, on the other hand, relates to how, where, and when he said it, what he was part of in saying it (in this case a discussion among American academics in Massachusetts, 1989). The subject of enunciation thinks, speaks, takes position, whereas the subject of the enunciated is (that which is said). The structure between these two subjects is mirrored quite closely in the Tractatus, 5.631:

There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas.
If I wrote a book called The World as I found it, I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a
method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book.–
(My accentuation (bold).) And (a page) later, in 5.641:

The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the
human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world – not a part of it.

In an important sense, there is no subject. It is the limit, not a part of the world. In Wittgenstein, there is no res cogitans in the Cartesian sense, but nevertheless a “philosophical self”, which is not the human
being, but the limit of the world (my world). Wittgenstein, like Jacques Lacan, is anti-humanist. The inner worldly subject that I am is not the philosophical subject (which thinks). Descartes’ mistake wasto equate these two subjects with each other: I think, therefore I am. Or: I think, therefore the subject of enunciation and the subject of the enunciated are one and the same. They are both in the world. A Wittgensteinian version would sound something like: it (the philosophical subject) thinks, therefore I
am. “There is no such thing as the subject that thinks” – it has no being. There are only manifestations in the world, such as the empirical or psychological “I”, but, as he says in 5.633: “Where in the world is
a metaphysical subject to be found?” Lacan explicitly draws on Descartes himself to illustrate the distinction. In a number of varieties, he distinguishes between the subject of enunciation and the subject of the enunciated exactly as that which thinks, and that which is, e.g.: "I think therefore I am (not)" or “I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think” (Evans 1996: 26). What I am is what is spoken, enunciated. But that which is spoken is not the subject that speaks. You don’t see the
eye (I). (“Eye” in English, of course, is homophone with “I”, which gives a wonderful point that doesn’t appear immediately in the German version of 5.633: “Aber das Auge siehst du wirklich nicht”.) The minimal difference between these two aspects of subjectivity is the basis of psychoanalysis, or
more precisely: the subject of enunciation is the subject of the unconscious. This subject is not a being, not some soul or spiritual kernel of subjectivity, but rather the position itself, which the “empirical” subject is not aware of. Or as Bruce Fink puts it: “The unconscious has no being – it is where I am not – but it does plenty of thinking.” (Fink 2004: 102-3). Note that when Wittgenstein mentions the “human soul” as the subject of psychology; he does neither refer to, nor anticipate the psychoanalytic subject, but the subject of empirical psychology. And remember also that Wittgenstein praised Freud for inventing a new way of speaking by way of the unconscious, not for discovering a new metaphysical dimension.
How can Descartes, then, be regarded as the first to define the features of the ideological phantasm? First of all, as already mentioned, he claimed the inexistence of the difference between the subject of the enunciated (I am) and the subject of enunciation (I think). In other words, the doubt, the distance of the subject from itself, was annihilated in the cogito ergo sum. The ability to think/doubt was that which drew the individual from the armchair to the pure, logical cogito. What cannot be doubted is that
something doubts. Descartes, however, jumped to conclusions when he stated that that which doubts is the same as that which was sitting in the armchair. That cogito ergo sum. This annihilation of inner
difference then, in turn, establishes a neutral basis for the apprehension of the world. The secondcharacteristic of the Cartesian phantasm is the necessity of unconditional trust in the benevolent God.
While the cogito ergo sum defines a neutral basis as a thinking substance in the world, the other things in the world must also be possible to describe as they appear, in order for the subject to “get back into the world” from the exile of radical doubt, i.e. in order for the whole Cartesian machinery of scientific descriptions and explanations to get up and running. This re-entrance is provided by God. He cannot want to deceive me, since he is infinitely good, and thus the basic coordinates and features of the world
of appearance must be trustable. The res cogitans becomes an nproblematic thing among other unproblematic things. The first is possible because of the equation of the “I think” with the “I am”, the second because God guarantees that the other things present themselves in agreement with their essence (as well). Here we have, in other words, the two features that also define ideology: My position of enunciation is unproblematic, neutral or unbiased (there is no split between the subject of the enunciated and the subject of enunciation), and the facts of the world can be represented straight
forwardly as they appear to me because of some fundamental trust that things are as they present themselves. I am stable and unbiased, and the symbolic order is stable as well. While, in psychoanalysis, God tends to play a less predominant role than he did in the 17th century, the figure of
the Father is still taking his place. Remember Žižek’s interpretation of how Freud’s daughter first came to enjoy eating strawberry cake: Her appetite for strawberry cake was mediated by the comfortablefeeling of sitting at the table eating, while her parents were sitting nearby, obviously happy to see their child so fond of the strawberry cake they gave her. That strawberry cakes are available, tasty and good for you, is guaranteed by the Father/the parents. Their approval makes it valid. It is because of this fundamental trust that we are able to know right from wrong, or indeed follow rules. Because of our trust that someone knows (really knows) on our behalf how and why things are, we trust that things can and must be seen and done in this way. The fantasy is the transcendental schematism, as Slavoj Žižek
puts it: “Fantasy does not mean that when I desire a strawberry cake and cannot get it in reality, I fantasize about eating it; the problem is, rather: how do I know that I desire strawberry cake in the first place?” (Žižek 1997: 7). Put in another way: the fantasy is a necessary condition for being able to
follow any rule at all. For the child there is as a matter of fact a guarantor: someone who is supposed to know how the world is structured and why (the figure of the father or parent). Although there is a possible coming-to-awareness of the origins of ne’s desires and ideas, there is no neutral stance
outside fantasy as such, from which one can take things for what they really are. On the contrary: Tothe extent that we are unaware of or denying the fantasmatic foundation of knowledge, i.e. to the extent that we claim to take a position outside fantasy as such, we are exactly following the earliest and most basic fantasmatic structures. You could even say that the purpose of therapy is to gain a past: to remember that I came to enjoy strawberry cakes because I loved the feeling of my parents’ gaze on me,
when eating them. After going through this fantasy, I might establish a new present – that could even include a more autonomous appreciation of strawberry cakes. But the new present would not be a
present in a vacuum: Any world view needs some basic fantasy to be at all possible, at the very least the “as if”, which Kant introduces as the replacement of the Ding-an-sich: We must experience the world according to principles that guide us “as if” it were a rational, coherent and meaningful whole. Were we to insist on a re-entrance without any fantasmatic leap, we wouldn’t get anywhere. A definition of ideology could therefore be the conviction not to be under any spell of ideology, and of course this definition seems to describe Noam Chomsky’s self-perception rather precisely. Again, using my reversal of § 202 of the PI: To think that you are not following a rule is not enough to establish that you are not in fact following a rule.
Chomsky’s sympathy is with the innocent child with “ordinary common sense”, who exclaims that the emperor is naked. No one saw it, or maybe they did, but they didn’t have the courage to proclaim the obvious. Ordinary common sense + honesty = critique of ideology. Jacques Lacan’s position is a little more refined and could rather be described as the exclamation: “My God, how shameful! Underneath his clothes, he is naked!” That is to say: Although the emperor is in fact well dressed, he is still nothing more than the figure that holds the place of the emperor. There is no epistemically neutral description that unmasks the workings of power once and for all, but there is an ability in language users to always question the validity of the current rule of law (to doubt or think), or more precisely: to remain aware
that there is no necessity in the prevailing order, and that the emperor could always be beheaded. This is why Lacan famously stated that the madman, who thinks that he is a king, is no crazier than the king, who thinks that he is a king. In as far as the king identifies with his symbolic mandate to such a degree that he doesn’t see that that is all it is, or in other words: in as far as he believes that there is no difference between his position of enunciation and the content of what he is (described as), he is as crazy as the madman. Another Lacanian paraphrase of the cogito could thus be: “I don’t think,
therefore I am (the king).” Doesn’t there in this sense seem to be a tendency in powerful politicians tostop thinking, when they have held power for some years? Think of Schröder, Blair, Bush, Putin, Kim Jong-il, or the extreme contemporary example: Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan, who has simply taken the name “Turkmen Bashi” (The Head/Father of the Turkmen). Flies don’t think, as far as we know, which is why the pub keepers in Vienna found a simple way to catch them: By
sticking empty beer bottles upside down under the bar. They would get trapped because they did not realize they had to fly backward to get out. Isn’t the task of the critique of ideology a therapeutic one,
much in the sense of the Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy in general: to show the fly the way out of the bottle, or at least to make it wonder, how it got in there in the first place?"

Also, despite Chomsky's feeling on Lacan as a charlatan, Chomsky in fact acknowledges Lacan's important contributions early on.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth (from earlier):


You've wasted enough of my time. Have a good night.

Looks like you do not know your own mind, let alone what Lacan believes about babies.

I thought you had waved me goodbye here.


gobbeldygook. Powerful argument. I'm guessing much of yr time is spent around small children. Whats the proper response? - no, yr gobblydgook.

It's not an argument -- do you actually know what an argument is?


So if you can't understand it a)it's gobbledegook which is surly not an empty term but means you can dismiss it, and others 'ought' to as well or 2) The people who do claim to understand it are insane, but you can never know this because this proposition transforms into the words ''Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah.' Do sentences often transform before your eyes? And is it often that the psychologists words become 'gobbledegook'?

This may be hard for you to believe rosa, but the pic was not meant for you.

Yes, I got that, but the picture was about as useful as a chocolate condom, anyway.


Since you unable to understand Lacanian analysis, I'll address this to the Others.

Well, you don't seem to 'understand' Lacan, either, for you appear to think he attributed to babies beliefs they could not possibly hold.

So, it looks like we are in the same boat.


However,the Wittgensteinian point to make is that just because
Chomsky thinks he doesn’t follow any ideological rules, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t.

And where exactly does Wittgenstein say this, then?


Also, despite Chomsky's feeling on Lacan as a charlatan, Chomsky in fact acknowledges Lacan's important contributions early on.

In fact he says:


Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult,

He makes only one other comment on Lacan:


Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

So, you need to stop making stuff up about Chomsky too.

[spiltteeth]

Since Rosa takes her tactics from Fox news, and is intellectually dishonest, I will give the WHOLE quote from Chomsky the END of which Rosa MYSTERIOUSLY leaves out :

"Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print".

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Since Rosa takes her tactics from Fox news, and is intellectually dishonest, I will give the WHOLE quote from Chomsky the END of which Rosa MYSTERIOUSLY leaves out :

Yes, this refers to his pre-cult days, not to the sort of gobbledygook you lap up.

Even so, you do not seem able to get him right, for you appear to think he attribued babies wth beliefs they could not possibly have.

[spiltteeth]

How do you know if someone has gotten Lacan 'right' if its all 'gobbledygook' ?
You must have a notion of what is 'right' and 'wrong' to make this statement.

[spiltteeth]

I'm sorry Rosa yr just so fuck'n ridiculous! Leaving off the end of the Chomsky quote! I'm sorry , you have just as much intellectual integrity as Sean Hannity! I gotta go, I'm practically crying I'm laughing so hard.
Stay lovely.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


How do you know if someone has gotten Lacan 'right' if its all 'gobbledygook' ?
You must have a notion of what is 'right' and 'wrong' to make this statement.

Well, you seem adamant that Lacan did not attribute babies with beliefs they could not possibly hold, and yet you also seem to think that he did:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

So, either you think he believed both these options, or you too do not know what he believed.

And this is probably because Lacan's gobbledygook is incomprehensible even to you.:lol:


I'm sorry Rosa yr just so fuck'n ridiculous! Leaving off the end of the Chomsky quote! I'm sorry , you have just as much intellectual integrity as Sean Hannity! I gotta go, I'm practically crying I'm laughing so hard.
Stay lovely.

And yet, as I pointed out, this comment by Chomsky related to Lacan's work before he went ga ga.

A bit like you are going, too...

[spiltteeth]

Much of Lacan's work is in fact difficult for me to understand. The paragraph you keep quoting has nothing to do with babies beliefs, no matter how many word you embolden. In fact, I've been generous enough to explain it AND posit it several different ways.
But if you are unable to understand something, those who do are crazy, according to you. If someone writes something you don't like you either hallucinate the words into "'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah" or lie, leave out words. It's a shame, you have valuable things to say about dialectics, but will never be taken seriously. I've been to prison, dined with child molesters, and you're the ugliest person I've come across. You're a disgusting, lying, manipulative, intellectually dishonest, obnoxious, sad joke. I'll pray for your poor daughters. I hope you get help Rosa, you could be a valuable asset to the Left. I really am sorry for you Rosa, I went from being amused by you to...just really feeling sorry for you.
- God bless

Oh, and in case the words transformed before yr eyes again this is what I said about Chomsky, I'll embolden the relevant parts:


Also, despite Chomsky's feeling on Lacan as a charlatan, Chomsky in fact acknowledges Lacan's important contributions early on.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


Much of Lacan's work is in fact difficult for me to understand. The paragraph you keep quoting has nothing to do with babies beliefs, no matter how many word you embolden. In fact, I've been generous enough to explain it AND posit it several different ways.
But if you are unable to understand something, those who do are crazy, according to you. If someone writes something you don't like you either hallucinate the words into "'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah" or lie, leave out words. It's a shame, you have valuable things to say about dialectics, but will never be taken seriously. I've been to prison, dined with child molesters, and you're the ugliest person I've come across. You're a disgusting, lying, manipulative, intellectually dishonest, obnoxious, sad joke. I'll pray for your poor daughters. I hope you get help Rosa, you could be a valuable asset to the Left. I really am sorry for you Rosa, I went from being amused by you to...just really feeling sorry for you.
- God bless

Bold added.

Getting personal, again, I see. Sign of desperation, eh

According to you, I am viler than child molesters just because I question your source of consolation.

And, once more, what is there to 'understand' about someone who attributes to babies beliefs they cannot possibly hold?

[spiltteeth]

Rosa Lichtenstein;1551070]Spiltteeth:



Bold added.

Getting personal, again, I see. Sign of desperation, eh

According to you, I am viler than child molesters just because I question your source of consolation.

1) It is fun to mind read - but this is a sign of my utter disgust from the sewage you write. When desperate, I fetch a lady of the night.
2) Not my source of consolation, I'm very anti-psychology, even belong to a club. Am an acquaintance of Ian Parker. Its fun to make things up, but its important to keep your imagination separate from reality. See? Making stuff up - a vile repulsive habit among certain kinds of vermin. 3) That is not why you are viler. Oh, I forgot you are a studied mind reader and simply know these things. Bravo! You actually have a brain but it counts for nought, filth are worthless thinkers.


And, once more, what is there to 'understand' about someone who attributes to babies beliefs they cannot possibly hold?

Who holds that belief? You keep repeating what I wrote, but it has no relation to your -and I don't mean this to be rude - somewhat naive and laughable interpretation. Yet how you got this interpretation is your secret, you will not tell how you got this from what I wrote.
(insert here what I wrote with bold)

What happens if you reveal your secret? Are u afraid I'll stop loving you? Will those terrible memories come back if uncertainty is introduced into the world? Will it remind you of another confusing night, when something happened that you were too young to understand? Certainty, rationality, these things will bind that anxiety, no one can make you feel that way again...unless U let them and you'll be damned if yr daughters are going to go thru that! Hey, it IS fun.
Also, the tone of your post is somewhat condescending and this is beneath you, please, try to lie respectfully.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


1) It is fun to mind read - but this is a sign of my utter disgust from the sewage you write. When desperate, I fetch a lady of the night.

Yes, I thought you might be someone who benefits from the oppression of women.


2) Not my source of consolation, I'm very anti-psychology, even belong to a club. Am an acquaintance of Ian Parker. Its fun to make things up, but its important to keep your imagination separate from reality. See?

You clearly missed my allusion to Marx:


"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

Bold added.


Making stuff up - a vile repulsive habit among certain kinds of vermin

I see you like to use Nazi-style abuse too. Suits you somehow...


3) That is not why you are viler. Oh, I forgot you are a studied mind reader and simply know these things. Bravo! You actually have a brain but it counts for nought, filth are worthless thinkers.

Even so, you think I am viler than a child molester.


Who holds that belief? You keep repeating what I wrote, but it has no relation to your -and I don't mean this to be rude - somewhat naive and laughable interpretation. Yet how you got this interpretation is your secret, you will not tell how you got this from what I wrote.

This person, clearly:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


What happens if you reveal your secret? Are u afraid I'll stop loving you? Will those terrible memories come back if uncertainty is introduced into the world? Will it remind you of another confusing night, when something happened that you were too young to understand? Certainty, rationality, these things will bind that anxiety, no one can make you feel that way again...unless U let them and you'll be damned if yr daughters are going to go thru that! Hey, it IS fun.

You just can't separate out your contempt for wowen from the main point of this part of the thread.

Your contempt for women is revealed here:


1) It is fun to mind read - but this is a sign of my utter disgust from the sewage you write. When desperate, I fetch a lady of the night.
2) Not my source of consolation, I'm very anti-psychology, even belong to a club. Am an acquaintance of Ian Parker. Its fun to make things up, but its important to keep your imagination separate from reality. See? Making stuff up - a vile repulsive habit among certain kinds of vermin. 3) That is not why you are viler. Oh, I forgot you are a studied mind reader and simply know these things. Bravo! You actually have a brain but it counts for nought, filth are worthless thinkers.

You:


Also, the tone of your post is somewhat condescending and this is beneath you, please, try to lie respectfully.

You call me 'vile', 'filth', 'vermin', and place me lower than a child molester, and you think to give me moral advice!?

[spiltteeth]

Spiltteeth:



Yes, I thought you might be someone who benefits from the oppression of women.



You clearly missed my allusion to Marx:



Bold added.



I see you like to use Nazi-style abuse too. Suits you somehow...



Even so, you think I am viler than a child molester.



This person, clearly:



You:



You just can't separate out your contempt for wowen from the main point of this part of the thread.

Your contempt for women is revealed here:



You:



You call me 'vile', 'filth', 'vermin', and place me lower than a child molester, and you think to give me moral advice!?

First, logically, because you are so low, it would therefore be appropriate to give moral advice.
Second, I don't think your a woman, if I had to guess I'd say MTF trans, respectfully. (In fact my current spiritual advisor is MTF)
Third, I do go to ladies of the night, I'm down in the village helping give free HIV tests out, mostly to the trans crowd since my peoples are there, altho the past 2 yrs I've really crapped out do to personal issues.
Three, you are empirically not a reliable source of understanding what I mean, despite being talked to as if you were a small child :
Exhibit A :


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You have a secret belief that this involves babies beliefs ? Why? Lets everyone hear yr explanation, listen up :
Yr answer :

http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/ae191/spiltteeth/Tumbleweed_Dunes.jpg

You can't tell us! And, you won't tell WHY you won't tell, yr full of secrets! A dark house...My answers have been very detailed. (Also, notice that all perceptual assumptions must be imagel, as I've emboldened the word SEES, and I've explained what that means.)

Exhibit B:

Thanks, but this was yet mere gobbledygook

Exhibit C :

I'm afraid, this just reads as 'Yada,Yada, Blahdy, Blah' to me

Now how could you read that? None of those words were used in what I wrote.
Apparently -and you can just tell me what you mean, I'm not some intellectually dishonest person who will refuse to believe you like some childish narcissist - you are suffering from some serious psychosis involving hallucinations.

Incidently, using words like vermin do in fact have an ideological relationship to Naziism. Ironically it was Lacan who made this connection....
I would enlarge, but it might appear as "gobbledygook" which must be some technical term, or is it a reference to a certain mode of understanding only certain people have, for how can the various Lacanians agree on the terms if it is "gobbledygook" ?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


First, logically, because you are so low, it would therefore be appropriate to give moral advice.
Second, I don't think your a woman, if I had to guess I'd say MTF trans, respectfully. (In fact my current spiritual advisor is MTF)
Third, I do go to ladies of the night, I'm down in the village helping give free HIV tests out, mostly to the trans crowd since my peoples are there, altho the past 2 yrs I've really crapped out do to personal issues.
Three, you are empirically not a reliable source of understanding what I mean, despite being talked to as if you were a small child :
Exhibit A :

Once more, you concentrate on me in order to deflect attention from your plight.


You have a secret belief that this involves babies beliefs ? Why? Lets everyone hear yr explanation, listen up :

Not me sunshine, but you:


Basically the baby sees itself as 'one' with the mother's desire, the baby sees itself as 'the phallus' (the thing that the mother is lacking, which she desires to make her whole) but then notices that the mother looks else where. The baby notices that the mother gives her attention to the father (Lacan calls it 'the name of the father' since it doesn't actually have to be the father, it can be anything that demands the mothers attention) so the baby assumes that 1)it must be lacking something (the phallus) because the mother goes elsewhere to get her needs met and 2) the name-of-the-father must have the phallus.

You:


You can't tell us! And, you won't tell WHY you won't tell, yr full of secrets! A dark house...My answers have been very detailed. (Also, notice that all perceptual assumptions must be imagel, as I've emboldened the word SEES, and I've explained what that means.)

And, again, I am the centre of your attention, not the defence of your odd ideas about babies.


Exhibit B:

Still copying me, I see.


Now how could you read that? None of those words were used in what I wrote.

They might as well have been for all the sense it made.


Apparently -and you can just tell me what you mean, I'm not some intellectually dishonest person who will refuse to believe you like some childish narcissist - you are suffering from some serious psychosis involving hallucinations.

Yet more a priori 'psychology'.


I would enlarge, but it might appear as "gobbledygook" which must be some technical term, or is it a reference to a certain mode of understanding only certain people have, for how can the various Lacanians agree on the terms if it is "gobbledygook" ?

If the cap fits, as they say.

[bcbm]

Second, I don't think your a woman, if I had to guess I'd say MTF trans, respectfully.

what the fuck?

no, actually

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BCBM, thanks for that, but Spiltteeth has problems understanding babies; females are surely beyond him.

[ZeroNowhere]

This thread is the only worthwhile thing to have come out of psychology.

[Hit The North]

This thread has become a miserable car crash and I think all the interlocutors have made their point.

I'm closing it.