Abstract
In the 1990s, Dylan Evans was a rising star in the Lacanian world, but in his essay ‘From Lacan to Darwin’ (2005) he definitively turned his back on psychoanalysis in favor of evolutionary psychology. This chapter looks at this decision in the context of Evans’s history of dealing with authority in his life, from his youthful enthusiasm for religion, his interest in Lacan, and his creation of a survivalist camp in Scotland. In each case, Evans sets out to be rigorously scientific, but his rational vision is ultimately corrupted by the (unacknowledged) lure of power. Reading Evans’s texts alongside Lacan’s critique of scientific objectivity—what he calls the ‘university discourse’—shows how, at the heart of Evans’s rejection of Lacan as a charlatan, is an unresolved issue with authority that remains even after his break with psychoanalysis.
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Mathews, P.D. (2020). Lacan the Scientific Charlatan. In: Lacan the Charlatan. The Palgrave Lacan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45204-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45204-9_4
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