Lacan and Science

Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis, Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429915505
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy
• Index: Psychology

The current volume represents an exciting collection of essays critically examining the relation between modern science and Lacanian psychoanalysis in approaching the question of mental suffering. Lacan & Science also tackles more widely the role and logic of scientific practice in general, taking as its focus psychic processes. Central themes that are explored from a variety of perspectives include the use of mathematics in Lacanian psychoalanysis, the importance of linguistics and Freud's text in Lacan's approach, and the central significance attached to ethics and the role of the subject. Constituting an invaluable addition to existing literature, this comprehensive volume offers a fresh insight into Lacan's conception of the subject and its implications to scientific practice and evidence.

Chapter One
Theory and evidence in the Freudian field: from observation to structure¹

Jason Glynos

There can be little doubt that today, at the dawn of the new millennium, modern scientific discourse occupies a privileged position within the horizon of our everyday experience. It is a position it has occupied since at least the middle of the 19th century; and it would not be exaggerating too much to claim that science—both natural and social—exercises a de facto monopoly over truth in contemporary institutional and popular practices. Just think of the batteries of expert advisors installed in governments and corporations. Witness how modern advertizing relies not only on offering us ever-new products that take advantage of the latest scientific advances but also on the scientific establishment’s seal of approval, its guarantee. Science books, ranging from evolutionary biology, to genetics, to physics and mathematics, enjoy unprecedented popularity. Even those of a devout religious persuasion do not hesitate to invoke science in bolstering the credibility of claims proffered in sacred texts. The fact that we now live in a so-called risk society—wherein science no longer merely seeks to protect us from risks but becomes the very source of risks²—does not threaten its hegemonic grip. Nor do the "acronymically" designated crises implicating scientific expert knowledge directly (BSE, GMO, etc.)—crises which cannot but stoke the fires of environmentalism (‘‘ludditic’’, deep, holistic, mystical, etc.). Even if science appears to have suffered a bit in the popular imaginary, it remains the case that the very detection and regulation of risks created by new science-driven technologies relies on science itself. Institutional and popular faith in science effectively remains intact; and when it suffers set-backs, such faith is merely displaced on to the future, just as it was in the early days of 17th century scientific revolution.³ We are told that, soon, science will provide us with the necessary knowledge, procedures, and products, that will finally put an end to civilization’s discontents, satisfy our desires, and usher in an era of Hollywood happiness. Or maybe not so soon. In the meantime we are advised to take out insurance, whether private or public. In other words, natural scientists refer us to their younger siblings, the actuaries, while they concentrate on pushing back the boundaries of knowledge—a knowledge whose exponential, multidirectional, and virtually uncontrollable expansion is fast becoming a typical feature of today’s capitalist liberal democratic societies.

But contemporary modern science is not only used to blaze ahead, to make advances in knowledge and spur on technological development. The authority of science is also invoked to expose false claims to truth. Spoon-bending, telekinesis, telepathy, astrology, black magic, and creationism are well-known casualties. Now, we are repeatedly told, we can finally add psychoanalysis to this list. Of course, psychoanalysis was the subject of critique, like any newly emerging discipline, from its very inception.⁴ But science’s onslaught on psychoanalysis over the last three decades or so has been relentless.⁵ And, finding himself on the receiving end of most of these attacks, Freud has not fared well. Either Freud mistook the shadows cast by grammar as an ‘‘inner’’ unconscious (Bouveresse); or subscribed to a crypto-evolutionary biologism (Sulloway); or adopted a faulty scientific method and dubious epistemology (Popper, MacMillan, Crewes, Esterson); or compromised his intellectual integrity through a self-deluded descent into pseudoscience (Cioffi, Webster, Humphrey); or if one granted him proper scientific methodology, he lacked sufficient evidence to substantiate his hypotheses (Grunbaum); or if one excused him from recognized scientific methods by reason of the peculiarly private and non-reproducible nature of the psychoanalytic encounter his personality, for the very same reason, was not: his character became fair game (Masson, Thornton, Swales, Cioffi).

No doubt, one might be tempted to take the wind out of such critiques with the disarming admission that Freudian practice does not, and should not, pretend to be anything more than a hermeneutic exercise (Habermas, Ricoeur), or that Freud’s writings should be likened to works of literature (Phillips). This is not the path I intend to follow. But nor do I intend to offer an exhaustive, or even direct, defence of Freud’s claim to the scientificity of psychoanalysis. In any case, such defences have already been made elsewhere.⁶ Instead, I will offer a narrative outlining Jacques Lacan’s return to Freud, focusing on his views on modern science and its relation to psychoanalysis.

In this regard it is worth pointing out that, from the very start, the history of psychoanalysis has been characterized by a series of schisms that has resulted in a proliferation of schools, each claiming the title of psychoanalysis, and each claiming to have refined and developed Freud’s insights, raising them to a higher level of sophistication.⁷ Their differences often penetrate deep into their respective theoretical frameworks, affecting both their onto-epistemological presuppositions and their orientation in treatment. It follows, therefore, that it is no longer credible to critique psychoanalysis tout court. Any serious critique of psychoanalysis today must take issue with the theory offered up by a precisely specified school: what matters is the manner in which a particular school’s fidelity to the letter and spirit of Freud’s texts is exercised, and how this is brought to bear on contemporary psychoanalytic praxis.

In this vein, the purpose of the present chapter is to offer a Lacanian reading of the basic Freudian problematic surrounding unconscious processes and the birth of psychoanalysis itself. I track the development of Freud’s thought and attitude toward his field of study, showing how the specific phenomena he grappled with required the revamping of some of our most basic assumptions regarding issues of observation and, more generally, epistemology and ontology. Crucial in this regard was his move away from predominantly therapeutic considerations toward a more systematic investigation of psychoanalytic phenomena, the significance he attached to language and the concept of "false-connection," and the implications these harboured for questions of evidence and theory. This narrative will make clear why Lacan accepts the basic thrust of Freud’s innovations. He accepts, for example, Freud’s intuition regarding the importance of meaning and language in psychoanalytic discourse. Following Freud up on this intuition prompts Lacan to investigate the relevance of structural linguistics for psychoanalysis, leading him to adopt an explanatory model based on structure rather than phenomena. It is a move that will make possible his later recourse to mathematics in developing his psychoanalytic theory.

Freud's scientific attitude

Freud lived in an era that enjoyed an ambiguous relationship to science—a relationship very much shaped by the latter’s relatively short history. At the dawn of modern science in the 16th and 17th centuries, the details of the new perspectives on nature inaugurated by Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, and Newton found an audience in an elite minority and were understood by even fewer. Their ideological differences and wranglings became the talk of high-society salons, and their apparently wild ideas became a rich source of jokes and caricatures. This, however, did not hinder a growing respect for their perceived attitude toward knowledge: "Be sceptical of the written word (whether Aristotle’s or the Bible’s); rely on your own (publically confirmed) observations and reason." And though this attitude did little to dent faith in God—often surviving in the attenuated form of Deism—an equally powerful faith grew up in conjunction with this newly emerging attitude, a faith in science’s capacity to contribute to progress; more specifically, to improve our material well-being. It is this attitude and faith that spread across Europe during the latter part of the 17th century, setting the stage for what has become known as the Age of Enlightenment.

This new attitude and faith, however, did not spread beyond the echelons of the upper classes until the end of the 18th century. And when it did it was clear that the optimistic promises made on behalf of science to improve the condition of mankind were found sorely wanting. Virtually no practical consequences of basic science were visible even as late as the first third of the 19th century. Technological inventions until then were still largely the result of pragmatic innovations emerging out of immediate local demands. Early technological progress, in other words, was inspired little—if at all—by theoretical developments in the newly emerging field of modern science. This gap between promise and reality was to be the source of a new breed of discontent and ridicule aimed at the nascent scientific establishment; and it fed directly into the Romantic movement’s dissatisfaction with the coldly mechanical approach to nature that privileged reason. In its drive to understand the workings of nature, science appeared to neglect human sentiment and the importance of appreciating man’s place in nature.

The intellectual influence of the content—as opposed to the attitude—of science was finally to be seen most clearly through the impact of Darwin’s views on evolution, published in the mid-19th century. But the practical fruits of basic science were also to make themselves felt by ordinary people, even if the details of their theoretical origins were not. Electricity, telecommunication, medicine’s increased capacity to cure, chemical industry, all began to make a profound impact on the everyday lives of people. Yet this impact was ambiguous. It simultaneously renewed faith in science’s promise to improve the lot of mankind and seriously put it into question. Rapid industrialization and urbanization gave rise to new concerns, most famously voiced by Marx and Engels.

It is in this context that Freud’s own thoughts were being developed. But there can be no doubt that Freud’s view of the scientific approach was positive. The inculcation of the attitude associated with the scientific revolution over two centuries left its mark on Freud. At its most elementary, science for him entailed the investigation of an object that was systematic and evidence-based, coupled with the faith that such an object could be understood in terms of a set of laws that were in principle accessible to an enquiring mind without recourse to authoritative dogma. Freud, in other words, fully assumed a scientific attitude: he wanted to know and supposed that knowledge was there to be had.

From therapeutic treatment to scientific investigation

This scientific attitude is described very well in the survey of Freud’s early trajectory offered by Filip Geerardyn (Geerardyn, 1997a). Geerardyn demonstrates how Freud’s approach still harbours a fresh relevance in the context of today’s attitude toward hypnosis and psychotherapy.

It is an apparently curious fact that one can find today, in our late modern western society, a readiness to resort to hypnosis and psychotherapy not simply in the context of self-help, self-confidence, and self-improvement manuals (to increase one’s memory, to relax, to bolster one’s self-esteem, to become wealthier, to lose weight, etc.). One also finds hypnosis being practised within the very fortress of so-called objective medicine: the hospital (to conduct open heart surgery without anesthetic, for instance). But the fact that the mechanism of hypnosis or psychotherapy is not understood constitutes no objection when one’s aim is wholly therapeutic, entailing the eradication of illnesses that threaten our well-being. Indeed, many post-therapeutic studies (Fonagy, 1999) are optimistic about the success of psychotherapies, even if the criteria used in such studies constantly shift or are mixed (Does one simply ask the patient or the therapist for their opinion about whether the treatment was successful? Does one objectively determine whether or not the presenting symptom has reappeared within a specified time-frame ignoring the status of their relations with other people? etc.)⁸

Despite the frequent conflation of psychoanalysis with psychotherapy today, it is interesting to note how Freud’s efforts aimed to separate them right at the outset of his investigations. This becomes evident when one looks at the way Freud rearticulated the approaches of those individuals who were most influential in the development of his thought during the time he became interested in the question of hysteria.

Jean Martin Charcot, Hippolyte Bernheim, and Joseph Breuer each relied heavily upon the power of suggestion and hypnosis in the psychotherapeutic treatment of hysteria. When Freud was introduced to hysterical neurosis at Paris’s Salpêtrière in the Winter of 1885–6, he found that Charcot had established it as a subject worthy of clinical study. Charcot had invoked the term "psyche" as a theoretical category that was not only meant to account for the hysteric’s anatomico–clinical symptomatology ("clinical psychology") but also to suggest the possibility of psychical treatment (via hypnosis). Charcot’s scientific approach was aimed at systematically linking the observable symptomatology to the psyche which, in turn, he felt was reducible to biological causes (such as lesions in the brain). Freud’s brief but formative stay in Paris resulted in his translation of Charcot’s lectures (Charcot, 1991).

Freud would return to Vienna for 3 years before makin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE Theory and evidence in the Freudian field: from observation to structure
• CHAPTER TWO Psychoanalysis operates upon the subject of science: Lacan between science and ethics
• CHAPTER THREE A matter of cause: reflections on Lacan's "Science and truth"
• CHAPTER FOUR Causality in science and psychoanalysis
• CHAPTER FIVE Elements of epistemology
• CHAPTER SIX Knowledge and science: fantasies of the whole
• CHAPTER SEVEN From mathematics to psychology: Lacan's missed encounters
• CHAPTER EIGHT Postures and impostures: on Lacan's style and use of mathematical science
• CHAPTER NINE What causes structure to find a place in love?
• CHAPTER TEN A Lacanian approach to clinical diagnosis and addiction
• CHAPTER ELEVEN Lacan between cultural studies and cognitivism
• INDEX