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Kant and Freud at the Edge of Critical Theory DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 8-2012 A critique of political self-deception: Kant and Freud at the edge of critical theory James A. Manos DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Manos, James A., "A critique of political self-deception: Kant and Freud at the edge of critical theory" (2012). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 124. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/124 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Critique of Political Self-Deception: Kant and Freud at the Edge of Critical Theory A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 3 of 2011 By: James A. Manos Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts and Sciences DePaul University Chicago, Illinois 2011 Abstract of Dissertation Psychoanalysis as Political Critique In the spirit of Kantian critique this dissertation pursues the enlightenment project of examining the limits of reason and its political ramifications. Beginning from the claim that psychoanalysis is the inheritor of the Kantian project, this dissertation argues the limits of political reason lie beyond the concepts of overcoming and mastery. While traditionally this conversation has been occupied with the concept of ideology, this dissertation draws on the Freudian concept of self-deception. It contends the concept of ideology contains the seeds of its own overcoming, and thus cannot represent the limits of political reason. In contrast to ideology, this dissertation claims the Freudian concept of disavowal indicates the limits of not only rationality, but also political rationality. As such, the political ramifications of a critique focused on the limits of rationality must grapple with the phenomenon of disavowal, a phenomenon that blatantly defies the logic of non-contradiction. This dissertation concludes that this form of critique would demand turning political thought toward historical manifestations that continue to exist but are not recognized, such as the relationship between slavery and prisons as articulated in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. 1 Table of Contents Citation Abbreviations 3 Introduction: Critique Beyond the Boundaries of Reason Alone 5 - 24 Dialectics of Reason Dialectics of Desire A Psychoanalytic Critique of Political Reason Chapter I: Exorcising Spirits: Ideology and the Non-identical from Marx to Adorno 25 - 74 Haunted by Spirit: Marx‘s Concept of Ideology The Spell of Ideology: Adorno and Kantian Schematism Beyond Spirits: Failed Exorcisms and the Non-Identical Chapter II: The Spirit of Repression: The Return of Kant in Freud 75 - 122 Kant and the Timeless Unconscious Defensive Schematization: The Temporality of Freudian Repression Working Through Nachträglichkeit Beyond Repression: Toward the Navel of Analysis Chapter III: At the Limits of Rationality: Freud’s Concept of Disavowal 123 - 156 The Brambles of Fetishistic Disavowal Disavowals and their Vicissitudes Both / And: Disavowal at the Threshold of Rationality Chapter IV: Constitutional Disavowal: Psychical Inscriptions of Law and Punishment 157 - 194 The ―Witch Prehistory‖ Phylogenesis: Totem and Taboo Before the Law: Moses and Monotheism The Constitutional Disavowal of Chattel Slavery: A Case Study Taking Account of Political Disavowal Conclusion: From Spirits to Phantoms, from Phantoms to Poltergeists 195 - 205 Transgenerational Haunting: Legacies of the Non-identical Poltergeist as Political Critique 2 Citation Abbreviations The texts of Karl Marx: CW: The Collected Works of Marx and Engels W: Marx and Engels Werke The texts of Theodor Adorno DE: Dialectic of Enlightenment ND: Negative Dialectics MM: Minima Moralia KCPR: Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason GS: Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften The texts of Sigmund Freud SE: The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud GW: Sigmund Freud: Gesammelte Werke The texts of Immanuel Kant CPR: Critique of Pure Reason PFM: Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics PW: Kant’s Political Writings GS: Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften 3 It is a Paradox of Freudian psychoanalysis that, whilst consistently struggling against illusion, it somehow activates it. --Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel and Béla Grunberger, Freud or Reich? 4 Introduction Critique Beyond the Boundaries of Reason Alone In occultism the mind groans under its own spell like someone in a nightmare, whose torment grows with the feeling that he is dreaming yet cannot wake up. --Adorno, ―Theses Against Occultism,‖ Minima Moralia The project of liberating reason is the same project of liberating ourselves. Indeed, this sentiment seems to be at the very core of the Enlightenment project itself. And nowhere is this sentiment more clearly expressed than in Kant‘s enlightenment motto: ―Have the courage of your own understanding‖ (Kant, PW 54). For, was not this sense of autonomy based on the demand to fight through our ―self-incurred immaturity‖ so we may use our newly liberated faculties, unaided by ―lazy‖ doctrines stepped in the ―cowardice‖ of dogma and tradition (PW 54)? Certainly, at the very apex of Enlightenment thought, we are to free ourselves by virtue of the independent, yet universal, use of reason. No longer will one‘s faculties of reason remain tethered to the authority of those who have set themselves up as our ―guardians‖ (PW 54). Political liberation is inseparable from severing reason from its dependence on illusions, tradition, and authority. This push toward freedom and progress informs the urgency of, the very demand for, Kant‘s Critique of Pure Reason. To free ourselves we must first free our thought; we must free reason from its own chimeras and the self-imposed yoke strung around its neck. The project of enlightenment, the very project of liberation, is, for Kant, the ―duty of philosophy‖ which should aim ―to remove the deception arising from misinterpretation, even at the cost of destroying the most highly extolled and cherished delusion‖ (CPR 5 Axii). And surely this is the purpose of critique: to secure the independent use of reason so that our material autonomy may follow. After all is not critique like the ―police‖ whose ―job is to put a stop to the violence on whose account citizens must fear each other, in order that everyone may carry on his business calmly and safely‖ (CPR Bxxv)? Certainly, it would seem liberation is the foundation not only of Kant‘s enlightenment thought, but also the project of critique itself. Yet, there is no escape from deception. This, not liberation, was the lesson of the Enlightenment. Kant is quite clear about this, even if it seems contradictory. Lodged within the heart of his project, illusions are not only the target of critique but also what pushes his libratory project forward. This project contends that the necessity of illusion in the project of Enlightenment—the necessity of self-deception in the faculties of thought itself—demands turning to the tools of psychoanalysis. In fact, as I will show, Sigmund Freud‘s project directly inherits the Kantian project on this point. In this way one can think of Freudian psychoanalysis as offering an important framework for both understanding the project of critique and the political liberation it promises. Hence, before we begin to investigate the stakes of a psychoanalytic critique of political reason, let us examine the stakes of Kant‘s critique, the form it takes and its object—the compulsive nature of reason. I. Dialectics of Reason The need for critique in Kant‘s work emerges from the nature of reason. Reason, unlike the intuition and the understanding, has no direct connection with experience. 6 ―[C]ognition [Erkenntnis],‖ Kant argues, ―starts from the senses, proceeds from there to the understanding, and ends with reason‖ (CPR A299/B355). The understanding, Kant writes ―may be considered a power of providing unity of appearances [Erscheinungen] by means of rules‖ (CPR A302/B359). In other words, the very becoming of appearance occurs through the a priori organization of the manifold of sense impressions by means of concepts of the understanding. In order for appearances to maintain their unity, the rules of the understanding must also be unified. This is the job of reason; for it unifies the rules of the understanding beneath the abstracted guidelines of principles.1 Whereas the understanding provides an organizational unity to the intuition, reason provides an organizational unity to the understanding. As such, Kant writes that reason ―initially never deals with experience or any object‖ (CPR A302/B359). Reason is, thus, one step removed from the senses, and thus the touchstone of experience. Since reason seeks to unify the rules of the understanding, it seeks a governing unity beyond the bounds of the understanding. In other words, in seeking the totality organizing the rules that give unity to appearance as such, reason must seek the unconditional ground conditioning appearance itself. The unity it seeks, Kant finds, ―can be a completeness [Vollständigkeit] of principles only,
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