The Science Thing

Abstract

For the most part Lacan’s re-reading of Freud is a-historical. For the most part, Lacan, like Freud, presents us with essential, not contingent, marks of the human psyche. There are places, however, where Lacan links his psychoanalytic analyses to the specific history of the West; places where he links the dynamics of psychic development to the contingencies of Western culture. One of these places is “Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis.” Another is his 1959–1960 seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. In “Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis” Lacan tells us that in elevating the ego to the place of the subject, the West is dominated by a unique méconnaissance. In The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, he tells us that the scientific project which dominates the West is a sign of the blindest of passions — the Oedipal desire to know.¹