From Cogito to Covid: Rethinking Lacan’s “Science and Truth” (The Palgrave Lacan Series)

This edited collection examines the contemporary relevance of Lacan’s 1965 essay “Science and Truth” to debates on science, psychoanalysis, ethics and truth. In doing so, it re-considers the established understanding of its argument that psychoanalysis is the only science for the human subject. Over fifty years after Lacan attempted to formalize the relationship between science and psychoanalysis in “Science and Truth,” this volume returns to the categorically systematic yet deeply puzzling ideas of this lecture-turned-essay. The volume begins with a rigorous analysis of the formal logic animating the cogito, which serves as a foundation for the remainder of the book to force a confrontation between the themes laid out in “Science and Truth” and the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and, of course, scientific movements that we face today. The following five chapters examine various contemporary phenomena, including the destabilizing forces of post-truthism and political nihilism, the ‘non-science’ of filmic depictions of science, the prosopopeia of Lacan’s so-called secular Name of the Father, the pseudoscientific discourse of involuntary celibates, or ‘incels,’ and, finally, the alliance between science and capitalism that has developed out of the Covid-19 pandemic. This project offers an important contribution to contemporary debates about science and ethics that will be of interest to academics working in psychoanalytic and critical theory, and the philosophy and history of science; as well as to clinicians. This edited collection examines the contemporary relevance of Lacans 1965 essay "Science and Truth"to debates on science, psychoanalysis, ethics and truth. In doing so, it re-considers the established understanding of its argument that psychoanalysis is the only science for the human subject. Over fifty years after Lacan attempted to formalize the relationship between science and psychoanalysis in "Science and Truth" this volume returns to the categorically systematic yet deeply puzzling ideas of this lecture-turned-essay. The volume begins with a rigorous analysis of the formal logic animating the cogito, which serves as a foundation for the remainder of the book to force a confrontation between the themes laid out in "Science and Truth" and the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and, of course, scientific movements that we face today. The following five chapters examine various contemporary phenomena, including the destabilizing forces of post-truthism and political nihilism, the non-science of filmic depictions of science, the prosopopeia of Lacans so-called secular Name of the Father, the pseudoscientific discourse of involuntary celibates, or incels, and, finally, the alliance between science and capitalism that has developed out of the Covid-19 pandemic. This project offers an important contribution to contemporary debates about science and ethics that will be of interest to academics working in psychoanalytic and critical theory, and the philosophy and history of science; as well as to clinicians. Molly A Wallace is a freelance editor and writer. She holds an MA in Philosophy from Duquesne University, USA. Concetta Principe is Professor at Trent University-Durham, Canada, where she teaches English Literature and Theory. Her research uses a Lacanian approach in analyzing political factors informing culture and philosophy. Dr Principe is also the author of Secular Messiahs and the Return of Pauls Real: A Lacanian Approach (2015). Her work has appeared in, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, The Bible and Critical Theory, Psychoanalytic Discourse/ Discours psychoanalytique, and Journal of Cultural Research. Contents 6 Notes on Contributors 8 1: Introduction 10 Science and the Möbius 13 Convergence and Segregation 17 Science and Psychoanalysis 20 Science and Truth 23 References 25 2: Formal Truth and the Unconscious 27 Part One 29 Part Two 38 Part Three 45 References 50 3: Post-Truth-as-Cause: Remarks on the Division of the Subject in the Era of Post-Truth Politics 52 Some Preliminary Remarks on “Post-Truth” and Its Vicissitudes 55 The Cartesian Reversal and the Subject of Psychoanalysis 61 “I, Truth, Speak”: Truth as Cut, Truth as Cause 64 La Science et la Post-Vérité 67 Conclusion: Politics and Truth 72 References 74 4: Sci-Fi and Truth: Saturated Subjects in the Films of Claire Denis and Jordan Peele 77 Truth-as-Cause 79 Teaching Taboo: High Life’s Systems of Exchange 81 “I Forgot—Nobody Cares about the End of the World” 88 References 95 5: The Truth of Lacan’s Name of the Father: A Reconsideration of the “Truth” in “Science and Truth” 97 What Is Religion? 100 What’s in a Name? 105 My Father Is Not Your Father 107 What Is Universal? 112 Conclusion 116 References 117 6: Mogged by the Market: Science, Subjectivity, and the Rationalization of Sex 119 Incel Science 123 Incel Lexicon 126 Incel Utopianism 130 Conclusion—Science, Sex, Psychosis 136 References 140 7: Capital with Science: COVID-19 as a Case of Successful Paranoia? 142 1 144 2 150 3 154 References 162 Index 165