To Be Continued?...
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today

Atrij ZRC, Ljubljana

Part III
15–16 April 2025

Live Session (Zoom)

Boštjan Nedoh
Marisa Žele
Holden M. Rasmussen
Amanda Holmes
Aleš Bunta
Alenka Zupančič
Alejandro Cerda-Rueda
Arka Chattopadhyay
Lorenzo Chiesa
Mladen Dolar
Justin Clemens
Alexi Kukuljevic
Peter Klepec
Stephen Overy
Tadej Troha
Sigi Jöttkandt
Richard Boothby


Part II

16–18 April 2024

Holden M. Rasmussen
Marisa Žele
Aleš Mendiževec
Voranc Kumar
Alejandro Cerda-Rueda
Arka Chattopadhyay
Boštjan Nedoh
Tadej Troha
Adrian Johnston
Mladen Dolar
Henrik Jøker Bjerre
Aleš Bunta
Adam Potts
Alenka Zupančič
Lorenzo Chiesa
Joan Copjec
Emily Laurent-Monaghan
Moritz Herrmann
Arsalan Reihanzadeh
Paris Lavidis
Nadia Bou Ali
Peter Klepec
Mohamed Tal
Frank Ruda
Ray Brassier


Part I
15–17 November 2023

Holden M. Rasmussen
Emily Laurent-Monaghan
Moritz Herrmann
Paris Lavidis
Vesna Liponik
Arsalan Reihanzadeh
Adrian Johnston
Jelica Šumič Riha
Tadej Troha
Boštjan Nedoh
Marisa Žele
Aleš Bunta
Peter Klepec
Alenka Zupančič
Lorenzo Chiesa


To Be Continued? ... 
Info
  • We can certainly say that the dialogue between philosophy and psychoanalysis, however prolix, has so far proved very difficult, ever since the latter’s inception. Is there such thing as a philosophy-psychoanalysis relationship? Or has it always been only empty speech? In that case, should it be continued?
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Amanda Holmes 
(Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien)




The Thing About Symbolism: Contextualizing Lacan’s Theory of the Phallus


In the fifth year of his seminar, Lacan lays out his own version of the Oedipus complex in three moments: the first moment is one of the child’s imaginary identification with the object of the mother’s desire, the second moment is one of the father’s intervention as a prohibitor of this initial relation, and finally, the third moment marks  the father’s assumption of his metaphorical position as locus of the law, which sets up an ego-ideal for the child and allows him to assume his own place in the Symbolic. At the crux of each of these three moments of the Oedipus complex Lacan insists on a dynamic conception of the phallus, a conception which marks a significant departure from the Freudian theory of his time. This paper will contextualize Lacan’s conception of the phallus as a response to the theoretical work of Lacan’s contemporaries, including Ernest Jones, Charles Rycroft, and Gisela Pankow. By treating Lacan’s theory of the phallus as an important intervention into the psychoanalytic debates about symbolism in the ego’s formation and the role of the phallus therein, this paper will demonstrate the necessity of Lacan’s structuralist reading of Freud. It is precisely in Lacan’s structuralist revision of the Oedipus complex that he guards against normative and moralizing psychoanalysis on the one hand and against a naturalizing biologism on the other. At stake in Lacan’s response to these thinkers, the import of Lacan’s psychoanalytic diatribe in Seminar V, is nothing other than the philosophical dimension of psychoanalysis taken up in the form of a question about the object in its conceptual transition from illusory object to signifying element, setting the stage for the objet a.