Full Description
'I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' we say in a court of law. 'In a court of law, the truth is precisely what we will not say', says Lacan. 'If God is dead, everything is permitted', writes Dostoyevsky. 'If God is dead, everything is prohibited', responds Lacan. 'I think, therefore I am', reasons Descartes. 'I am where I do not think', concludes Lacan. What are we to make of Lacan's inversions of these mottos? And what are the implications for the legal system if we take them seriously? This book puts the legal subject on the couch and explores the incestuous relationship between law and desire, enjoyment and transgression, freedom and subjection, ethics and atheism. The process of analysis problematizes fundamental tenets of the legal system, leading the patient to rethink long-held beliefs: terms like 'guilt' and 'innocence', 'truth' and 'lies', 'reason' and 'reality', 'freedom' and 'responsibility', 'cause' and 'punishment', acquire new and surprising meanings. By the end of these sessions, the patient is left wondering, along with Freud her analyst, whether 'it is not psychology that deserves the mockery but the procedure of judicial enquiry'.
A unique study on the nexus of Law and Psychoanalysis, this book will interest students and scholars of both subjects, as well as general readers looking to explore this perverse and fascinating relationship.
Contents
Chapter 1: The Unconscious Is Out There, Chapter 2: In The Beginning Was Lack 1. The Demand For More 2. The Half-Hearted Murder 3. The Morning After 4. Enjoyment and Its Discontents 5. The Promise of Less, Chapter 3: The Hole In The Subject 1. Losing an Object, Becoming a Subject 2. The Aborted Animal 3. Cut by the Word 4. Language, Truth and Lies 5. The Phallacy of the Phallus 6. Second Hand Desires 7. The Hole in Seeing 8. The Hole in Desire 9. The Hole in Transgression 10. The Hole in Sacrifice 11. The Hole in Enjoyment Chapter 4: The Hole In The Big Other 1. The Hole in Reality 2. The Hole in Society 3. The Hole in Prohibition 4. The Hole in Reason 5. The Perverse Core of Law 6. The Hole in Form 7. The Hole in Law 8. The Hole in Bureaucracy, Chapter 5: Placebos 1. In Place of the Object 2. In Place Of The Subject 3. Law as a Defense 4. Law Between Pleasure and Jouissance 5. The Master 6. The Cult of Humanity 7. The Neighbor 8. Self-rule 9. Work, Shopping, Sex 10. Love 11. Poetry 12. Democracy, Chapter 6: Atheism 1. The Empty Place 2. From the Big to the Impotent Other 3. Big Other Doesn't Know He's Dead 4. From the Master to the Analyst 5. Knowing How Not to Know 6. From Morality to Ethics 7. From Lack to the Act 8. The Royal Road to Truth 9. Anxiety and Illegality 10. Losing the Belief, and the Disbelief Chapter 7: Postscript Notes
