Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory

The essays brought together in this volume are written from the dual perspectives of philosophy and psychoanalytic theory. Sometimes more weight is given to the one perspective than to the other and vice versa, but always with the conviction that the rational, argumentative and hermeneutic-interpretive approach of philosophy requires the sobering influence of psychoanalytic theorys conception of the human being as a split subject, prone to the laws of the unconscious, no less than to those of reason. Topics range from the question concerning the relation between discourse, evil and the agency of the subject to that of the non-relativistic ethical positioning of the psychotherapist; from the problem of overcoming relativism by way of a poststructuralist understanding of language to that of a cogent (Derridean) philosophical response to global terrorism; and from a Lacanian understanding of narrative identity, of human knowledge as paranoiac, and of trauma literature to a Kristevan perspective on nature as abject in the light of the degradation of ecosystems globally.