Eros and Ethics: Reading Jacques Lacan's Seminar VII

Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature

by Marc De Kesel, Sigi Jottkandt (Translator)

In Eros and Ethics, Marc De Kesel patiently exposes the lines of thought underlying Jacques Lacan's often complex and cryptic reasoning regarding ethics and morality in his seventh seminar, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959-1960). In this seminar, Lacan arrives at a rather perplexing conclusion: that which, over the ages, has been supposed to be "the supreme good" is in fact nothing but "radical evil"; therefore, the ultimate goal of human desire is not happiness and self-realization, but destruction and death. And yet, Lacan hastens to add, the morality based on this conclusion is far from being melancholic or tragic. Rather, it results in an encouraging ethics that for the first time in history gives full moral weight to the erotic. De Kesel's close reading uncovers the real scope of Lacan's criticism regarding the moralizing ethics of our time, and is one of the rare books that gives the reader full access to the letter of the Lacanian text.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Theory

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Peter Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marc de Kesel's book on Lacan's Seminar VII is an extraordinary piece of commentary. Seminar VII, which takes as its topic "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis," is one of the crucial points in Lacan's work (along with Seminars XI, XVII, XX, and XXIII) for the way it not only rethinks the whole point of psychoanalysis - "[t]here's absolutely no reason why we should make ourselves the guarantors of the bourgeois dream," remarks Lacan in one extraordinary moment - but also for how it connects to other major thinkers on the theme of ethics. As such, Aristotle, Saint Paul, Kant, Bentham, and Sade are all engaged by Lacan in the course of this seminar.

De Kesel masterfully does a number of crucial things that make him stand out as a superb commentator. First, he provides the philosophical framework required to understand Lacan's ideas. There is an extensive breakdown, for instance, of Aristotle's ethics and their relevance to this seminar. Second, there is a (relatively) accessible discussion of Lacan's concepts and how these grow out of his readings of Freud. Thirdly, and most impressively, de Kesel shows his ability to deal with the evolution of Lacan's ideas, which are not static but change over time. There is a particularly helpful explanation of how the final session of Seminar VI begins to lay the groundwork for the ideas in Seminar VII, for instance. I also love how blunt de Kesel is in his criticism of both Jacques-Alain Miller (whose textual manipulations he repeatedly rails against) and Lacan himself (especially when it comes to questions of clarity and consistency, for Lacan often announces he will explain a particular idea, only to go off on a tangent from which he never returns).

Chapter 1 of de Kesel's book focuses on Lacan's theory of the subject. De Kesel argues that, for all Lacan's criticism of object-oriented theory, his work is marked by this approach, and that his work must be seen, in particular, as a response to the ideas of Maurice Bouvet. The chapter begins with a fairly standard overview of the Lacanian subject as emerging from the intersection of the imaginary and the symbolic. De Kesel nonetheless notices a crucial new development in the last few lessons of Seminar VI, in which Lacan posits a "residue" in the formation of the subject, a supplement that marks the intrusion of the real. It is this emergence of the real, in particular, that makes an ethics of psychoanalysis all the more urgent.

Chapter 2: Crucial Problems points out just how much of a break this new focus on ethics really is. In Seminar V, for instance, he points out that Lacan had stated the psychoanalysis was revolutionary precisely because it broke with ethical concerns. However, Lacan's initial resistance to ethics was always about a critique of the superego, whereas the ethics examined in Seminar VII is *beyond* the law, in the real. As such, psychoanalysis cannot be just another superego: it can only lead the analysand to the threshold of the real and allow desire to take its course from there.

Chapter 3: Aristotle Reconsidered locates Lacan's critique in relation to the Nicomachean Ethics. Particularly important is the modern aspect of this change, for whereas pre-modern thinkers assumed an ethical Other in the form of nature or God, the modern subject understands the world to be divorced from any such Other - i.e. natural is amoral. Also crucial to this chapter is its engagement with Bentham. Whereas Aristotle assumes that happiness is grounded in nature, Bentham locates happiness in a "fiction" - that is to say, however people choose to "narrate" their own version of happiness (regardless of whether it *actually* makes them happy). But the limitation of Bentham's formula is that it locates desire in the symbolic, not the real, and this is where Lacan draws on both Aristotle and Freud to provide a critique of utilitarianism. Lacan's insight is that people don't *actually* know what they want, and this is the limit of utilitarianism. Psychoanalysis allows the subject to discover their actual desire, as opposed to their utilitarian fantasies.

Chapter 4: An Intimately Distant "Thing" is an explanation of the infamous exploration of "The Thing" (Das Ding) in Seminar VII. Lacan tries to explain this idea as the intrusion of the real into language, but a real that is felt only by its absence. Understanding this difficult concept provides the basis for concept of sublimation.

Chapter 5: Critique of Pure Practical Reason reflects not only on Kant, but on the ethical challenge set for us by the Enlightenment. The modern subject is free from the tyranny of the Other (God, the law, etc.), but the new dilemma that arises is what can now give moral weight to ethics? Lacan looks at how Kant's practical philosophy is a symbolic (and ultimately doomed) defense against the threat of The Thing - that is, against the unbridled enjoyment of whatever we like.

Chapter 6: The Weight of Enjoyment shows that the anarchy of enjoyment occupies an ambivalent place. On the one hand, humans naturally have the fantasy of an orgy of enjoyment, but on the other hand, such abandonment of ourselves to desire would ultimately be extremely destructive. Paradoxically, then, we have a tendency to fantasize about our own enjoyment, even self-destruction. Unleashing The Thing was the central fantasy of Sadean fiction, and yet Lacan shows how this attempt was doomed to remain trapped within the symbolic. In a scenario rather like the sorceror's apprentice, Sade's heroes repeatedly defy nature, but they find that the ultimate gesture of denial is impossible, beyond their reach. There is always one more defilement, one more thing to smash, just as Sade's novel similarly seem to drag on without end or resolution. In this long chapter, de Kesel connects with the problem of the neighbor, and how and ethics of the good and enjoyment are incompatible. The ultimate Lacanian conclusion is that, despite our fantasy of unleashing pure, anarchic enjoyment (The Thing), the reality is that, ethically, we are looking for a place of shelter from such a demand, and that this is precisely what psychoanalysis aims to provide.

Chapter 7: Sublimation is probably the highlight of the book. De Kesel brilliantly shows how Lacan critiques Freud's notion of sublimation, which posits that one desire can be satisfied by an act of substitution that allows its energy to be released in a non-negative way - sports, for instance, can be a substitute for war, in the famous example from Civilization and its Discontents. Lacan, by contrast, conceives of sublimation as the process of turning a signifier into something that makes "The Thing" visible. This inevitably takes place by a process of concealment whereby the subject sees only the outside of an Other, arousing a curiosity that (wrongly) imagines that something important/valuable/enjoyable is concealed in the Other. This dynamic is the kernel of analyst/analysand relationship: the analyst reveals nothing about themselves, and even though their "secret" is an entirely empty one, it nonetheless causes the analysand to sublimate their desire onto the analyst. What is she hiding? What does she know? What is the secret of her enjoyment? The analyst thus creates a *simulation* of the emptiness of the The Thing, the real, and it is in this way that the true desire of the analysand reveals itself.

Chapter 8: Radiant Antigone then analyzes Sophocles's play. Antigone is not held up as a direct example, argues de Kesel, but rather she reveals the structure of law and desire. I am still rather uncertain as to the purpose of the beautiful in her case - supposedly this is a kind of ethical "trial run" that shows how sublimation works as an illusion, revealing that desire is not really connected to the good, but I am not entirely convinced by this reading.

Chapter 9: Ethics of Psychoanalysis comments on how Lacan - again in implicit relation to Bouvet - focuses on the desire of the *analyst*, a strategy that is unusual for his time (and prefigures what is to come in Seminar XI). Particularly important in this chapter is the fact that, for psychoanalysis to remain ethical, it must always place itself in the field of the object, of the Other. It can only lure the analysand to engage with it on these terms. As soon as it makes itself into the subject as Other, it becomes the law, a superego that commands without leaving any space for ethical choice.

I have read a number of other commentaries on Lacan's seminars, but this one stands out as one of the very best, both for its thoroughness and insight. De Kesel does an extraordinary job of unraveling the complex ideas that make up Seminar VII, which is such a crucial turning-point in Lacan's work, and makes them understandable for readers of all levels.

[Goatboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much like Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow, I found De Kesel's detailed examination of Lacan's 7th seminar, Ethics of Psychoanalysis, to be essential in further understanding the original text. Although De Kesel sometimes can be equally confusing in parts, I certainly felt like I was gaining a deeper understanding of Lacan's concepts and arguments as I re-tread the ground with De Kesel as guide. By the time I got to De Kesel's review of the Antigone lessons I felt dialed in, and with the addition of the last Ethics chapter, felt like I had a much firmer grasp on Lacan's motive's and goals for this seminar. Lacan himself is never entirely clear what exactly he means by "the ethics of psychoanalysis" and what his main goals are in using ethics as the center for that year's seminar. But now, after reading both the seminar itself and De Kesel's in depth review of it, I feel that what Lacan presents is a clear-sighted and tragic account of what it means to be a conscious human with conflicting gravitational waves of almost-unknowable Desire, uncontrollable attempts at meaning and what it means to be or acquire "Good" in life, the utter destructiveness of Desire's true target and realm, and the very Real absence/lack/cut/extimate source of these drives that forms the black hole around which our essential structure endlessly circles.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incorrigible amateur that I am, I won’t be able to repress the subjective saga of reading “Eros and Ethics” from any putatively objective review of the content. This is a disclaimer of bias, which I will explain and in the process hopefully demonstrate that it is not so irrelevant to the subject of the review after all. The irony is that, after preparing myself with the other Seminars and Ecrits, “The Ethics of Psychoanalysis” itself seemed to me fairly unproblematic, whereas I have wrestled with De Kesel’s book for weeks now, for reasons I will clarify.

After an edifying and formative session with Zupancic a while back, I discovered that De Kesel had written a polemical-sounding rebuttal, which immediately provoked my small-minded clannish ire that he would disrespect my homegirl. But upon reading the article, it proved to be anything but polemical. In fact, De Kesel did not directly engage Zupancic’s work (or, following guilt-by-association, Zizek’s) beyond the rejection of the phrase “ethics of the real” and the claim that it was dangerously misleading. Discovering that De Kesel is professionally affiliated with religious studies and institutions further inflamed my suspicions that, to halt the insidious spread of the Lacanian Left, he was deploying a crypto-conservative “strategy of containment.” The trope comes from Fredric Jameson, who defines it as “a substitution designed to arrest the movement of ideological analysis before it can begin to draw in the social, historical, and political parameters that are the ultimate horizon of every cultural artifact.”

De Kesel’s essay was reworked several times and I read all the versions I could find, vainly expecting he would go into more detail. (In preparing for this hack-job of a review, I have learned that De Kesel has since engaged with Zizek’s work at length; a cursory glance leads me to surmise that the general outlook is unfavorable.) Eventually, I found what I consider to be the final form in the collection “Unconscious Incarnations.” Lo and behold, Mari Ruti’s responding essay had already done the critical work for me, but I am somewhat glad that knowledge arrived too late and I was left to work with and through my ignorance. (Ruti’s response is not online but I can send it to you.)

My intent was to unearth the source of De Kesel’s error, for I had predetermined that error there would be and that I could sniff it out. However, the intertextual territory is not so neatly mapped: drawing boundaries and taking sides implies a “sublime” detachment, a perch from which it’s all too obvious where one went astray. The Ideal process would then be to enter De Kesel’s text equipped with the True Understanding of Z&Z (and Lacan!) and simply follow the compass until I found the fork where he got lost. An incredible skein of presuppositions, it is no surprise that nothing of the sort happened. It’s a fatiguing and cumbersome position to maintain towards a text, suspecting every moment that one is being hoodwinked. In a charming dialectical reversal, the paranoid skepticism with which I parsed every page ought not be something specific to this book but is in fact something I should practice more often.

To my utmost consternation, I have yet to pinpoint the exact issue on which the dispute pivots and have concluded that it is an irremediable muddle of misreadings: mine of De Kesel’s as well as his of Z&Z’s. But I think Ruti got closest when she asserted that it hinges on the divergence between Lacan as analyst and Lacan’s works taken as politico-philosophical fodder, or more concisely, between the clinical and cultural Lacans. She also finds in De Kesel’s work a strenuous effort to keep the registers of the Real and the Symbolic too rigidly apart and opposed, whereas it is their mutual determinations which interest the Slovenes. As if this wasn’t already too much, Zizek himself says that Lacanian ethics is an “ethics of desire” in the Foreword to “Ethics of the Real,” and De Kesel repeatedly (and correctly) emphasizes how “desire stands open toward the real” and that “the subversiveness of an ethics of psychoanalysis is due to its anchoring in the real.”

Finally, the well-deserved compliments paid this book by Goatboy and Peter (the other two reviewers), whose acumen I admire and judgements I respect, instilled a nagging sense that through my provincial “hermeneutic of suspicion” I was making an ass of myself, which I appear to be doubling down on now.

Despite this embattled context, the endeavor to meet De Kesel’s work on its own terms and merits was something of a qualified failure. Though I have exhausted the embarrassing and evidently insurmountable prejudices I brought to the work, a few qualms come from the text itself. Early on, awkward phrases such as “death principle,” “pleasure subject,” and especially “miscognition” made me think the translation had been entrusted to a non-specialist. I regret to say that on page 181, this became glaringly certain during the discussion of the vase as an instance of sublimation; in De Kesel’s commentary, the “vase” was inexcusably translated over and over as “jar.” My guess is that the translator did not even bother to read the Seminar on which De Kesel’s work was based.

De Kesel himself ran afoul of one of my doctrinal crotchets, something I made mine once it was brought to my attention. The source (the credentialed subject supposed to know) eludes me, but rest assured that if this is merely a dilettantish raving, it is not mine alone. In the old academic standoff between (French) poststructuralism and (Germanic) Marxoid critical theory, the latter almost unanimously scapegoated Lacan as the pied piper of “sliding signifiers,” bringing doubt and confusion to the orderly realms of the human sciences. Lacan, with his dissolution of reality in the acid bath of baseless language, embodied the boogeyman of postmodernism, come to chew gum and make everything mean nothing, and he was all out of gum. Problem is, this invasive species of “sliding signifiers” is not Lacan’s! What he says, in brief, is that the signified—and the subject—slide under the signifier. Furthermore, the process of metonymic displacement is unthinkable without metaphoric condensation. The genuinely Lacanian interest in the signifying chain is not how meaning is impossible or infinitely deferred (this is more properly Derridean) but in the point de capiton, the production of a new master signifier, the quintessential subjective intervention that halts the sliding with the meaningful cut of the Event into the indifferent void of Being. Needless to say, De Kesel repeats the catchphrase time and again as if it is a Lacanian tenet. It is not.

My resistances wore down the more I read; by the end I was happy to be reading with the grain. Although I think the opening maneuver—which tacitly applies the Lacanian slogan “You are the one you hate” to Lacan himself with regard to object relations—is too clever by half, I can unreservedly say that the chapters on The Weight of Enjoyment and on Sublimation are some of the best in the secondary literature I have read. Whether his advocacy of an “ethics of distance” based on the profligate “superficiality of the signifier” is more true to Lacan, or whether it is a reactionary plea for a little clinical decorum amidst the heedless explosion of radical theory, I still can’t say. But he and his self-declared adversaries seemed to say the same or similar things often enough that the dissonance sounds like one of timing and accent rather an incommensurable cacophony.

Up next: Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation and Antigone, in Her Unbearable Splendor: New Essays on Jacques Lacan's the Ethics of Psychoanalysis.

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an excellent explication of Lacan’s Seminar VII. I was mostly following along Lacan’s Ethics seminar but, as with all of Lacan’s lectures, there is just too much missing context and since Miller insists on producing terrible editions of these seminars, it’s necessary for someone like De Kesel to not only explain but also contextualize the stakes of each work. De Kesel also usually shows key moments in which Miller completely bastardizes what Lacan literally says by making reference to the transcripts. I’ll likely reread each chapter again while finishing Seminar VII.