Description
Book SynopsisThe Neo-Kantian philosopher Cassirer and the psychoanalyst Lacan are two key figures in the so-called medial turn in philosophy: the notion that any form of access to reality is mediated by symbols (images, words, signifiers). This explains why the theories of both philosophers merit a description in their own unique idioms, as well as having their respective basic tenets compared. It will be argued that, rather surprisingly, these tenets turn out be complementary - actually correcting each other – based on their shared notion of man as an animal symbolicum. Its fruitfulness will be substantiated for a limited number of topics within the humanities: perception, language, politics and ethics, and mental disorder, all to be considered from this perspective.
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 An Outline of the Human Condition 1.1 Three Levels of the Human Condition: From Intentionality to Structure 1.2 Three Types of Hermeneutics: From Signification to Signifier 1.3 Three Levels of the Human Condition Revisited 1.4 Application in Psychopathology 1.5An Inquiry into Possibility: The Capacity to Symbolise 2 Cassirer 2.1 A Return to Kant 2.2 Cassirer’s Ambition 2.3 Cassirer and Heidegger 2.4 The Mind and Critical Idealism 2.5 The Concept of a Symbolic Form 2.6 Myth and Religion, Language, Science 2.7 Symbolisation: Three Sources and Three Modes 2.8 A Symbolic Form in the Making? 3 Lacan 3.1 A Return to Freud 3.2 The Autonomy of the Symbolic Order 3.3 The Dialectics of Desire 3.4 Differential Character of the Language Sign 3.5 Symbolic Identification 3.6 The Real: Three Domains, Three Forms 3.7 The Later Lacan 3.8 Joyce and Lacan 3.9 Substance or Function 3.10 Lacan and Cassirer Juxtaposed 3.11 Lacan and Cassirer Put into a Mutual Relationship 4 Variations on the Theme of Symbolisation 4.1 The Human Condition and the Symbolic Function 4.2 The Medial Turn and Its Philosophy 4.3 Symbolisation in Perception 4.4 Homo Symbolicus: An Evolutionary Perspective 4.5 The Symbolic Order from A Normative Perspective: Politics, Law, Ethics 4.6 Shades of Symbolisation: The Psychic Disorder 4.7 One and the Same Theme? Bibliography Annex: Diagram of the Symbolising Process Index of Names Index of Subjects
