Dr Robert Boncardo (University of Sydney), “Sartre, Lacan, the Ego”
Abstract:
In the years following the Second World War, Jacques Lacan made a number of brief but decisive remarks about existentialism, which was then at the high point of its mediatic popularity. While existentialism had emerged from a critical engagement with the German phenomenological tradition, for Lacan it was essentially no different to Anglo-American ego psychology — the other target of his post-War polemic — insofar as it also allegedly mistook the subject for the ego. Specifically, Lacan argued that Jean-Paul Sartre had built the entirety of his philosophy on the basis of the constitutive misrecognitions of the ego. Most egregiously, Lacan claimed, Sartre had unthinkingly accepted its illusory claims to autonomy.
In the years following the Second World War, Jacques Lacan made a number of brief but decisive remarks about existentialism, which was then at the high point of its mediatic popularity. While existentialism had emerged from a critical engagement with the German phenomenological tradition, for Lacan it was essentially no different to Anglo-American ego psychology — the other target of his post-War polemic — insofar as it also allegedly mistook the subject for the ego. Specifically, Lacan argued that Jean-Paul Sartre had built the entirety of his philosophy on the basis of the constitutive misrecognitions of the ego. Most egregiously, Lacan claimed, Sartre had unthinkingly accepted its illusory claims to autonomy.
However, what is most striking about these arguments is that they can only seem incongruous to any serious reader of Sartre. While they frame him as the victim of the ego, these criticisms spectacularly miss the fact that Sartre dedicated much of his early phenomenological writings to demonstrating how the psychology of his time had been trapped in the ego’s snare.
How can Lacan have made Sartre his enemy when there was every reason to think they were engaged in a similar struggle? In the scholarship to date, commentators have often remarked upon the striking similarity between the claims the two make about the ego, particularly with respect to the ego’s status as an object. None, however, have explored these claims in adequate detail. Similarly, whether endorsing it or dismissing it, scholars have frequently commented on the devastating critical exposition Lacan provides of existentialism in his famous essay on the mirror stage. Yet none have ever wondered why Lacan comments so critically on Sartre in the very same essay where their similarities are most evident. In this paper, I will address these questions and aim to take the debate forward through a close conceptual analysis of these two difficult bodies of thought.
Bio:
Robert Boncardo has completed a doctorate in French Studies at the University of Sydney and Aix-Marseille Université.
Robert Boncardo has completed a doctorate in French Studies at the University of Sydney and Aix-Marseille Université.
Where and when:
Tuesday, 21 March, 4.00pm to 5.30pm, Deakin Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Hwy, Room C2.05
Tuesday, 21 March, 4.00pm to 5.30pm, Deakin Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Hwy, Room C2.05
Virtual Meeting Point: ARTSED VMP SHSS. Direct dial number: (+613) 5223 9354 On joining a VMP, see here.
The seminar is free to attend and all are welcome.
For any inquiries, please email Daniela Voss: [email protected]
Hosted by the European Philosophy and History of Ideas Research Group (EPHI) and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.