Stella Gaon – Deconstruction and Its Discontents : Derrida, Freud, and the Impossible Origin of Conscience

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[English follows.]

Stella Gaon (St. Mary’s University)

« Deconstruction and Its Discontents : Derrida, Freud, and the Impossible Origin of Conscience » Jeudi 16 février, 14h00 Local 422, 2910 boul. Édouard-Montpetit. (Indications pour s’y rendre : http://bit.ly/philoudem)

Veuillez noter que la conférence sera présentée en anglais.

Résumé : Jacques Derrida est bien connu pour avoir ébranlé, fondamentalement, les idéaux critiques de l’universalité et de la raison dite transcendantale et, ainsi, d’avoir rendu douteuses les tentatives philosophiques les plus rigoureuses à les reformuler (telle que celle de Habermas). Pour de nombreux politologues, le défi derridien mène immanquablement à la conclusion que les valeurs morales sont relatives et cela, nonobstant l’insistance avec laquelle Derrida répétait que la déconstruction comprend toujours un « surplus de responsabilité ». Or, si la question de la responsabilité éthique ne se termine tout simplement pas dans le projet de la déconstruction derridienne, et si l’on ne peut plus y répondre en ressassant le discours philosophique de la modernité, alors sur quel fondement éthique peut on poser nos interventions politiques ? Pour tenter d’y répondre, je revisite l’analyse de Freud de l’intégrité psychique. Je montrerai que la psychanalyse freudienne peut effectivement fonder la responsabilité éthico-politique, quoique en des sens qualifié et restreint. L’explication psychanalytique est « qualifiée » dans la mesure où elle va jusqu’à l’impératif psychique de questionner, au lieu de déterminer, nos fins morales. Cela, parce que l’origine du moi est précisément indécidable, comme nous le verrons. Le fondement psychanalytique est « restreint » en ce sens qu’il présuppose un sujet social spécifique dont la reproduction ne se laisse justifier en dernière analyse. Mais enfin, cette explication quasi-éthique, visant un sujet quasi-responsable, ne se révèle-t-il pas comme le terrain glissant des malaisés de la déconstruction?

Vous êtes cordialement invité-e à assister à cet événement organisé par le département de philosophie de l’Université de Montréal.

Ouvert à tous et à toutes. Merci de faire suivre ce message aux étudiant-e-s / collègues potentiellement intéressé-e-s.

Nous vous invitons également à consulter notre programmation d’événements : http://bit.ly/confudem2

Pour tout autre renseignement sur les conférences en philosophie à l’Université de Montréal, veuillez contacter Mme Bettina Bergo (bettina.bergo@umontreal.ca). Pour modifier votre inscription à cette liste, veuillez contacter Iain Macdonald (iain.macdonald@umontreal.ca).

Au plaisir !

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Abstract: Jacques Derrida is notable for having fundamentally undermined the critical ideals of universality and transcendental reason, and thereby rendered questionable the most rigorous philosophical attempts (such as Habermas’) to reformulate them. For many political theorists, this challenge leads to the conclusion that moral values are relative, notwithstanding Derrida’s own insistence that deconstruction entails a “surplus of responsibility.” Yet if the question of ethical-political responsibility does not simply end in deconstruction, and if it is no longer answerable with recourse to the philosophical discourse of modernity either, then on what possible ethical grounds can interventions in politics be based? I turn to Freud’s analysis of psychic integrity to address this issue. I argue that Freudian psychoanalysis can account for the ethical-political responsibility that constitutes conscience, but only in a qualified sense and to a limited extent. The psychoanalytical account is qualified insofar as it extends only to a (psychic) imperative to question, rather than to determine, our moral ends (precisely because the origin of the ego is strictly undecidable); it is limited insofar as it presupposes a particular social subject whose reproduction ultimately cannot be justified. This quasi-ethical account of a quasi-responsible subject does, perhaps, constitute deconstruction’s discontents.

You are cordially invited to the above-mentioned event organized by the Department of Philosophy of the Université de Montréal.

All are welcome! Please feel free to forward this message to interested students and colleagues.

Directions are available here: http://bit.ly/philoudem.

Also, please have a look at our calendar of events to see what’s coming up: http://bit.ly/confudem2

If you have questions regarding this or other philosophical events at the Université de Montréal, please contact Prof. Bettina Bergo (bettina.bergo@umontreal.ca). To add or remove a name from this list, please contact Prof. Iain Macdonald (iain.macdonald@umontreal.ca).

Hope to see you there!

Thomas More Institute – Spring Interview Series 2010

Thomas More Institute

Spring Interview Series 2010

Beginnings

the power and the promise

Thursdays: 7:00-9:00 pm

May 6, 13, 27, June 10 and 17

In celebration of the Thomas More Institute’s sixty-fifth anniversary, the Spring Series offers reflections on the enduring power of beginnings to influence our lives and our institutions. The word itself, and synonyms such as origins or foundations, conjures a power uniquely given to us as human beings: to break with the past decisively and to create a future of incalculable possibility.

In this interview series, we consider this power in relation to four fields of human thought and endeavor: politics (Hannah Arendt), philosophy (Paul Ricoeur), psychoanalysis (Freud), and biography (Bernard Lonergan). 

This year’s series will be held in at Thomas More Institute, 3405 Atwater.

To reserve tickets, please call 514.935.9585. Ticket price: $10.00 per session.

Readings for the May 6 interview with Dr. Laura Tusa Ilea on Hannah Arendt are now available at the front desk of the Institute.

May 6, 2010

Laura Tusa Ilea on Arendt

Laura Tusa Ilea received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Bucharest in 2005. At present, Dr. Ilea is engaged on a postdoctoral project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, at McGill, where she recently taught Topics in the History of Philosophy (Arendt, Patočka, Heidegger). Apart from professional activities, Dr. Ilea has written EAST, a short-story collection, which was published in France in 2009.

May 13, 2010

Dennis O’Connor on Ricoeur

After forty years of teaching philosophy at Concordia University, Dr. Dennis O’Connor recently retired, but he continues to work out the implications of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. His guiding lights remain Arendt, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, and Paul Ricoeur. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from St. Louis University. One of his colleagues at the Loyola campus in the 1970s was TMI founder Fr. Eric O’Connor.

May 27, 2010

Charles Levin on Freud

Charles Levin Ph.D. is a training and supervising analyst at the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis and Past President of its Quebec English Branch. He is in full-time private practice in Montreal, working in both English and French. Dr. Levin is on the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis and has written widely on psychoanalytic and cultural issues. He is the author of Jean Baudrillard: A Study in Cultural Metaphysics and co-author of Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts.

June 10, 2010

William Mathews on Lonergan

Since 1980, Dr. William Mathews has been an associate professor with the Centre for Philosophy at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds. His study Lonergan’s Quest, published by the University of Toronto in 2006, has been highly acclaimed. This intellectual biography explores the genesis and evolution of Bernard Lonergan’s seminal work Insight.