Este trabajo parte de nuestra reflexión acerca de la tesis que Paul Ricoeur expone en su libro Freud. Una interpretación de la cultura, reflexión que se centra sólo en un aspecto del estatuto del psicoanálisis, a saber, en la caracterización que Ricoeur hace de la especificidad del mismo y su distinción radical de la fenomenología. A partir de allí, intentaremos mostrar que la recepción del psicoanálisis de Freud en Winnicott produjo un desplazamiento epistemológico cuando dejó de lado el (...) concepto de técnica y lo reemplazó por la noción de tratamiento. Por ello, a nuestro juicio, desde el interior del pensamiento de Winnicott se torna necesario pensar nuevamente las relaciones epistemológicas entre fenomenología y psicoanálisis. (shrink)

El presente artículo se inscribe dentro de la tradición interdisciplinaria e intenta hacer un aporte en el campo de las relaciones entre psicoanálisis y fenomenología hermenéutica. Puntualmente, la contribución se centra en señalar la transformación que Winnicott realiza de la metapsicología freudiana. Para lograr este propósito, se asume como criterio de análisis de la obra de Winnicott las reflexiones fenomenológico-hermenéuticas de la lectura que P. Ricoeur hace de la metapsicología freudiana en _Freud: una interpretación de la cultura_.

이 논문을 통해 우리는 리쾨르 철학에서 프로이트의 현존(présence)을 확인하고 이것이 리쾨르 철학의 중요한 국면들에서 어떤 영향을 끼쳐 왔는지를 찾아보고 확인하는 작업을 하려고 한다. 리쾨르 철학의 관점에서 보면 프로이트 담론은 ‘현상학의 해석학적 변형’이고자 하는 리쾨르 자신의 마지막 철학적 단계에서 결정적 역할을 하는 방향타라고 볼 수 있다. 리쾨르를 현대 해석학을 대표하는 인물로 자리매김하는 데 핵심적인 내용을 제공해준 담론 역시 프로이트의 담론일 것이다. 물론 여전히 기술현상학의 틀과 한계 내에서 움직이고 있는 『의지의 철학 I』과 『해석에 대하여: 프로이트에 관한 시론』 사이의 결정적 차이는 “반성”이 일종의 (...) 해석학이어야 한다고 주장함으로써 “반성에 철저히 연계된 해석학적 방법”을 가져오는 데 있어 그가 프로이트 담론에 의존하고 기대었다는 것이다. 욕망의 선재성, 사유에 대한 ‘sum’의 선재성을 프로이트 담론이 설득력 있게 드러내는 이상, 반성은 그런 (욕망하는) 삶의 기호들을 해석하는 프로이트 담론을 만나지 않고 피해 가는 방법은 없었다. 리쾨르에게 프로이트는 필연적인 우회(détour)의 길이었다. 현상학적 철학의 한계와 근대적 반성철학의 전통에 새로운 전기를 마련하는 데 프로이트 담론의 독창적인 기여를 인정하는 차원이라고 보는 게 정확할 것이다. 리쾨르 철학의 긴 여정 속에서 1950년 전후에 프로이트 담론은 (기술현상학이라는) 제한된 관점과 전망 속에서 처음으로 도입되고, 1965년을 전후하여 확장되며 변형된 (해석학적) 대면과 도전의 차원에서 논의되며, 1990년 전후해 2008년까지는 이전의 도입과 대면의 지점을 넘어 충분히 성숙하여 침윤되어 그의 철학 안에 내면화되는 지점에 도달하게 되었다. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this short and accessible book, he turns to a topic at the heart of much of his work: What is translation and why is it so important? Reminding us that The Bible, the Koran, the Torah and the works of the great philosophers are often only ever read in translation, Ricoeur reminds us that translation not only spreads knowledge but can change its very meaning. In spite (...) of these risk, he argues that in a climate of ethnic and religious conflict, the art and ethics of translation are invaluable. Drawing on interesting examples such as the translation of early Greek philosophy during the Renaissance, the poetry of Paul Celan and the work of Hannah Arendt, he reflects not only on the challenges of translating one language into another but how one community speaks to another. Throughout, Ricoeur shows how to move through life is to navigate a world that requires translation itself. Paul Ricoeur died in 2005. He was one of the great contemporary French philosophers and a leading figure in hermeneutics, psychoanalytic thought, literary theory and religion. His many books include Freud and Philosophy and Time and Narrative. (shrink)

Views of the self may be plotted on a set of coordinates. On the axis that runs from fragmentation to unity, Rorty and Rorty's Freud champion the decentered self while Wallwork, Taylor, and Ricoeur argue for a sovereign, unified self. On the other axis, which runs from the disengaged, inward-turning self to the engaged and "sedimented" self, Wallwork, would be positioned near Rorty, defending self-creation against the narrative identity affirmed by Taylor and Ricoeur. Despite his skepticism concerning the communitarian (...) agenda of the narrativists, Flanagan grants that the self is social and relational--a position further explored by Oliver, Stendahl, Deutsch, and Mack in "Selves, People, and Persons". (shrink)

For Ricœur any study of Freud, or of psychoanalysis more generally, needs to take into account the crucial dimension of the analytic experience itself. Psychoanalysis, as a “mixed discourse,” aims to anticipate questions of meaning and explication alongside technical questions of energies, repression, displacement, and so on. The analytic experience is one which is practical and intersubjective, but which is also guided by various techniques or methods. These techniques, I will argue, should be understood as a type of techne, (...) one which is less concerned with hermeneutic questions of meaning than with quasi-scientific questions of force, feedback, struggle, and process. The practice of psychoanalysis, on the other hand, deals with the ways in which these forces or drives become meaningful for a particular subject, and within a singular context or history. This article will aim to draw out both the interrelationship between techniques and practical understanding, and also the productive incommensurability between the two. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que a moralidade para Freud está determinada por um aparelho psíquico que tem por função justamente reprimir a única coisa que no homem apontaria para uma liberdade de ação, a saber: o desejo. O problema é que se todos os homens decidissem realizar todos os seus desejos, não haveria, para Freud, a possibilidade da civilização. Não haveria espaço nas teorias psicanalíticas para se pensar uma moralidade não determinada filogeneticamente? Tentarei apresentar como contraponto (...) uma possibilidade de resposta a essa questão com a teoria psicanalítica de Winnicott. (shrink)

O objetivo desta apresentação é comentar as diferenças entre a noção de trauma em Freud e em Winnicott. Mostra-se que Freud concebeu a noção de trauma como uma excitação não descarregada, usando a histeria como modelo, e enfatizando que essa noção de trauma é construída com a ajuda de conceitos especulativos. Em seguida, comenta-se que para Winnicott o trauma não é pensado em função do ponto de vista econômico, nem basicamente como de natureza sexual, nem centrado no complexo (...) de Édipo, mas diz respeito às falhas ambientais que interrompem a continuidade de ser. Procura-se, nesse sentido, explicitar que a noção de trauma em Winnicott é concebida em termos da quebra na confiabilidade do ambiente. Ao mostrar que, para Winnicott, a noção de trauma tem significados diferentes em função do momento do processo de amadurecimento no qual ele ocorre, também procura-se caracterizar o modo como Winnicott teoriza.The intention of this presentation is to comment on the differences between the notions of trauma in Freud and Winnicott. As such, it will be demonstrated how Freud conceived of trauma as unreleased excitement, using hysteria as a model, and emphasized that his concept of trauma is constructed with the aid of speculative auxiliary concepts. Next, it will be demonstrated that for Winnicott the notion of trauma is not conceived of in function of an economic point of view, nor, basicly, of sexual nature, nor centered on Oedipus Complex, but it is related to environmental failures that interrupt the continuation of being. As such, we try to explain that the notion of trauma in Winnicott is conceived of in terms of breakage in the environment`s trustfulness. In showing that, for Winnicott, the notion of trauma expresses itself in diverse meanings it is also noted that this is one of the characteristics of his theorizing, in that concepts have their meaning and their language in terms of the moment in which they are inserted in the process of maturation. (shrink)

Die Unvollkommenheit des Menschen zwingt ihn biologisch zu Kompensationen, die in den kulturellen Leistungen zum Ausdruck kommen. Psychologisch bedeutet diese Unvollkommenheit eine Offenheit hinsichtlich einer unendlichen Vielfalt schöpferischer Möglichkeiten. Während Alfred Adlers Überlegungen auf den Finalismus einer idealen Gemeinschaft als die noch zu vollendende Evolution zielen, stellen Sigmund Freud und Donald W. Winnicott die Unabschließbarkeit seelischer Entwicklungen heraus. Die Unvollkommenheit des Seelischen kann sich in alle Richtungen entfalten, muss aber dabei immer mit den unvermeidlichen Konsequenzen rechnen. Das Umgehen mit (...) unserer Unvollkommenheit kann durchaus misslingen und führt zu Abwehrmaßnahmen, durch die die Menschen gottähnlich werden wollen. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo se propone, en primer lugar, contraponer la lectura fi losófi ca de Ricoeur sobre la interpretación en psicoanálisis con algunos desarrollos clave de Freud y Lacan al respecto. Luego, se mostrará desde la obra del fi lósofo esloveno Slavoj Žižek cómo este concepto psicoanalítico puede ser utilizado dentro del marco de la crítica de las ideologías. De esta manera, se intentará determinar y fundamentar, al menos de manera aproximada, si la interpretación en psicoanálisis constituye una exégesis (...) o desciframiento del símbolo, o si la estructura del discurso analítico mismo exige otra concepción que no se agota en una hermenéutica. (shrink)

_Reading Winnicott_ brings together a selection of papers by the psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott, providing an insight into his work and charting its impact on the well-being of mothers, babies, children and families. With individual introductions summarising the key features of each of Winnicott’s papers this book not only offers an overview of Winnicott’s work, but also links it with Freud and later theorists. Areas of discussion include: the relational environment and the place of infantile sexuality aggression and (...) destructiveness illusion and transitional phenomena theory and practice of psychoanalysis of adults and children. As such _Reading Winnicott_ will be essential reading for all students wanting to learn more about Winnicott’s theories and their impact on psychoanalysis and the wider field of mental health. (shrink)

After Freud and Philosophy, the place of hermeneutics in Paul Ricoeur's thought changed. Up to that point, he had used hermeneutics, treating notions such as symbol and myth as tools for clarifying the nature of volition, or the experience of evil, or the status of the unconscious. Afterward, he became more and more a theoretician of hermeneutics. One way to clarify his conception of hermeneutics is to contrast it with his view of phenomenology. Ricoeur sees hermeneutics‐at least its twentieth‐century (...) incarnation‐as emerging from phenomenology. Ricoeur's contributions to hermeneutics may be divided into three phases: the first is concerned with the hermeneutics of symbols; the second concerns the hermeneutics of metaphor; and the third consists of a hermeneutics of narrative. The best way to identify Ricoeur's contribution to hermeneutics is to compare him to Gadamer. Like Gadamer, Ricoeur develops a post‐phenomenological hermeneutics that owes a particular debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

With respect to the reproach by habermas and ricoeur that freud will fall prey to a "scientistic self-misunderstanding" i submit that it was not freud, but these hermeneuticians themselves, who forced the clinical theory of psychoanalysis onto the procrustean bed of a philosophical ideology demonstrably alien to it. as against the generic "disavowal" of causal attributions advocated by some hermeneuticians, i maintain that it is a nihilistic, if not frivolous, trivialization of freud's entire clinical theory. far from (...) serving as a new citadel for psychoanalytic apologetics, the embrace of such hermeneuticians is, i submit, the kiss of death for the legacy that was to be saved. (edited). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Winnicott’s “Fear of Breakdown” : On and Beyond TraumaMax Hernandez (bio)y no hallé cosa en que posar los ojos / que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte[I could find no thing on which to rest my eyes / which was not a reminder of death]—Francisco de Quevedo, “Sonetos”The ubiquitous occurrence of violent events and the growing realization that the inscription of this violence in the psyches of those exposed (...) to these events remains to be known have helped to make trauma an emblematic issue at the end of a century saturated with unprecedented wounding events [see Caruth, Unclaimed Experience].1 Trauma’s enigmatic immediacy thrusts itself upon any attempt to encompass it within a theory. It is as though no one approximates (even the study of) trauma with impunity: complex affects are stirred. A precipitous interplay of cognitive and affective dispositions, a heightened tension between the intense identifications elicited and the need experienced for some protective distance from the pain evoked undermine the stability of the boundaries between witnessing and telling, event and historical narration, narrative and reading. Hence the ambivalent appeal of the notion of trauma for the historian as well as for the cultural and literary theorist.The most cursory description of trauma reflects the complex temporal structure that punctuates the psyche’s relation to the traumatic event. The asymmetrical relation between experience and memory and the gross disparity between their affective and cognitive components are evident at once. Trauma has been characterized by virtue of the disjunctions it manifests. Its very formulation bears the mark of a construction emerging as the narrative of a belated experience.2 In recent publications on trauma, the references to the works of Freud, Janet, Kardiner, Lacan, and Laplanche take pride of place. Also noticeable is the emphasis placed on certain psychoanalytic notions: deferred action, death instinct, repetition compulsion, the real.Along with the explorations of trauma by psychoanalysts, historians, and literary theorists and the ethical issues they bring to the fore, the research of neurobiologists and cognitive scientists has raised a number of epistemological issues. A new wave of radical questioning of psychoanalysis comparable to that of the beginnings of this century shows its force today. The notions of repression and the repressed are considered logical impossibilities; the operations of the unconscious are deemed entirely inexplicable; and [End Page 134] defense mechanisms are considered to be mere verbal paradoxes. In what appears to be a species of defensive tactics, a supposedly neurophysiological rephrasing of psychoanalysis is taking place in some quarters, seemingly oblivious to the possibility of profoundly altering the very cohesion of this theory through the process of revision.Otto Fenichel in the thirties and Masud Khan in the sixties have provided us with succinct yet comprehensive overviews of the manner in which, since the very beginnings of psychoanalysis, every phase of theory making has influenced and reciprocally been influenced by the current concept of trauma and its clinical evaluation. It could be said that psychoanalytic theories are themselves organized around some sort of trauma. This is clearly the case in Freud’s theorizing. After his initial theory where the interrelated aspects of trauma, repression, and symptom formation became problematic, he arrived at the conclusion that castration constituted what might be termed a nuclear structuring trauma. An analogous theoretical point is implied in the Lacanian notion of the splitting of the subject. A normative trauma defines the limits of these theories and establishes a fixed relation between historical structural events. One has to shift perspectives in reading the works of those analysts concerned particularly with object relations. For example, Melanie Klein’s clinical researches on early childhood led her to postulate that the traumatic pathogenic situation par excellence is the overriding triumph of the death instinct. Winnicott understood this situation as entailing the annihilation of the core self by intrusion, while defining the traumatic impingement as the failure of the holding environment.It is relevant to comment on these different perspectives, as they afford the psychoanalytic clinician the possibility of differentiating between structuring (sexual) trauma and narcissistic trauma. When the sexual seduction trauma theory was displaced by the theory that privileged psychic reality, the Oedipus complex became... (shrink)

Using the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur as an interpretive matrix, this article suggests that critical theologies may be understood as an instantiation of the concrete unity of past and present in religious symbol. The intransigence of debates between critical and counter-critical theologies is thus disclosed as an inability to account for and remain within the past-future dynamic in religious symbol. Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy provides the philosophical terminology for unpacking the simultaneously archaeological and teleological character of symbol. The article (...) then turns to Ricoeur’s accounts of metaphor and narrative to make the following observations: Reflecting the metaphorical capacity of language, critical theologies occur as a juxtaposition of known and unknown, here understood as a juxtaposition of past and present in religious expression; The inherently tensive character in critical theology gives way to a dialogical trajectory. Critical theologians engender Ricoeur’s reference to the pluralism of ontology in the ‘metaphorical is’; and Critical theology represents the very human capacity to create a new future out of a meaningless past by narrating the stories of the marginalized. These Ricoeurian themes are highlighted by examples drawn from the theologies of James Cone, Jürgen Moltmann, Mario Aguilar, David Tracy, and Johann Baptist Metz. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta três teses principais. A primeira diz que, nos Seminários de Zollikon, Heidegger desenvolveu projeto de uma antropologia, patologia e terapia daseinsanalíticas no qual ele rejeita a metapsicologia de Freud, mas preserva suas descobertas fatuais e procedimentos de cura. A secunda tese sustenta que Winnicott introduziu um novo paradigma na psicanálise que igualmente rejeita a metapsicologia freudiana e centra a pesquisa e a cura psicanalíticas sobre problemas de amadurecimento pessoal e não mais sobre o complexo de (...) Édipo. A terceira tese combina as duas primeira para dizer a) que a psicanálise winnicottiana satisfaz os requisitos de Heidegger para a patologia e a terapia daseinsanalíticas, b) que, além disso, essa nova psicanálise pode estimular de maneira decisiva a pesquisa futura no campo da antropologia daseinsanalítica.The paper proposes three main theses. The first thesis says that in Zollikoner Seminare Heidegger has developed a project of a daseinsanalytic anthropology and pathology in which he rejects Freud's metapsychology, but accepts his factual findings and therapeutic procedures. The second thesis affirms that Winnicott has introduced a new paradigm in psychoanalysis which also rejects Freud's metapsychology and centers the psychoanalytic research and therapy on the problem of maturation and no more on the Oedipus Complex. The third thesis combines the first two in saying a) that Winnicott's psychoanalysis satisfies Heidegger's requirements for a daseinsanalytic pathology and therapy and b) that, moreover, it can stimulate, in a decisive manner, the future research in the field of daseinsanalytic anthropology. (shrink)

O artigo aborda aspectos do percurso profissional e teórico de D. W. Winnicott que exerceram influência marcante no seu pensamento. São ainda destacadas algumas linhas do debate que ele, implícita ou explicitamente, travou com as diferentes áreas do conhecimento científico de sua época - a pediatria, a psiquiatria, em especial a infantil, a psicologia acadêmica e sua principal interlocutora, a psicanálise tradicional, representada por Freud e Melanie Klein - sobre temas centrais de sua obra, tais como a natureza do (...) psíquico, a hereditariedade, o desenvolvimento humano e a saúde e a doença psíquicas. (shrink)

This paper discusses Freud's model of the psychical apparatus in the “Project”, and concludes that it is a remarkably sophisticated work which even today is still highly relevant to neuropsychological theorising. Freud rejects the notion that what happens in the brain can be clearly localised in space and time. This anticipates the notion of a distributed system found in recent developments in computing (“neural net works”) and in Derrida's conception of systems characterised by différance. Every part of such (...) a system is constituted by its relation to the rest of the system. Although such systems are spatio-temporal, processes occur ring in them can not be pinpointed in space and time. Against the common charge that Freud has a passive hydraulic-reflex model of the psychical apparatus, the authors argue that Freud presents it as an open, complex, self-organising system. Ricoeur's (1972) claim that the model of the psychical apparatus in the “Project” is essentially solipsistic, is accordingly rejected. In conclusion the authors explain why they prefer the model in the “Project” to the more linear model found in Ch. VII of the Traumdeutung. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.20(3) 2001: 1- 21. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur clearly sought to differentiate between and keep separate his philosophical and theological intellectual endeavors. This essay brings into relief a deep, implicit, recapitulative pattern in Ricoeur’s thinking that cuts across this explicit “conceptual asceticism.” Specifically, it highlights this recapitulative pattern in Ricoeur’s treatment of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible; his understanding of utopia and ideology; the functioning of symbols in The Symbolism of Evil and of sublimation in Freud and Philosophy . On these topics Ricoeur extended his (...) typical generosity toward all that might appear to be outdated, primitive, and even regressive in our collective and personal humanity. The frequently recapitulative nature of Ricoeur’s insights indicates the importance not just of the content of his thought but also the way in which he did his thinking, a pattern which above all was generous, even to a fault. (shrink)

This article aims to show that the practice of attention can create an openness to the truth, from where ethics arises. It does so by exploring the role attention plays, according to Ricoeur, in Freud’s thought. Ricoeur shows how in the first stage of Freud’s thinking – that of the Project of a Scientific Psychology – attention is one of the instances in which a purely mechanical quantitative explanation can be questioned. Further on, with the introduction of narcissism, (...) Ricœur shows that attention, insofar as it opens a space for the “wounding truth,” opposes narcissism. Finally, the article explains how in the therapeutic setting an attentional epochē allows the therapist to be “the reality principle in flesh and in act,” so that the ego can gain control. According to Ricœur, this non-judgmental gaze opens a space of truthfulness for the patient’s self-knowledge which, although not being the totality of ethics, constitutes its threshold. (shrink)

O breve comentário de Winnicott a um verso de Rabindranath Tagore sinaliza suas diferenças para com Freud e Klein quanto à interpretação das criações culturais e dá também indicações sobre sua teoria da emergência mútua do sujeito e da realidade externa no espaço intermediário de experiência e comunicação. Do intervalo entre percepção e conceito surge uma outra compreensão do jogo do mundo e do pensamento. Sob essa perspectiva, examina-se aqui, em alguns poemas, o modo singular de produzir verdade resultante (...) da conexão entre linguagem poética e realidade.Winnicott's short comment on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore points out his divergences from Freud and Klein with regard to the interpretation of cultural creations as well as showing his theory of the mutual emergence of subject and external reality in the intermediate space of experience and communication. From the interval between perception and concept arises another understanding of the world-and-thought game. From this perspective, some poems are examined here for the unique way in which they produce truth resulting from the connection between poetic language and reality. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s reading of Freud is one of the most comprehensive, perceptive and judicious explications of Freudianism—one that begins with his early “Project” of 1895 and culminates with the last book that Freud published, Moses and Monotheism. Ricoeur is successful in exposing some of the weaknesses in Freud, and even more importantly, why we need to move beyond Freud. I am deeply sympathetic with his claim that there is a dialectical relationship between a hermeneutics of suspicion and (...) a restorative hermeneutics of meaning—and that they are integral to each other. And I also think he is successful in showing how, if we relentlessly pursue the logic of Freud’s thinking, we are led beyond Freud. But, even though he gives some indications of how such dialectic is to be developed, this remains a task (an Aufgabe ) that lies before us. (shrink)

A powerful exploration of the human capacity for renewal, as seen through Shakespeare and Freud In this fresh investigation, Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips explore how the second chance has been an essential feature of the literary imagination and a promise so central to our existence that we try to reproduce it again and again. Innumerable stories, from the Homeric epics to the New Testament, and from Oedipus Rex to Hamlet, explore the realization or failure of second chances--outcomes that (...) depend on accident, acts of will, or fate. Such stories let us repeatedly rehearse the experience of loss and recovery: to know the joy that comes with a renewal of love and pleasure and to face the pain that comes with realizing that some damage can never be undone. Through a series of illuminating readings, the authors show how Shakespeare was the supreme virtuoso of the second chance and Freud was its supreme interpreter. Both Shakespeare and Freud believed that we can narrate our life stories as tales of transformation, of momentous shifts, constrained by time and place but often still possible. Ranging from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter's Tale, and from D. W. Winnicott to Marcel Proust, the authors challenge readers to imagine how, as Phillips writes, "it is the mending that matters.". (shrink)

D. W. Winnicott is increasingly recognized as one of the most important psychoanalysts since Freud, but the relevance of his Independent version of object relations theory to psychoanalytic literary criticism has not been sufficiently appreciated. As Peter L. Rudnytsky notes, "There must be ten literary critics conversant with Lacan's ecrits for every one who has read Winnicott's Playing and Reality." Transitional Objects and Potential Spaces begins to redress this imbalance. The title and subtitle of this collection highlight three of (...) Winnicott's key concepts: transitional objects, potential space, and the use of an object. Because Winnicott is unique in respecting the integrity of art as an autonomous human activity while continuing to insist on its infantile origins, he may be said to offer the first adequate psychoanalytic account of aesthetics. This volume is organized into three sections: The Analytic Frame, Literary Objects, and Cultural Fields. Beginning with Winnicott's "The Location of Cultural Experience," it features essays by a distinguished group of contributors, including Marion Milner and two current leading members of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, Christopher Bollas and Patrick J. Casement, as well as such eminent critics as Richard Poirier, Murray M. Schwartz, Ellen Handler Spitz, and Madelon Sprengnether. Transitional Objects and Potential Spaces makes a timely and persuasive case for the power of Winnicott's ideas. In defining for the first time an independent tradition of psychoanalytic criticism, it will reorient future work in literary and cultural studies. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s philosophical project can be broadly termed as a philosophical anthropology. Within this context, a main role is given to the issue of imagination through the resources of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and reflexive philosophy. The issue of picture, however, remains quite unknown and has not been much questioned; it might even be undermined by being reduced to the context of reproductive imagination as opposed to that of productive imagination within Ricoeur’s anthropology, and due to the emphasis on the linguistic relationship to (...) sense or meaning. Yet, instead of opposing the plane of picture to the plane of sense or meaning, an articulated connection between those two planes should be sought. The issue of symbolism opened by Ricoeur in his Philosophie de la volonté provides the starting point for our investigation. From that early hermeneutics on to La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, via De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud, La Métaphore vive, and Temps et récit, one could also consider that picture makes us think. But the issue of symbolism cannot be distinguished from that of imagination. One also has to link two paths of Ricoeur’s philosophy through the issue of symbolism, one that is orientated in the path of hermeneutics – the progression to the standpoint set by Du texte à l’action –, another that links the project of a philosophical anthropology to the fields of art and aesthetics. The research is thus structured around four parts. A first part is focused on the articulated connection between Ricoeur’s philosophy of imagination and philosophical aesthetics by addressing the hermeneutical prospect as the condition for the effectiveness of this connection. Extending this hermeneutical stance, a second part seeks to establish a bond between Ricoeur’s notion of a critical hermeneutics and the issue of picture. A third part, concurrent with the context of a critical hermeneutics, aims to consider imagination as mediating the plane of art and the plane of experience by referring to Ricoeur’s reading of analytic philosophy and, more specifically, analytic philosophy of art. Relying on the previous parts, a fourth part finally addresses the field of film, articulating ontological, narrative, and social layers to a philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

This short and highly compact book derives from Paul Ricoeur’s lectures at Texas Christian University in fall 1973. After the expansiveness of earlier works on evil, Freud, and metaphor, this book moves to consolidate and sum up this previous work, and to chart a certain shift in Ricoeur’s standpoint that has occurred within it.

Since the stone age humankind has created masterworks which possess a mysterious quality of solidity and grandeur or monumentality. A Paleolithic Venus and a still life by Cezanne both share this monumentality. Michelangelo likened monumentality to sculptural relief, Braque called monumentality 'space', and Hans Hoffman, himself one of the masters, called monumentality 'pictorial depth.' The masters agreed on the import of monumentality, but none of them left a clear explanation of it. In 1943 Earl Loran published his classic book on (...) Cezanne's pictorial structure but, as I demonstrate, his explanation was misleading. This book provide a clear explanation, as did an earlier book by Robert Casper. This book also traces some history of monumentality with reproductions. It also explains how some painters achieved monumentality and how a student can attempt it. Pictorial space is created in the tension between pairs of opposing planes. Opposing planes pull against each other, each containing the other, paradoxically, within the flat surface of the canvas. Sculpture also can be 'plastic': opposing masses pull against each other, each containing the other and creating tension in the space which lies between them. Painting has other aspects like subject matter, expression, style and technique but pictorial space does not depend on these. Monumentality moves us profoundly and apparently has done so since the Paleolith. Using patients' vignettes, I show that there are profound parallels between the structure of a monumental work of art and the structure of an evolving personality. In Winnicott's words, such a personality has 'depth ... an interior space to put beliefs in ... an inside ... a space where things can be held ... the capacity to accept paradox [to contain opposites] ... room and strength ... and originality and the acceptance of tradition as the basis for invention'. A monumental painting also meets this description. I argue that monumental art provides a visual portrait of an evolving personality just as myth, as Freud and Jung both showed, provides a narrative portrait of an evolving personality. An evolving personality is perhaps humankind's most important creation; an underlying purpose of both myth and art is to help us achieve it. I demonstrate in this book that monumental art represented the evolving personality since at least 35,000 BC. Thus to understand monumentality is to better understand the personality and its history. (shrink)

The text considers the possibility of studying the Freudian psychoanalysis as a certain form of transcendentalism. In particular, it analyses the relation of Freud’sproposition concerning the strangeness within the subject—a strangeness called unconsciousness—to Kant’s claim about the necessity of the synthetic unity ofapperception. The study commences with Ricoeur’s reading of Freud’s teachings in order to demonstrate how, by introducing the language of transcendental philosophy into the reading of Freud’s works, Ricoeur omits the issue of the subjective conditions (...) for the constitution of any possible meaning. Next, searching for the possibility to formulate these conditions on the grounds of Freudian psychoanalysis, the text investigates relevant Heidegger’s reading of Kant. It finds in it the model justification for such understanding of the unity of “I think” which makes it, already at its core, conditioned by diversity identified with temporality. By attempting to grasp the contradiction between such a temporal condition for subjectivity and Freud’s postulate on the timeless nature of unconsciousness, the text applies Derrida’s criticism of the metaphysical conception of time, which is directed exactly at Heidegger’s metaphysics of Dasein. In consequence, it turns out that a profound justification seems to exist for the seemingly paradoxical Freudian statement about unconsciousness as linked with, on the one hand, the most primal intuitions still grounded in animism, and on the other, with a continuation of Kant’s teachings. (shrink)

This essay discusses the anatheist option of returning to God after the atheistic critique of the traditional God of ontotheology. It begins by reviewing the contributions that Levinas and Derrida have made toward this position and the atheistic criticisms of Freud and Nietzsche. The work of Paul Ricoeur is then discussed, showing how the atheist critique is a necessary moment in the development of genuine faith that involves a renunciation of fear and dependency as well as a reaffirmation of (...) life and a return to existence. Kearney goes on to discuss how this return to God is possible, considering the ethical position that makes it possible, the reinterpretations of biblical traditions that it entails, the relationship between the anatheist philosopher and the theologian, and revival of God as an enabling God. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende analisar a natureza e a função da teoria metapsicológica napsicanálise freudiana. Mostra-se que a teoria psicanalítica de Freud é composta por umaparte empírica – a sua psicologia dos fatos clínicos – e outra, especulativa – ametapsicologia. Esta última é considerada por ele uma superestrutura especulativa de valorapenas heurístico, passível de ser substituída por outras superestruturas do mesmo tipo.Sustenta-se, ainda, que sua metapsicologia é fruto do método especulativo, cujosfundamentos foram elaborados por filósofos e epistemólogos anteriores a (...) class='Hi'>Freud, entre elesImmanuel Kant e Ernst Mach. O artigo finaliza com algumas considerações sobre o futuroda teorização do tipo metapsicológica, explicitando críticas feitas à metapsicologiafreudiana, tanto por filósofos quanto por psicanalistas, e apontando para a perspectiva,aberta por Donald W. Winnicott, de uma psicanálise sem metapsicologia. This article seeks to analyze the nature and function of metapsychologicaltheory in Freudian psychoanalysis. It will show that Freudian psychoanalytic theory iscomposed of an empirical part — the psychology of clinical facts — and a speculative part— metapsychology. Freud considers this latter part as being a speculative superstructure ofvalue that is only heuristic, capable of being substituted by other superstructures of thesame type. This article sustains the idea that this metapsychology is the fruit of speculativemethod, whose foundations were elaborated by philosophers and epistemologists beforeFreud, including Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach. The article concludes withconsiderations regarding the future of metapsychological theorization, presenting criticismsof Freudian metapsychology offered by both philosophers and psychoanalysts, andpointing to the open perspective of Donald W. Winnicott of a psychoanalysis without metapsychology. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche, the "Master of Suspicion". On the Nietzsche Readings of Michel Foucault and Paul Ricoeur The term "masters of suspicion", which summarizes the critical views of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, has found its way into contemporary philosophy through Paul Ricoeur and is considered his kind of "patent". It is less well known that Michel Foucault also wrote a text on the subject of "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx" in which he speaks of suspicion. The author therefore asks herself where (...) this thematic agreement comes from and undertakes a comparison of Foucault's and Ricoeur's readings of Nietzsche. In doing so, she puts forward two theses that she attempts to prove. The first thesis is that Ricoeur actually begins where Foucault left off and leads us in a direction that is opposite to that of Foucault. The second thesis is that Foucault stays closer to Nietzsche by trying to advance his "suspicion" instead of overcoming it, as Ricoeur does. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic approach to psychoanalysis stresses the interpretation of meanings revealed via the narratives woven through the discursive exchanges between analyst and analysand. Despite the tremendous influence Ricœur’s interpretation enjoyed both in philosophy and in psychoanalysis, his approach has been subject to severe criticism by Adolf Grünbaum who argues that Freud modeled psychoanalysis on the natural sciences, and therefore it should be judged according to natural scientific standards. I argue that Grünbaum incorrectly downplays the importance of speech and (...) language in psychoanalytic theory and practice, and moreover, that Ricœur’s approach offers important insights that deserve to be redeployed today. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende analisar a natureza e a função da teoria metapsicológica na psicanálise freudiana. Mostra-se que a teoria psicanalítica de Freud é composta por uma parte empírica - a sua psicologia dos fatos clínicos - e outra, especulativa - a metapsicologia. Esta última é considerada por ele uma superestrutura especulativa de valor apenas heurístico, passível de ser substituída por outras superestruturas do mesmo tipo. Sustenta-se, ainda, que sua metapsicologia é fruto do método especulativo, cujos fundamentos foram elaborados por (...) filósofos e epistemólogos anteriores a Freud, entre eles Immanuel Kant e Ernst Mach. O artigo finaliza com algumas considerações sobre o futuro da teorização do tipo metapsicológica, explicitando críticas feitas à metapsicologia freudiana, tanto por filósofos quanto por psicanalistas, e apontando para a perspectiva, aberta por Donald W. Winnicott, de uma psicanálise sem metapsicologia.This article seeks to analyze the nature and function of metapsychological theory in Freudian psychoanalysis. It will show that Freudian psychoanalytic theory is composed of an empirical part - the psychology of clinical facts - and a speculative part - metapsychology. Freud considers this latter part as being a speculative superstructure of value that is only heuristic, capable of being substituted by other superstructures of the same type. This article sustains the idea that this metapsychology is the fruit of speculative method, whose foundations were elaborated by philosophers and epistemologists before Freud, including Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach. The article concludes with considerations regarding the future of metapsychological theorization, presenting criticisms of Freudian metapsychology offered by both philosophers and psychoanalysts, and pointing to the open perspective of Donald W. Winnicott of a psychoanalysis without metapsychology. (shrink)

Com esse artigo pretendemos examinar duas posições distintas em relação ao conceito metapsicológico de pulsão e à identidade epistemológica da psicanálise. Ao investigar as bases ontológicas da metapsicologia, o filósofo Martin Heidegger encaixa a psicanálise freudiana no rol das ciências da natureza. Para Heidegger, ao usar o conceito de pulsão para descrever as nossas urgências e ímpetos, Freud estaria usando um constructo teórico carregado de uma objetividade não-humana. Ricoeur, por sua vez, advoga que o conceito de pulsão teria o (...) poder de sintetizar os elementos de força e de sentido presentes na teoria freudiana. Apesar de funcionar como uma força que faz o aparelho psíquico trabalhar, essa força pulsional nunca seria “nua”, desprovida de uma representação psíquica que lhe conferiria sentido. Por isso, o conceito de pulsão afinaria a psicanálise com a hermenêutica. Nosso objetivo consiste em analisar os fundamentos que guiam tais posições. (shrink)