Lacan's Ethics and Nietzsche's Critique of Platonism (SUNY series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature)

Brings Lacan and Nietzsche together as part of a common effort to rethink the tradition of Western ethics. Bringing together Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche, Tim Themi focuses on their conceptions of ethics and on their accounts of the history of ethical thinking in the Western tradition. Nietzsche blames Plato for setting in motion a degenerative process that turned ethics away from nature, the body, and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. Dismissing Plato’s Supreme Good as a “mirage,” Lacan is very much in sympathy with Nietzsche’s reading. Following this premise, Themi shows how Lacan’s ethics might build on Nietzsche’s work, thus contributing to our understanding of Nietzsche, and also how Nietzsche’s critique can strengthen our understanding of Lacan. Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Abbreviations 12 Introduction 14 1. The Deflationary Ontology of Lacan and Nietzsche 20 1.1 Lacan’s Tripartite Schema with Nietzsche’s Critique of Plato’s Good 21 1.2 Lacan’s Freudian Thing in the Critique of Aristotle’s Good 28 2. Distinguishing Weak Sublimation From the Strong 36 2.1 The Promise of Sublimation and Its Discontents 37 2.2 Lacan’s Treatment of Sublimation 43 2.3 Nietzsche’s Distinction between Weak and Strong 49 3. Before the Good: Strong Ethics in Sophocles’ Antigone 54 3.1 Creon against Antigone: In the Name of the Good 54 3.2 Antigone against Creon: Lacan, the Beautiful, a Second Death 60 3.3 Before the Good: Nietzsche’s Strong Dionysian Catharsis 67 4. Birth of the Good: Weak Ethics In Socrates’ Alcibiades 78 4.1 Lacan’s Analysis of Symposium Speeches Prior to Socrates 78 4.2 The Speech of Socrates: Denaturalizing with Diotima 83 4.3 Enter Alcibiades: Renaturalizing with Object Agalma 89 5. God of the Good: Christocentric Oedipal Morality 100 5.1 The Deaths of God in Lacan’s Seminar VII 100 5.2 Recapitulating a Decade Later in Seminar XVII 106 5.3 The Nietzschean Appraisal from The Anti-Christ 110 6. Service of Goods: Nature and Desire in Modern Science 120 6.1 Lacan’s Critique of Science in Seminar XVII 121 6.2 Nietzsche’s Empiricist-Centered Positive Comments on Science 130 6.3 Lacan’s Mathematics-Centered Positive Comments on Science 136 Conclusion 142 Notes 150 Introduction 150 Chapter 1 151 Chapter 2 155 Chapter 3 158 Chapter 4 166 Chapter 5 170 Chapter 6 175 Conclusion 180 Bibliography 182 Index 194 __Brings Lacan and Nietzsche together as part of a common effort to rethink the tradition of Western ethics.__ Bringing together Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche, Tim Themi focuses on their conceptions of ethics and on their accounts of the history of ethical thinking in the Western tradition. Nietzsche blames Plato for setting in motion a degenerative process that turned ethics away from nature, the body, and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. Dismissing Plato’s Supreme Good as a “mirage,” Lacan is very much in sympathy with Nietzsche’s reading. Following this premise, Themi shows how Lacan’s ethics might build on Nietzsche’s work, thus contributing to our understanding of Nietzsche, and also how Nietzsche’s critique can strengthen our understanding of Lacan.