A description on Lacan's Kant with Sade essay with concentration on relation of law and desire

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Phd student of moral philosophy Qom university

10.48308/kj.2024.234026.1212

Abstract

Lacan's article Kant with Sade and his seminar on psychoanalytic ethics represent a novel and innovative contribution to ethical debates. As acknowledged by most interpreters and commentators of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Kant with Sade is considered one of Lacan's most complex and challenging writings in his book Écrits. Despite the often incomprehensible complexity of Lacan's text, the author of this research argues that in this groundbreaking article, Lacan introduces the idea that the philosophy of Marquis de Sade, particularly in his book Philosophy in the Bedroom, not only extends Kant's ethical ideas in Critique of Practical Reason, but in fact complements them. In this article, Lacan claims that Kant represents the law, while Sade represents desire. Kant seeks to establish a pure moral law that restrains the pathological or disordered desires of the subject, whereas Sade pursues pure desire, one that transgresses all laws and is free. However, Lacan’s main thesis is that the law is dependent on desire for its existence, and desire, in turn, relies on the law for its existence. In other words, law and desire share a symbiotic and reciprocal relationship—a relationship that constitutes and grounds the psychic life of the human subject. The subject emerges from the dialectical relationship between law and desire.

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Shinakht (A Persian Word Means Knowledge)
Volume 17, Issue 1 - Serial Number 89
September 2024
Pages 201-232

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History

  • Receive Date: 07 April 2024
  • Revise Date: 30 June 2024
  • Accept Date: 19 September 2024

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