Knowing, Not-Knowing, and Jouissance: Levels, Symbols, and Codes of Experience in Psychoanalysis

286 Pages·2018·3.502 MB·English

by  Raul Moncayo

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C SROTIDE SEIRES
KNOWING,
NOT-KNOWING,
AND JOUISSANCE
LEVELS, SYMBOLS, AND
CODES OF EXPERIENCE
IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
RAUL MONCAYO
The Palgrave Lacan Series
Series Editors
Calum Neill
School of Applied Sciences
Edinburgh Napier University
Edinburgh, UK
Derek Hook
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, USA
Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of
the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we
settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacan’s thought arguably
only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application
to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities
and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new
writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a
new generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original
monographs and thematic, multi-authored collections. The books in the
series will explore aspects of Lacan’s theory from new perspectives and
with original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas
of or issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying
Lacanian theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of
society, politics, the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular
concern, will work to expand our understanding of Lacan’s theory and
its value in the 21st century.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15116
Raul Moncayo
Knowing,
Not-Knowing, and
Jouissance
Levels, Symbols, and Codes of
Experience in Psychoanalysis
Raul Moncayo
Berkeley, CA, USA
The Palgrave Lacan Series
ISBN 978-3-319-94002-1 ISBN 978-3-319-94003-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94003-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946549
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Preface and Acknowledgements
The ideas in this book emerged from several independent projects that
slowly coalesced into a book. Chapter 1 is a follow up to my doctoral
dissertation (1984) that entailed a detailed exegesis of Freud’s two the-
ories of mind centered around the concept of repression and its cul-
tural implications/foundations. In Chapter 1 wanted to ascertain how
some specific theoretical questions/problems raised by Freud in the
Metapsychology were or not answered/solved by Lacanian theory. In
addition, I wanted to highlight a distinction between awareness and
consciousness, found implicit in Freud’s theory, and link this concept
of awareness to unconscious or un-self-conscious forms of knowing.
While I was writing, I was asked to write a review for Bristow’s book
on Joyce and Lacan and found that what supported Joyce in his writ-
ing had some links to the concept of awareness I was searching for in
the Metapsychology and beyond. In addition, I reconsider the merits
of Freud’s energetic and economic point of view in the light of contem-
porary physics, Lacan’s theory of jouissance, post-structuralism’s privi-
leging of energetic intensities over representational schemas of meaning,
and, finally, the fact that the rest of psychoanalysis (object relations and
the interpersonal schools) considers Freud’s energetic ideas passé and
outdated.
v
vi Preface and Acknowledgements
Chapter 2 was inspired by an email I received some years ago from
a reader who wanted me to read some texts on Darwinian theory and
evolutionary psychology. Perhaps their motivation was influenced by
Dylan Evans’ in toto adoption of Darwinism, not long after publish-
ing what to this day is the only dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis
in English. I read the recommended texts and discovered that biology
nowadays considers Darwinism (coupled with evolutionary genetics and
the new field of epigenetics) a meta-framework for the biological field.
At the same time, evolutionary psychology makes no attempt to address
human sexuality within the context of culture and the symbolic order,
the way that Freud and Lacan have done with psychoanalysis. In addi-
tion, the cultural ideas that emerge from Darwinism represent very out-
dated, if not downright racist and sexist views about society. Without
Freudian theory, Darwinian concepts are not enough to understand
how biological instincts function within cultural symbolic orders.
Chapter 3 was written not only to show the inner consistencies
between Freud and Lacan’s theory of the drive, but also how the accent
on the grammatical voice of the drive definitely falls on cultural rather
than biological factors, and therefore can be regarded as a rebuke of
the criticism that Freud was a pseudo biologist of the mind. A specific
example of this is how Lacan transformed Freud’s idea that the body
imposes a certain demand for work on the Mind (that responds with
cultural signifiers and representations), into a social/sexual demand of
the subject to be demanded/repressed or seduced by the Other. Mind
and Other here occupy similar structural positions.
Chapter 4 was precipitated by a weekly Seminar with Barri Belnap
and Greg Farr from the Austen Riggs Center in Massachusetts, where
John Muller combined Lacanian psychoanalysis, developmental psy-
choanalytic psychology, and Peirce’s semiotics. Lacan engaged Pierce’s
work in his Seminar IX on Identification, which was a central focus of
my book The Emptiness of Oedipus. Muller also knew the late Roberto
Harari who was my first mentor in psychoanalysis. This Chapter
explores the relations between Semiotic and Symbolic Codes in ref-
erence to psychoanalysis. Chapter 5 explores what happens to Freud’s
structural theory of personality in the light of Lacan’s critique of ego
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
psychology, his utilization of the concepts of the ideal ego and ego ideal
by way of ‘mathemes’, and Lacan’s own concepts of the subject/signifier
and the subject in/of the Real.
Chapter 6 is an enlarged version of a review/response that was pub-
lished by the Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, Vol.
10, 2017 under the editorial guidance of Sigi Jottkandt. The response
was precipitated by a paper by S. Brahnam where she worked Lacan’s
exercises involving probability theory and cybernetics that appear as
an addendum to his text on The Purloined Letter. As the chapter stands
now, it also represents a Lacanian and psychoanalytic commentary on
digital and computer culture.
The stimulus for Chapter 7 on Lacan’s late ecrit L’étourdit came from
a joint event on the topic co-sponsored by the Lacanian School and
Marcus Coelen, Jamieson Webster, and Patricia Gherovici. For this
book in particular, and as a link between Chapters 6 and 7, I expanded
a section addressing the mention of mathematics and logic in Lacan’s
text. This is in response to questions and reviews of a prior book, to
critiques of Lacan’s use of mathematics, and to delimit the area within
which conceptual mathematics may be most useful to psychoanalytic
theory.
Chapter 8 emerged from my study of Lacan’s Seminar XIX, … ou pire
where Lacan continues the evolution of his teaching in the direction of
the One of the Real that ‘ex-sists’ ‘All-alone’ in the place of the absence
of a sexual rapport between the sexes. The One All-alone represents a
form of benevolent solitude that does not prevent relationships between
the sexes nor the sexual act. This is the Lacanian response to the cur-
rent problems between the sexes and to the failure of the old ideal norm
that the fusion of love and sex in marriage could represent a stable and
normalizing formula for the sexes. The ability to sustain relationships
is still a psychiatric criterion of normality, despite the large instability
of relationships in contemporary culture. Finally, Seminar XIX is also
Lacan’s continued exploration of the relationship between the One
of the Real and of jouissance and the knowing associated with the
Unconscious now conceived as something beyond the signifier and the
Freudian unconscious. Lacan’s Real unconscious, and its savoir, also has
viii Preface and Acknowledgements
links with mystical forms of jouissance as Lacan himself has stated and
Miller (2016, p. 182) has emphasized despite Lacan’s earlier rejection of
the ineffable and the existential/phenomenological focus on immediate
experience. Despite the fact that Zen emphasizes ‘ex-soteric’ everyday-
ness rather than esoteric otherworldliness, I have explored these themes
(without the benefit of Seminar XIX) in a prior book on psychoanalysis
and Zen Buddhism. Mysticism is typically otherworldly or is focused on
the mysteries associated with God or a Deity. Zen instead is focused on
the freedom of the heart and mind.
Chapter 9 explores the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis
and the object relations school widely conceived. In contrast to France,
Latin countries, and South America, Lacanians in the US have always
been in interaction with the object relations school of psychoanalysis
that grew out of the English-speaking world. The chapter is specifically
focused on Winnicott given his similar interest on the individual as a
true isolate. For Winniccott the latter is a product/fruit of the relation-
ship with the mother while for Lacan it is a function of the Real and the
lack of rapport between the sexes. In this regard, I must mention the
efforts of Michael Eigen who for years held a Seminar in New York City
on Bion, Winnicott, and Lacan.
Chapter 10 is my latest statement on the clinical practice of psychoa-
nalysis. The latter is not just applied psychoanalysis, because the theory
cannot be developed independently from the practice. Pure psychoanal-
ysis could refer to interventions that are justified by theoretical criteria
and not solely by practical rules. However, pure psychoanalysis should
not be construed as only theoretical or academic since it also refers to
the derivation of the theory from the unconscious signifying chain that
is revealed in the actual singular practice of psychoanalysis. Finally, I
would like to thank Magdalena Romanowicz for reading a prior unpub-
lished version of this chapter, for pointing to the work of Hans Steiner,
and the empirical literature on the clinical outcomes of psychoanalysis.
Chapter 11 was co-written with Dany Nobus and represents a
response to an earlier paper of Dany’s on Lacan and organizational the-
ory in the light of my 27-year experience being a founding member and
responsible person for the development of the first Lacanian School
in the US under the leadership of Andre Patsalides who studied with
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Lacan in Paris. At its foundation, the School had the support of the San
Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis associated with the IPA, as well as of
psychologists, who despite being practicing psychoanalysts, were denied
official recognition by the IPA for not being MDs. Most notably Nathan
Adler, a founding member of the School, was in analysis with Bernfeld,
who migrated to San Francisco and had Freud’s support but not of the
American Psychoanalytic Association associated with the IPA. I took
this opportunity to reflect on the experience of the School, and how it’s
development, problems, and promise, refer to the questions that Lacan
articulated a propos of the School as a psychoanalytic organization.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank the participants of
my yearly Seminar at the Lacanian School for reading the chapters, giv-
ing me feedback, and the opportunity to sound off the ideas, and more
clearly hear what I was trying to say in this book.
Berkeley, CA, USA Raul Moncayo
References
Lacan, J. (1972–1973). On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits of Love and
Knowledge, Book XX (B. Fink, Trans.). New York and London: Norton.
Lacan, J. (1975–1976). The Sinthome. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book
XXIII, J. A. Miller (Ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.