Wolf, Bogdan (1998) Psychographies : specularity and death in psychoanalysis. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis discusses the relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis. It takes the
work of Freud and Lacan as a primary reference, and implements it in the reading of the texts of
Nictzsche, Heidegger and Blanchot among others. The relationship is pursued along the lines of the
problems originally posed by the philosophical writers and concerning the theme of subjectivity,
idcntification, image fonnation and loss in order to punctuate the difficulties and aporias as
articulatcd in and by the psychoanalytical questioning. The discussion aims therefore to demonstrate
how the problems raised by philosophy can, but also should, be addressed by the psychoanalytical
theory, and to what extent the former mishit, in the very way in which they are raised, by virtue of
ignoring the discussion of the "fundamentals" of psychoanalysis, namely the status of the
unconscious, the subject and the object in the human discourse. My strategy to address the
philosophical readings begins in each part of this work with an analysis of the psychoanal)1ical text
followed by the effects and implications, as they are imposed on the reading of philosophy/literature.
This lack or insufficiency, as emerging in such an encounter, and operative in such a
problematization, is thus given a certain psychographic attention which does not merely represent a
psychoanalytical 'viewpoint' but rather involves a shift in the strategy itself. This shift questions the
status of the subject in the production of discourse, while deploying the subject as a lack in such a
questioning, and its relation to the real (object). It is in accordance with such an approach that I have
divided this work into two parts, each attempting to address in the way described above the following
issues. On the one hand, the analysis revolves around the problems of narcissism, specularity, image,
ego and 'I' formation, and the symptom, and in this respect discusses the texts of Freud, Lacan, Rank
and Nietzsche. On the other hand. it touches upon the work of "sad passions" or passions of death as
operative in the production of the letter, and apparent in what could be called fictional theorisations in
the texts of N. Abraham, Torok, Blanchot and Heidegger. Such tactics, again, take us beyond the
meaning caught in the real, towards the way in which the problems of philosophy can be, again, taken
up by psychoanalysis. To this extent, the second part has been devoted to the discussion and analysis
of melancholia, mourning, loss, voice and guilt.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Psychoanalysis and philosophy
Official Date:	September 1998
Dates:	Date Event September 1998 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Philosophy
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Extent:	217 p.
Language:	eng

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