Psychoanalysis, Mysticism and the Problem of Epistemology

Psychoanalysis, Mysticism and the Problem of Epistemology
Author: Alice Bar Nes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-09-09
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000435768

This book presents key psychoanalytic theories from a fresh perspective: that of the mystical element. The author explores the depth-structure of central assumptions in psychoanalytic theory to uncover the mystical core of conventional analytic thinking. Exploring authors from Freud and Ferenczi, through Bion and Winnicott, to contemporary voices such as Ogden, Bollas and Eigen, the book shows that psychoanalysis has always operated on the assumption of psychic overlap, a "soul-to-soul" contact, between patient and analyst. Surprisingly, the book shows how this "magical" facet goes hand in hand with a pragmatic worldview that explores the epistemological complexities of psychoanalysis in search of a way to join the subjective, even the mystical, with the practical aim of serving as a validated mental health discipline. This is accomplished through an interdisciplinary and intertextual encounter between psychoanalysis and the innovative pairing of William James’ pragmatic philosophy and Martin Buber’s dialogic thought. The author's paradoxical stance surrounding the nature and role of psychoanalysis and its mystical facet resonate the great challenge embedded in Winnicott's insistence on tolerating paradox and Bion's demand to respect all parts of the (psychoanalytic) truth, in this case, the practical and mundane alongside the mystical and magical. The book’s broad, interdisciplinary outlook will captivate both psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists as well as scholars of philosophy.

Knowing Nothing, Staying Stupid

Knowing Nothing, Staying Stupid
Author: Dany Nobus
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135446199

Why is stupidity sublime? What is the value of a 'dialectics of ignorance' for analysts and academics? Knowing Nothing, Staying Stupid draws on recent research to provide a thorough and illuminating evaluation of the status of knowledge and truth in psychoanalysis. Adopting a Lacanian framework, Dany Nobus and Malcolm Quinn question the basic assumption that knowledge is universally good and describe how psychoanalysis is in a position to place forms of knowledge in a dialectical relationship with non-knowledge, blindness, ignorance and stupidity. The book draws out the implications of a psychoanalytic theory of knowledge for the practices of knowledge construction, acquisition and transmission across the humanities and social sciences. The book is divided into two sections. The first section addresses the foundations of a psychoanalytic approach to knowledge as it emerges from clinical practice, whilst the second section considers the problems and issues of applied psychoanalysis, and the ambiguous position of the analyst in the public sphere. Subjects covered include: The Logic of Psychoanalytic Discovery Creative Knowledge Production and Institutionalised Doctrine The Desire to Know versus the Fall of Knowledge Epistemological Regression and the Problem of Applied Psychoanalysis This provocative discussion of the dialectics of knowing and not knowing will be welcomed by practicing psychoanalysts and students of psychoanalytic studies, but also by everyone working in the fields of social science, philosophy and cultural studies.

The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling

The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
Author: William B. Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 1999-06-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195354087

This study examines the history of the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism, starting with the seminal correspondence between Freud and Romain Rolland concerning the concept of "oceanic feeling." Providing a corrective to current views which frame psychoanalysis as pathologizing mysticism, Parsons reveals the existence of three models entertained by Freud and Rolland: the classical reductive, ego-adaptive, and transformational (which allows for a transcendent dimension to mysticism). Then, reconstructing Rolland's personal mysticism (the "oceanic feeling") through texts and letters unavailable to Freud, Parsons argues that Freud misinterpreted the oceanic feeling. In offering a fresh interpretation of Rolland's mysticism, Parsons constructs a new dialogical approach for psychoanalytic theory of mysticism which integrates culture studies, developmental perspectives, and the deep epistemological and transcendent claims of the mystics.

Psychoanalysis at the Limit

Psychoanalysis at the Limit
Author: Jon Mills
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2012-07-12
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0791485218

Psychoanalysis has long been charged as being a pseudoscience. This timely book explores and reexamines the nature of psychoanalysis within contemporary debates about science, epistemology, unconscious experience, and the philosophy of mind. Distinguished scholars and practitioners from diverse backgrounds in psychoanalysis, philosophy, and psychology offer both favorable and critical accounts of psychoanalytic theory and practice from Freud and Lacan through contemporary revisionist philosophical perspectives.

Lacan and the Biblical Ethics of Psychoanalysis

Lacan and the Biblical Ethics of Psychoanalysis
Author: Itzhak Benyamini
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2024-01-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3031399692

In this fascinating and ground-breaking book, Itzhak Benyamini uses discourse analysis to lay out the way Lacan constructed his own intellectual discourse informed by Judeo-Christianity. Offering an understanding of Lacan’s emergence and intellectual struggles with significant contemporary intellectuals, the author builds a panoramic view of the entire psychoanalytic discourse at the time of the foundational post-Freudian generation. By engaging in close reading of texts and seminars given by Lacan between the 1930s and 50s, Benyamini uncovers the coming-into-being of Lacan's key concepts: The Mirror Stage, the Imaginary, the Real, the Symbolic, the Name-of-the-Father, the Other, jouissance, and das Ding. The author argues that Lacan wished to regulate this process of conceptualization by connecting the concepts of the "Father" and the "Other" with themes from the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially the Biblical one, to create a clinical ethic, that does not reflect a worldview or ideology and is guided solely by the analyzand’s unconscious desire.

Psychoanalysis and the Sciences

Psychoanalysis and the Sciences
Author: André Haynal
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1993-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780520082991

The relationship existing between science and psychoanalysis has long been tense, critical, even hostile. Andr Haynal addresses this relationship by examining three questions: how is psychoanalytic "knowledge" established? what methodology and epistemology underlie psychoanalytic theory? and what are the historical circumstances that have shaped psychoanalysis? Haynal is familiar with the full spectrum of analytic thought and begins with a systematic discussion of analytic theory. The second part of the book covers a series of historical topics and includes discussions of Freud and his relations with his followers. A chapter on Freud and his "favorite disciple," Sandor Ferenczi, is an engrossing account of the complex intellectual and personal connection the two men shared. The relationship existing between science and psychoanalysis has long been tense, critical, even hostile. Andr Haynal addresses this relationship by examining three questions: how is psychoanalytic "knowledge" established? what methodology and epistemology underlie psychoanalytic theory? and what are the historical circumstances that have shaped psychoanalysis? Haynal is familiar with the full spectrum of analytic thought and begins with a systematic discussion of analytic theory. The second part of the book covers a series of historical topics and includes discussions of Freud and his relations with his followers. A chapter on Freud and his "favorite disciple," Sandor Ferenczi, is an engrossing account of the complex intellectual and personal connection the two men shared.

Does God Doubt? R. Gershon Henoch Leiner’s Thought in Its Contexts

Does God Doubt? R. Gershon Henoch Leiner’s Thought in Its Contexts
Author: Jonathan Garb
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2024-03-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004694234

Does God Doubt? shows that Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner of Radzin considered God to be revealed as doubt. Thus, according to this profound and important nineteenth-century Hasidic leader, doubt is an essential aspect of the human condition, and especially of religious life. His position is shown to be remarkably bold and unique compared to kabbalistic writing, and especially to the Hasidic worlds to which he belonged. At the same time, the roots of his thought are located in earlier discussions of doubt as one of the highest parts of the divine world. Doubt about, in, and of God is part of the Hasidic contribution to modernity.

Paradox and the Possibility of Knowledge

Paradox and the Possibility of Knowledge
Author: Jeremy Barris
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2003
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781575910727

Paradox and the Possibility of Knowledge argues that psychoanalytic theory has certain mostly unnoticed features that bring out, with unusual clarity, a logic that is true of conceptual thought generally. This logic is paradoxical in that it is deliberately and productively self-canceling. The general relevance of this logic to conceptual thought and to theory offers a solution to some fundamental epistemological problems. First, it allows a solution to the problem of the ultimate circularity or infinite regress of knowledge, by showing how the circle or regress eliminates itself in a variety of successful knowledge-grounding ways. Second, it offers some resulting insights into issues involving politically troublesome dimensions of knowledge, specifically into the procedure of ethical political dialogue. The book is written in the contexts of both Anglo-American philosophy and Continental or European philosophy. The argument is largely Wittgensteinian, and at the same time proceeds through detailed reference to Freud's and Lacan's work. On the way it addresses theory construction in general, including the claims of phenomenology and deconstruction.