The Law of Desire

The Palgrave Lacan Series Series Editors Calum Neill School of Psychology and Sociology Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh, United Kingdom Derek Hook Duquesne University Pittsburgh, USA Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacan’s thought arguably only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a new generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original monographs and the- matic, multi-authored collections. The books in the series will explore aspects of Lacan’s theory from new perspectives and with original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Lacanian theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society, politics, the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular concern, will work to expand our understand- ing of Lacan’stheoryanditsvalueinthe21stcentury. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15116 Dany Nobus The Law of Desire On Lacan’s ‘Kant with Sade’ Dany Nobus Department of Psychology Brunel University London Uxbridge, United Kingdom The Palgrave Lacan Series ISBN 978-3-319-55274-3 ISBN 978-3-319-55275-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55275-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943380 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © Robert Mora / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For NP Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν Acknowledgements Although I never confessed to it through the holy Sacrament of Penance when I was a pupil at an established Roman Catholic boys’ school in Belgium, my interest in Sade’s libertine novels dates back to my teenage years. At that time, the books could only be obtained from libraries if one had received special permission from a head librarian, because they had been dutifully consigned to a closed section that was commonly known as ‘book-hell’, and in good Lacanian fashion, the fact that a strict prohibition rested upon these volumes hugely inflamed my desire to read them. The story of how and when I eventually worked my way through Sade’s eroto-philosophical texts will not be of interest to any- one, but when during my mid-20s I had to choose a topic for a Master’s dissertation in psychoanalysis, I was involuntarily drawn to Lacan’s ‘Kant avec Sade’, which at the time I found both fascinating and intimidating, although for different reasons than Sade’s own works. The project was eventually published in two parts, in two consecutive issues of the Belgian journal ‘Psychoanalytische Perspektieven’: D. Nobus, ‘Moeten Wij Sade Herdenken? I. Aan gene zijde van verguizing en vergoddelijking’, Psychoanalytische Perspektieven, 1993, 21, pp. 63–93; D. Nobus, ‘Moeten Wij Sade Herdenken? II. De psychoanalyse voor het Sadiaanse universum’, Psychoanalytische Perspektieven, 1994, 22, pp. 101–132. Although none of the texts in this book is directly based upon these papers, I should nonetheless acknowledge those people who vii viii Acknowledgements supported the project at the time, and who regularly entered into Sadean and other discussions with me about one or the other aspect of Lacan’s text: Julien Quackelbeen, who sadly passed away in 2016, Paul Verhaeghe, Filip Geerardyn and Katrien Libbrecht. Almost 20 years after this youthful endeavour to shed some light on ‘Kant with Sade’, I was invited by Stijn Vanheule, Derek Hook and Calum Neill to write a detailed commentary on an essay in Lacan’s Écrits for their three-volume Reader’sGuideto the book. ‘Kant with Sade’ was not my only choice, and it definitely was not my first, but in the end this is the essay I ended up being asked to unpack and clarify. With hindsight, it would be disingenuous to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the task, and that I am exceptionally grateful to the editors of this Reader’sGuidefor assigning it to me. Yet as my work, and the associated feelings of intellectual and emo- tional torment, progressed, what started off as a commentary grew into a more substantial piece of work, which eventually crystallized into this book. As such, Volume 3 of the Reader’s Guide to Écrits will include a more succinct version of it, without the background information to Lacan’s text, without the examples taken from Sade’s works, and without the detailed elaborations and the scholarly apparatus in the notes. As I was working on this project, outlines of its argument were presented at the following institutions, whose hosts are thanked for their invitations, and especially for giving me the opportunity to respond to questions and suggestions from the audience, which has allowed me to sharpen the text in various places: Das Unbehagen—A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, at the New School University in New York, NY; the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in San Francisco, CA; the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research in London. I would also like to thank Nektaria Pouli, Stijn Vanheule, Junior Ingouf, Calum Neil, Derek Hook, Benjamin Ware, and an additional anonymous reader, for scrutinizing the entire manuscript and for making numerous suggestions for improvement. I am also grateful to Élisabeth Roudinesco for confirming certain aspects of the historical context of Lacan’s article. Finally, a special word of thanks should go to Bruce Fink, who also read through a complete draft of the manuscript, and whose comments on my interpretations of ‘Kant with Sade’ were invariably insightful and always constructive, despite my occasional criticism of his seminal translation of Lacan’stext. Contents Introduction xiii 1 A New Ethical System 1 2 Lacan Reads Kant 9 3 Sade’s Kantian Maxim 17 4 Regarding the Pain of Others 29 5 Ineluctable Libertine Pleasures 37 6 The Sadean Fantasy 47 7 Surely, It Is Just a Fantasy! 65 8 Sade’s Practical Reason 73 9 The Law Sustains Desire 87 10 Sade Against Kant 99 ix x Contents 11 The Moral Principle of Desire 107 12 Desire and Happiness 113 13 Lacan Against Sade 123 14 Some More Effort ... 131 Conclusion 141 Bibliography 149 Index 167 List of Figures Fig. 6.1 The Sadean fantasy 49 Fig. 8.1 Sade’s practical reason 74 xi Introduction Of the 28 substantial papers and six shorter contributions that make up Jacques Lacan’s Écrits, the piece entitled ‘Kant avec Sade’ (‘Kant with Sade’) is generally regarded as one of the toughest nuts to crack, and this opinion is shared by some of the most eminent and knowledgeable commentators on Lacan’s work. Addressing an audience in Rio de Janeiro in 1985, Lacan’s son-in-law and literary executor Jacques-Alain Miller referred to the paper as ‘adifficult text’ and ‘an écrit that has not been utilized very much’, insinuating that the first characteristic may very well be responsible for the second (Miller, 1998, p. 201).1 Four years later, at a conference at Kent State University in Ohio, Miller confirmed this observation—despite, or perhaps by virtue of his having studied and discussed the paper painstakingly for almost five years at his seminars in Paris—thus making the initial verdict next to official: ‘Jacques Lacan’s “Kant with Sade” is probably one of the most difficult texts in the Écrits’ (Miller, 1996, p. 212). The qualification of ‘difficult’ would probably not be very significant in this context, if the other texts in Écrits were an easy read, but since the others are already widely considered to be distinctly cryptic the word ‘difficult’ could only be synonymous here with ‘inaccessible’ or ‘impenetrable’. Remarkably, this 1 Unless otherwise noted, all translations from foreign-language sources are my own. xiii xiv Introduction qualification would not be too far removed from how Lacan himself put it to an Italian journalist in October 1974: as to ‘Kant with Sade’, ‘Iam incomprehensible’ (Lacan, 2013a, p. 83). Without wanting to reflect, here, upon the reasons as to why Lacan’s text is difficult—they should become clear from the contents of this book—or upon my own motives for taking on the task of shedding light on Lacan’s ‘darkest’ moment, I thus need to inform the reader from the start that clarifying ‘Kant avec Sade’ constitutes a considerable challenge.

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