Acting between variants. Theoretical reflections on the politics of psychoanalysis inspired by Hannah Arendts thought

Author(s)

Gabriela Gomes Costardi

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Psicologia (IP/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-11-16

Examining board members

Paulo César Endo; Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker; Jose Moura Goncalves Filho; Adriano Correia Silva; Rinaldo Voltolini

• Advisor: Paulo César Endo

Abstract

This work seeks inspiration in Hannah Arendts political theory in order to formulate a notion of politics of Lacanian psychoanalysis. The Arendtian concepts that are mainly used in this dialogue are: political action, compromise, and political plurality. From Lacanian theory, we especially use: psychoanalytic act, transmission, and the feminine logic of sexuation. Arendt and Lacan have a common ground on considering that action overcomes the repetition, in political or in the unconscious subject spheres, respectively. The Arendtian political action is performed by men in the plural, and it is the locus of freedom as new beginnings. Besides promoting new beginnings, the action is supposed to assure the existence of what was brought into life, being the latter the function of compromise between political individuals. Arendt calls the world a space created between men through the action of compromise. In sum, the Arendtian conception of politics is based on the notions of action and world. In its turn, psychoanalysis affirms that the act performs new beginnings in subjective life. However, the act itself is not able to constitute a political dimension since it neither implies a collectivity, nor creates a world between individuals. In this sense, we propose that it is necessary to put together the notions of act and transmission (of knowledge) in order to formulate a psychoanalysis notion of politics, since the latter brings people together, in causing the work transference. Thus, act and transmission sustain the politics of psychoanalysis. Moreover, we put together the Arendtian political plurality and the Lacanian feminine logic of sexuation for the sake of formulating a conception of politics that works against the unification of the political body. So, we contrast this conception of politics with the ones that lead to the political bodys unification. In this debate, we consider antagonism and representation, as we found in the sovereignty the populism, to be ways of political bodys unification. This investigation also addresses two major political theory topics from the psychoanalysis point of view, namely, freedom and authority. Finally, the research considers some psychoanalytical propositions as guidelines to its methodology, namely, reading and writing as operations concerning the Real, the transferential level of the research process, and the notion of inspiration as a principle to guide the dialogue between theories (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/13541-7 - The authority as possibility of bonding between the foundation and the transmission
• Grantee: Gabriela Gomes Costardi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate