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Law, Psychoanalysis, Society : Taking the Unconscious Seriously - Maria Aristodemou

Law, Psychoanalysis, Society

Taking the Unconscious Seriously

By: Maria Aristodemou

Hardcover | 25 June 2014 | Edition Number 1

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'If God is dead, everything is permitted', says Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov. 'If God is dead, everything is prohibited', responds Lacan. 'I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' we say in a court of law. 'In a court of law, the truth is precisely what we will not say', says Lacan. 'I think, therefore I am', says Descartes. 'I am where I do not think', responds Lacan. What are we to make of Lacan's inversions of these famous mottos? And what are the implications for the legal system if we take them seriously? This book takes these puzzles, and the hypothesis of the unconscious seriously and puts the legal subject on the couch. It listens to her monotonous ramblings, excavates and illustrates her unconscious desires and watches the patient start seeing herself otherwise. The analysis leads her to start questioning her own long-held beliefs and precious identifications: terms like 'truth', 'guilt', 'reason', 'interpretation', reality', 'freedom', 'punishment', 'evidence', 'responsibility', 'ethics', 'human rights', 'morality' acquire new and surprising meanings. By the end of these sessions, the patient is left wondering, along with Freud her analyst, whether 'it is not psychology that deserves the mockery but the procedure of judicial enquiry'. In its exploration into the incestuous relationship between law and desire, enjoyment and transgression, truth and lies, freedom and subservience, ethics and atheism, this book provides a step-by-step analysis of those central psychoanalytic concepts that problematize fundamental tenets of the legal system.

Industry Reviews

'The interrelation of law and psychiatry lies at the very heart of our judicial edifice. The time has come to introduce some clarity in this obscure mixture, not only by bringing out the legalistic underpinnings of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, but also by denouncing the perverse libidinal underpinnings of legal practices. Aristodemou's book performs this task brilliantly. It not only hits the nail on its head, as they say - it also cracks this head open with its precise and forceful blows.'

Slavoj Zizek, senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

'This systematic and accessible account of key concepts in psychoanalysis powerfully demonstrates the relevance of Lacan's thought for legal theory. It boldly posits the challenge of freedom in its vision of an atheist jurisprudence. The subject of law will not be the same again.'

Jodi Dean, Professor at Hobart and William Smith College, USA


'The interrelation of law and psychiatry lies at the very heart of our judicial edifice. The time has come to introduce some clarity in this obscure mixture, not only by bringing out the legalistic underpinnings of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, but also by denouncing the perverse libidinal underpinnings of legal practices. Aristodemou's book performs this task brilliantly. It not only hits the nail on its head, as they say - it also cracks this head open with its precise and forceful blows.'

Slavoj Zizek, senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

'This systematic and accessible account of key concepts in psychoanalysis powerfully demonstrates the relevance of Lacan's thought for legal theory. It boldly posits the challenge of freedom in its vision of an atheist jurisprudence. The subject of law will not be the same again.'

Jodi Dean, Professor at Hobart and William Smith College, USA

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