Lacan the Charlatan

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 1-32

3. Lacan the Linguistic Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 33-68

4. Lacan the Mathematical Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 69-101

5. Lacan the Scientific Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 103-131

6. Lacan the Ethical Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 133-162

7. Lacan the Absolute Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 163-188

8. Lacan the Master Charlatan

   • Peter D. Mathews

   Pages 189-214

9. Back Matter

   Pages 215-228

   PDF

This book sets out to determine the validity of an accusation made against Jacques Lacan by Noam Chomsky in an interview in 1989. He stated that Lacan was a “charlatan” – not that his ideas were flawed or wrong, but that his entire discourse was fraudulent, an accusation that has since been repeated by many other critics. Examining the arguments of key anti-Lacanian critics, Mathews weighs and contextualizes the legitimacy of Lacan’s engagements with structural linguistics, mathematical formalization, science, ethics, Hegelian dialectics, and psychoanalysis. The guiding thread is Lacan’s own recurrent interrogation of authority, which inhabits an ambiguous zone between mastery and charlatanry. This book offers a novel contribution to the field for students and scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy, sociology, critical and literary theory.

• Lacanian psychoanalysis
• psychoanalytic theory
• Sigmund Freud
• authority
• ethics
• Raymond Tallis
• Dylan Evans
• Stuart Schneiderman
• Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen
• François Roustang
• anti-Lacanian critics
• Noam Chomsky
• structural linguistics
• mathematical formalization
• Hegelian dialectics
• The Freud Wars

"What authorises an analyst to analyse? Lacan the Charlatan makes a significant contribution to this important question and is a must read for anyone interested in the future of our praxis."


(Russell Grigg, World Association of Psychoanalysis)

“Lacan the Charlatan is much more than a highly engaging study of Lacan’s various critics, detractors, and would-be debunkers. It focuses in on one of the essential problems of his psychoanalytic theory: the nature of authority under conditions of modernity. Clown, guru, master, imposter, insurgent, analyst: Mathews shows how Lacan both incarnated and exposed the impasses of authority, and how his theoretical framework is crucial for understanding the charade of power and mastery we are living in today.”

(Aaron Schuster, author of The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis)

“Mathews is that rarest of scholar in psychoanalytic studies: someone brave enough to consult works he disagrees with, and then able to produce smart, judicious, and fair-minded commentary and critique. Likewise, his interventions into the work and legacies of the best critics of Lacan, such as Roustang and Borch-Jacobsen, is not just overdue; it is often revelatory. Lacan the Charlatan is a major contribution to the literature – one of interest to scholars of literature, philosophy, and sociology – that will still be worth reading in twenty years.” 

(Todd Dufresne, Professor of Philosophy, Lakehead University, USA)

• Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

  Peter D. Mathews

Peter D. Mathews is Professor of English Literature at Hanyang University, South Korea.

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