man opening curtains in the morning
A few days ago I suggested that psychoanalysis poses a fundamental challenge to Epicurean and Spinozist frameworks of ethics. Some responded by pointing out that perhaps we can establish a consistency between psychoanalysis and Spinoza on the ground of inadequate ideas. The symptom, says Lacan, is a sort of unknown knowledge. As he remarks in The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, “…it is not certain that knowledge is known…” (30). The symptom expresses a knowledge that is not known. Drawing on Freud’s Studies on Hysteria, Jonathan Redmond gives a nice example of this in Ordinary Psychosis and the Body:
in…the case of Fraulein Elizabeth von R. shows how a conflict concerning the emergence of erotic ideas was pivotal in the development of conversion symptoms. In this particular case, Freud states that Elizabeth’s conversion symptom– a localized pain to her right upper thigh…
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