Suchergebnisse

This paper explores some of the crucial ontological implications of the
psychoanalytic theory of sexuality in its Freudo-Lacanian orientation. As
irreducible to different sexual practices and contents, the concept of
sexuality obtains conceptual weight that makes it particularly relevant for
philosophical ontological thinking. Starting from the hypothesis that
something about sexuality is constitutively unconscious - that is to say,
existing only in the form of the unconscious - the paper points at the
singular short-circuit of the epistemological and ontological level which is
at work in psychoanalytic theory, and which cannot be neglected in
philosophical examination of the relation between knowledge and being.

The strengths & weaknesses of conceiving ideology as ideology of the obvious are discussed. Following the analysis of Louis Althusser, the notion of obvious conceals the point at which an ideology is the most vulnerable. Althusser views ideology as discourse & his theory of ideology oscillates between irreductibility of ideology & epistemological cut -- the separation of what is within & what is beyond ideology. At this point, Althusser's theory of ideology faces serious difficulties, but they can be alleviated through Jacques Lacan's theory of four discourses. Adapted from the source document.