PHIL 590 – Special topics in philosophy Tuesdays 2:35-5:25 p.m. LEA 927

Instructors: Dr. Erica Harris ([email protected]) Office hours: LEA 923, Wed 3:00-4:00 p.m. (or by appointment) Prof. Philip Buckley ([email protected]) Office hours: LEA 929 Tues & Thurs 4-5:30 p.m.

Course topic

Anxiety in phenomenology and psychoanalysis

In the 1980s, post-modern philosophers like Deleuze and Guattari championed a turn away from phenomenology, arguing that it was “too tender” to be able to account for experiences of irreducible tension. Phenomenology was ‘tender’, in their view, for several reasons: a) because it defends the claim that it is possible for consciousness to be totally transparent to itself; b) because it claims that the subject ‘constitutes’ the world and that, therefore, the world is geared towards the subject and his/her projects. Deleuze’s anti-phenomenological arguments were built upon similar, underdeveloped, claims within psychoanalysis that phenomenology could not account for unconscious phenomena. In the 1960s, Lacan, for example, critiqued Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Heidegger for being unable to properly account for experiences of anxiety.

In this seminar, we will compare and contrast psychoanalytic and phenomenological accounts of anxiety in order to determine whether or not phenomenology is, in fact, unable to account for experiences of tension, paradox, and loss of meaning. Students will be introduced to key psychoanalytic concepts through the works of Freud and Lacan on anxiety and will also read the works of Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty on anxiety and what might cause it.

Prerequisites

Given the advanced level of the seminar, students are expected to have a fairly good basic knowledge of phenomenology as a method and be familiar with its core concepts.

PHIL 474 or 475 (or equivalent).

Evaluation

Students will be graded on participation in the seminar, an oral presentation, and a final paper.

Participation and attendance (20%) Students are expected to regularly attend and actively participate in seminars by asking questions and engaging in discussion with their peers. Students are permitted to only miss one seminar. If a student misses more than one seminar without written excuse (doctor’s note), s/he will not receive a grade for the class.

Presentation (30%) Each student is expected to prepare and give one 5-10 minute presentation in the seminar. Presentations should be critical rather than exegetical. Students will be expected to identify a difficult/salient passage in the reading for their assigned week (approx. 1 paragraph in length), read the passage aloud, and explain why their chosen passage is relevant/problematic in light of the text (and seminar) as a whole.

Final paper (50%) The bulk of the grade for the seminar is a paper to be handed in one week after the end of the semester (exact date TBA). Students will write on a topic of their own choosing within the framework of the seminar (i.e. it must address the issue of anxiety in psychoanalysis and phenomenology). Students are encouraged to discuss their proposed topic with one of the professors of the course before they start writing.

Papers should be approximately 20 pages in length (give or take 1.5 pages), double spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font. Students are expected to be critical/argumentative in their work (i.e. pure exegesis is insufficient). They are also expected to engage with secondary literature on their chosen topic (the bibliography should contain at least 6 references).

Late policy Late papers will be penalized by a half-grade per day that the paper is late. In the event of an emergency, students may contact the instructor and obtain permission to submit their papers late as long as they can provide a doctor’s note or other official written excuse.

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (for more information see: www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/).

In accordance with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit all written work in English or in French.

Required texts

The required readings for this course will be available in a course pack at the McGill bookstore at the beginning of the semester.

Reading Schedule

Part 1: Psychoanalytic vs. phenomenological notions of anxiety

Week 1 (Sept 8) Freud, Sigmund. "Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1926. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 20. London: Vintage, 2001. 87-123. Week 2 (Sept 15) Freud, Sigmund. "Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1926. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 20. London: Vintage, 2001. 124-156. Week 3 (Sept 22) Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety. Trans. Price, A. R. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Vol. X. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. 1-15. Week 4 (Sept 29) Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety. Trans. Price, A. R. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Vol. X. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. 29-42 Week 5 (Oct 6) Freud, Sigmund. "The Uncanny." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1919. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 17. London: Vintage, 2001. 217-56. Week 6 (Oct 13) Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety. Trans. Price, A. R. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Vol. X. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. 43-54. Week 7 (Oct 20) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. Robinson, John Macquarrie and Edward. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. §39-40. 225-235. Sartre, Jean-Paul, and Lloyd Alexander. Nausea. New York: New Directions Publishing Corp., 1964. 126-135.

Part 2: The gaze as object of anxiety

Week 8 (Oct 27) Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Sheridan, Alan. London: Penguin, 1994. 67-90. Week 9 (Nov 3) Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Sheridan, Alan. London: Penguin, 1994. 90-119. Week 10 (Nov 10) Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Barnes, Hazel E. London: Routledge, 2003. 276-306. Week 11(Nov 17) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Trans. Lingis, Alphonso. Studies in Phenomenology. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1968. 3-49. Week 12 (Nov 24) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Trans. Lingis, Alphonso. Studies in Phenomenology. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1968. 130-155. Week 13 (Dec 1) Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. What Is Philosophy? Trans. Burchell, Hugh Tomlinson and Graham. European Perspectives. Ed. Kritzman, Lawrence D. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 163-199.

Additional reading

Ayouch, Thamy. Maurice Merleau-Ponty Et La Psychanalyse: La Consonance Imparfaite. Lormont: Le bord de l'eau, 2012. Baltrusaitis, Jurgis. Anamorphoses. Les Perspectives Dépravés. Vol. 2. Paris: Flammarion, 1996. Barthes, Roland. La Chambre Claire. Paris: Gallimard, Editions de l'etoile, 1980. Bernet, Rudolf. "Gaze, Drive and Body in Lacan and Merleau-Ponty." Trans. Bernet, Paul Crowe and Rudolf. Psychosis: Phenomenological and Psychoanalytical Approaches. Ed. Moyaert, Jozef Corvelyn and Paul. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2003. 89-103. Binswanger, Ludwig. Being-in-the-World; Selected Papers of Ludwig Binswanger. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Breuer, Joseph, and Sigmund Freud. Studies on Hysteria. Trans. Strachey, James and Alex. London: Penguin, 1955. Caillois, Roger. "Méduse Et Compagnie." Roger Caillois: Oeuvres. Paris: Gallimard, 2008. 479-558. Casey, Edward S. "The Unconscious Mind and the Prereflective Body." Merleau-Ponty and Exteriority, Psychic Life and World. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. 47-56. Cléro, Jean-Pierre. Lacan: Y a-T-Il Une Philosophie De Lacan? Paris: Ellipses Éditions, 2006. de Saussure, Ferdinand. Cours De Linguistique Générale. Vol. Gallimard: Paris, 2005. Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique De La Sensation. Paris: Seuil, 2002. Descartes, René. "Optics." Trans. Olscamp, Paul J. Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meterology. Cambridge: Hackett, 2001. 65-173. Duportail, Félix. "Le Chiasme D'une Amitié: Lacan Et Merleau-Ponty." Chiasmi International. Vol. VI. Paris: Vrin, 2005. Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995. Freud, Sigmund. "Analysis Terminable and Interminable." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1937. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 23. London: Vintage, 2001. 209-54. Freud, Sigmund. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1920. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 18. London: Vintage, 2001. 7-64. Freud, Sigmund. "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality." Trans. Strachey, James. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 1905. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 7. London: Vintage, 2001. 125-245. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. Robinson, John Macquarrie and Edward. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Heidegger, Martin. "The Origin of the Work of Art." Trans. Hofstadter, Albert. Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings. Ed. Krell, David Farrell. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. 143-206. Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy Book 2: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution Trans. Rojcewicz, Richard and André Schuwer. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993. Husserl, Edmund. The Idea of Phenomenology. Trans. Nakhnikian, William P. Alston and George. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964. Jaspers, Karl. General Psychopathology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Dread. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. Lacan, Jacques. "Merleau-Ponty." Les temps modernes.184-185 (1961): 245-54. Lacan, Jacques. "Le Stade Du Miroir Comme Formateur Du Je." Écrits. Vol. 1. Paris: Seuil, 1966. Laplanche, Jean. Vie Et Mort En Psychanalyse. Paris: PUF, 1970. Leader, Darian. Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing. London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2002. Leguil, Clotilde. Sartre Avec Lacan. Paris: Navarin/Le champ freudien, 2012. Lévi-Strauss. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Schoepf, Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "Cézanne's Doubt." Trans. Dreyfus, Hubert L. Dreyfus; Patricia Allen. Sense and Non-Sense. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern UP, 1964. 9-25. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "Eye and Mind." Trans. Smith, Michael B. The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting. Ed. Johnson, Galen A. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1993. 121-49. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Smith, Colin. London: Routledge, 2005. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "The Philosopher and His Shadow." Trans. McCleary, Richard C. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1864. 159-81. Minkowski, E. Lived Time : Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970. Morris, David. "The Enigma of Reversibility and the Genesis of Sense in Merleau-Ponty." Continental Philosophical Review.43 (2010): 141-65. Pontalis, J. B. "The Problem of the Unconscious in Merleau-Ponty's Thought." Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry 18 (1983): 83-96. Shepherdson, Charles. "A Pound of Flesh: Lacan's Reading of the Visible and the Invisible." Diacritics 27 (1997): 70-86. Trigg, Dyan. The Thing: A Phenomenology of Horror. Washington, USA: Zero books, 2013.

Žižek, Slavoj. How to Read Lacan. London: Granta Books, 2006.