Dr Tim Themi
Dr Tim Themi is a PhD in Philosophy & Psychoanalysis from Deakin University. He also holds Honours degrees in Philosophy from La Trobe University and in Chemical Engineering from University of Melbourne. His doctoral dissertation, supervised by leading Lacan translator Prof Russell Grigg, brought together the psychoanalysis of Lacan and the philosophy of Nietzsche on the question of desire and ethics. He is author of the books 'Eroticizing Aesthetics: In the Real with Bataille and Lacan' (Rowman 2021); 'Lacan's Ethics and Nietzsche's Critique of Platonism' (SUNY 2014); and has taught at Deakin University, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, Lacan Circle of Australia, and in the School of Culture & Communication at University of Melbourne.
Supervisors: Dr Alison Horbury, The University of Melbourne , A/Prof Russell Grigg, Deakin University / Lacan Circle of Australia , Prof Stan van Hooft, Deakin University , A/Prof Terry Collits, Chisholm College , and Dr Robert Farrell, La Trobe University
Address: dr.tim.themi@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/tim.themi
Supervisors: Dr Alison Horbury, The University of Melbourne , A/Prof Russell Grigg, Deakin University / Lacan Circle of Australia , Prof Stan van Hooft, Deakin University , A/Prof Terry Collits, Chisholm College , and Dr Robert Farrell, La Trobe University
Address: dr.tim.themi@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/tim.themi
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Bringing together Bataille with Lacan and Nietzsche, Tim Themi examines the role of aesthetics implicit in each and how this invokes an erotic process celebrating the real of what is usually excluded from symbolic articulation. Bataille came to deem eroticism as the standpoint from which to grasp humanity as a whole, based on his understanding of our transition to humanity being founded on a series of taboos placed on inner animality. An erotic outlet for the latter was historically the aesthetic dimensions of our religions, but Bataille's view of how this was gradually diminished has much in keeping with Nietzsche's critique of Christian-Platonic dualism and Lacan's of the desexualised Good of Western metaphysics. Building from these often surprising proximities, Themi closely examines Bataille's many interventions into the history of aesthetics -- from his confrontations with Breton's surrealism to his own novels and encounter with the animal cave paintings of Lascaux -- radically re-illuminating the corollary phenomena of Dionysos in Nietzsche's philosophy and the "jouissance [enjoyment] of transgression" in the psychoanalysis of Lacan. A new ethical criterion for aesthetic works and creations on this basis becomes possible.
Key features: Thorough examination of primary texts of Bataille connecting his theory of eroticism to his many interventions into aesthetics. Sheds new light on Bataille's thought by closely detailing similar arguments in Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan. Strengthens our understanding of Nietzsche and Lacan by reflecting back on them in a new Bataillean way.
Bringing together Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche, Tim Themi focuses on their conceptions of ethics and on their accounts of the history of ethical thinking in the Western tradition. Nietzsche blames Plato for setting in motion a degenerative process that turned ethics away from nature, the body, and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. Dismissing Plato’s Supreme Good as a “mirage,” Lacan is very much in sympathy with Nietzsche’s reading. Following this premise, Themi shows how Lacan’s ethics might build on Nietzsche’s work, contributing to our understanding of Nietzsche, and likewise considering how Nietzsche’s critique can strengthen our understanding of Lacan.
Tim Themi has a PhD in philosophy & psychoanalysis and teaches at Deakin University in Australia.
Section 1.1 discusses the real and imaginary distinction that Nietzsche argues was confused historically by Plato’s Good. Then I consider Lacan’s tripartite schema of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real to augment Nietzsche’s purpose of deflating the Good––a purpose Lacan is found to share when motioning to discuss “the evolution of history, in order to demystify the Platonic and the Aristotelian view of the good, indeed of the Supreme Good” (SVII: 216). Section 1.2 turns to Lacan’s returning of Aristotle’s Good to the polymorphous perversities at the base of desire, to the Freudian Thing, the unruly real. I observe this Thing to manifest as our most amoral truths, painful truths we try to exclude, which leads Lacan to infer a pleasure principle in the projection of the Good as the centre of the cosmos––as if this were an ultimate reality or essence of nature that guaranteed happiness, design, protection.
I suggest for Lacan as well as Nietzsche that the metaphysics of the Good can only mean some error, fiction, or fantasy in the imaginary has been mistaken as “true” or “real,” when it is really only a symptom of the repression of a particular aspect of the truth, or modicum of the real, if not the source of the repression itself. This will bring us to the discontent that Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan each take the inflationary Good of moralism to cause: as what this Good disavows must inevitably return, by virtue of the disavowed being real.
Video link here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIkw-HpeyOo
Book link here,
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5831-lacans-ethics-and-nietzsches-cr.aspx
Title: Renaturalising: Lacan’s ethics and Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism
Presenter: Tim Themi
Abstract:
The following presentation will summarise the findings of my recently submitted thesis which sought to discover how Lacan’s theory of ethics might contribute to our understanding of Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism. Nietzsche criticised what he saw as a degenerative historical process, largely initiated by Plato, whereby supernatural beliefs were used to buttress moral values in ways which grew ultimately harmful. Nietzsche viewed them harmful because he felt they turned against earthly nature, the body and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. On the basis of Nietzsche’s philosophy, then, we get a program for a new ethics. My thesis took this program as a starting point in order to see how Lacan’s ethics can build on it––that is, to see how Lacan’s later uptake of the Freudian experience into an ethics of psychoanalysis throws light on Nietzsche’s new ethical requirement. My three principal conclusions were that: i) Lacan’s ethics contributes to our understanding of Nietzsche’s critique particularly on the topics of ontology (Chapter 1), sublimation (Chapter 2), tragic art (Chapter 3), and Socrates (Chapter 4); ii) Lacan’s ethics can also be strengthened by Nietzsche’s critique particularly on the topics of Christianity (Chapter 5) and modern science (Chapter 6); iii) Lacan’s work in ii) can serve as an illustration of how Nietzsche’s critique can test and strengthen any program of ethics, and thus contributes to our understanding of the problems with Platonism that Nietzsche first diagnosed nonetheless (Conclusion). In the course of the following presentation I will provide a summary of the trajectory of arguments that led me to form these conclusions, and thereby flesh out these conclusions in more detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb9r_1fHoRQ
Bringing together Bataille with Lacan and Nietzsche, Tim Themi examines the role of aesthetics implicit in each and how this invokes an erotic process celebrating the real of what is usually excluded from symbolic articulation. Bataille came to deem eroticism as the standpoint from which to grasp humanity as a whole, based on his understanding of our transition to humanity being founded on a series of taboos placed on inner animality. An erotic outlet for the latter was historically the aesthetic dimensions of our religions, but Bataille's view of how this was gradually diminished has much in keeping with Nietzsche's critique of Christian-Platonic dualism and Lacan's of the desexualised Good of Western metaphysics. Building from these often surprising proximities, Themi closely examines Bataille's many interventions into the history of aesthetics -- from his confrontations with Breton's surrealism to his own novels and encounter with the animal cave paintings of Lascaux -- radically re-illuminating the corollary phenomena of Dionysos in Nietzsche's philosophy and the "jouissance [enjoyment] of transgression" in the psychoanalysis of Lacan. A new ethical criterion for aesthetic works and creations on this basis becomes possible.
Key features: Thorough examination of primary texts of Bataille connecting his theory of eroticism to his many interventions into aesthetics. Sheds new light on Bataille's thought by closely detailing similar arguments in Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan. Strengthens our understanding of Nietzsche and Lacan by reflecting back on them in a new Bataillean way.
Bringing together Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche, Tim Themi focuses on their conceptions of ethics and on their accounts of the history of ethical thinking in the Western tradition. Nietzsche blames Plato for setting in motion a degenerative process that turned ethics away from nature, the body, and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. Dismissing Plato’s Supreme Good as a “mirage,” Lacan is very much in sympathy with Nietzsche’s reading. Following this premise, Themi shows how Lacan’s ethics might build on Nietzsche’s work, contributing to our understanding of Nietzsche, and likewise considering how Nietzsche’s critique can strengthen our understanding of Lacan.
Tim Themi has a PhD in philosophy & psychoanalysis and teaches at Deakin University in Australia.
Section 1.1 discusses the real and imaginary distinction that Nietzsche argues was confused historically by Plato’s Good. Then I consider Lacan’s tripartite schema of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real to augment Nietzsche’s purpose of deflating the Good––a purpose Lacan is found to share when motioning to discuss “the evolution of history, in order to demystify the Platonic and the Aristotelian view of the good, indeed of the Supreme Good” (SVII: 216). Section 1.2 turns to Lacan’s returning of Aristotle’s Good to the polymorphous perversities at the base of desire, to the Freudian Thing, the unruly real. I observe this Thing to manifest as our most amoral truths, painful truths we try to exclude, which leads Lacan to infer a pleasure principle in the projection of the Good as the centre of the cosmos––as if this were an ultimate reality or essence of nature that guaranteed happiness, design, protection.
I suggest for Lacan as well as Nietzsche that the metaphysics of the Good can only mean some error, fiction, or fantasy in the imaginary has been mistaken as “true” or “real,” when it is really only a symptom of the repression of a particular aspect of the truth, or modicum of the real, if not the source of the repression itself. This will bring us to the discontent that Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan each take the inflationary Good of moralism to cause: as what this Good disavows must inevitably return, by virtue of the disavowed being real.
Video link here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIkw-HpeyOo
Book link here,
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5831-lacans-ethics-and-nietzsches-cr.aspx
Title: Renaturalising: Lacan’s ethics and Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism
Presenter: Tim Themi
Abstract:
The following presentation will summarise the findings of my recently submitted thesis which sought to discover how Lacan’s theory of ethics might contribute to our understanding of Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism. Nietzsche criticised what he saw as a degenerative historical process, largely initiated by Plato, whereby supernatural beliefs were used to buttress moral values in ways which grew ultimately harmful. Nietzsche viewed them harmful because he felt they turned against earthly nature, the body and its senses, and thus eventually against our capacities for reason, science, and a creative, flourishing life. On the basis of Nietzsche’s philosophy, then, we get a program for a new ethics. My thesis took this program as a starting point in order to see how Lacan’s ethics can build on it––that is, to see how Lacan’s later uptake of the Freudian experience into an ethics of psychoanalysis throws light on Nietzsche’s new ethical requirement. My three principal conclusions were that: i) Lacan’s ethics contributes to our understanding of Nietzsche’s critique particularly on the topics of ontology (Chapter 1), sublimation (Chapter 2), tragic art (Chapter 3), and Socrates (Chapter 4); ii) Lacan’s ethics can also be strengthened by Nietzsche’s critique particularly on the topics of Christianity (Chapter 5) and modern science (Chapter 6); iii) Lacan’s work in ii) can serve as an illustration of how Nietzsche’s critique can test and strengthen any program of ethics, and thus contributes to our understanding of the problems with Platonism that Nietzsche first diagnosed nonetheless (Conclusion). In the course of the following presentation I will provide a summary of the trajectory of arguments that led me to form these conclusions, and thereby flesh out these conclusions in more detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb9r_1fHoRQ
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