The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

A charismatic and controversial figure, Lacan is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century and his work has revolutionized linguistics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural and media studies.

He gained his reputation as a lecturer, disseminating his ideas to audiences that included Jean-Paul Sartre and Luce Irigaray amongst other hugely influential names. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis is a transcript of his most important lecture series.

Including influential readings of Sophocles’ Antigone and Elizabethan courtly love poetry in relation to female sexuality, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis remains a powerful and controversial work that is still argued over today by the likes of Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek.

Table of Contents

Translator's Note. Outline of the Seminar. Pleasure and Reality. Rereading the Entwurf. Das Ding. Das Ding (II). On the Moral Law. Drives and Lures. The Object and the Thing. On Creation Ex Nihilo. Marginal Comments. Courtly Love as Anamorphosis. A Critique of Bernfeld. The Death of God. Love of One's Neighbour. The Jouissance of Transgression. The Death Drive. The Function of the Good. The Function of the Beautiful. The Splendor of Antigone. The Articulations of the Play. Antigone Between Two Deaths. The Demand for Happiness and the Promise of Analysis. The Moral Goals of Psychoanalysis. The Paradoxes of Ethics or Have You Acted Inconformity With Your Desire?