PLATONIC IDEAS SZPIRKO Jean How does one comprehend that a man of such "good reputation",
inventor of a scientific system using pigmentation to make nerve endings
visible, and above all a man who, in collaboration with Carl Koller, contributed
to the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of cocaine, thus opening
new perspectives in scientific research and surgery - how does one comprehend
that this man, anxious to make a name for himself in the anti-Semitic
society of his time, came to write books dedicated to subjects of such
trivial importance as dreams, parapraxis, slips of the tongue and wit
derived from Jewish folklore? An important term that I wish to highlight in the introduction of this
text is the verb "to comprehend". This verb is a leitmotiv that
is used extensively, each time a person speaks, addressing a more or less
unbiased listener and from whom one expects, at the very least, an echo,
a sort of approval, albeit silent: "You understand what I mean, don't
you? In this article, I shall endeavour, with this verb as a basis, to
formulate a brief argument to illustrate how the current "malaise
in civilisation" is supported by a neo-platonic conception of the
world, which is radically the opposite of the Freudian interpretation
as reviewed by Lacan. There exists a relative incompatibility between the registers of reason and those of belief. The latter are illusorily shared by all in a sort of unspoken, implicit, fashion that passes for the obvious. When these "obvious facts" are found to be defective, one can count - among various possible remedies - on the appeal offered by ceremonies, preachings, debates that galvanise the emotions or mental constructions in which the disciplines that aspire to the status of "science" excel. In the domain of religious belief and of faith in general, reasoning has, however, unavoidable limits and can only offer Pascal's wager as a last resort. Everyone has his own conceptions of the world, in the guise of more or
less reputable or shared religions from which science and psychoanalysis
are not excluded. In the sciences, where the term "to observe" holds a privileged
position, observation is only made possible when the acquired references
are constantly called upon: the designation without which nothing could
be seen. A discovery only becomes "observable" through a naming
process within the framework of a specific discipline that offers it a
place to be recorded and transmitted, while waiting for complements, nuances
and critiques. According to Plato, shadows represent an allegory of language. By applying
to the "myth of the cave" the inverted perception that Levi-Strauss
proposes to apply to other myths, we can grasp how an idea can be born
of an idea, starting with man's inability to say exactly what he would
like to say, without abandoning, however, the hope that he will be able
one day to do so. The perspective lines of speech converge towards infinity.
At this arbitrary point, both symbolic and imaginary, two terms become
one: the Idea and the Being, to which no one has access. In other words,
the Idea has no existence prior to its wording, it is the result of the
inability of language to fully encompass or to master it in the movement
of speech. The Idea is, like language, born of an endless quest for the
Holy Grail, which no one abandons without difficulty. Considering psychoanalysis to be an obsolete discipline preserves the
ignorance of the perpetual refutation it opposes to the promoters of new
religions - New Age, Scientism, Liberalism and Communism - that is to
the "good sentiments" that ignore the ambiguity of ideals in
the way racism acts in the name of a pretence of tolerance advocating
a "right to difference". In this identification of an ideology in our civilisation that refers
to neo-platonic concepts, psychoanalysis offers the opportunity of another
perspective. That scientists - without naming them and probably unknowingly
- call on Plato to resist Freud, it is an uncomfortable operation that
reinforces the keenness of one's perspective on current affairs.
(1) For Plato Ideas, remain inaccessible. Traduction Myrtil Boukris et Alison Crossley |