Philosophy of Desire

Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951) is one of Iran's preeminent writers of short works of fiction. This article is about the role that subtext plays in his works, in general, and in his Blind Owl, in particular. The main reasons for writing the article are: to highlight subtext as a literary device; to apply subtext to such Hedayat short stories as "Dāsh  kol" (Dash Akol), "Sag-i Velgard” (the stray dog), " b-i Zendegī” (the water of life), and other short stories; and to illustrate how mourning rituals that Hedayat might have observed in India, serve as a subtext for his Būf-i Kūr (the blind owl). In the case of The Blind Owl, we shall first study the storyline that is used as subtext and follow that with corresponding events from the novella. The article ends with an investigation into whether The Blind Owl is a novel, why is it that we have difficulty understanding it, and the meaning of the novella to the extent that it can be extracted from the subtext. An understanding of the full meaning of the novella belongs to a separate study.

Of the many composers in the Western classical tradition who celebrated the marriage between psyche and sound, those explored in this book followed the lines diverging from Wagner in philosophizing the nature of desire in music. This books offers two new theories of tonal functionality in the music of the first half of the twentieth century that seek to explain its psychological complexities. First, the book further develops Riemann's three diatonic chord functions, extending them to account from chromatic chord progression and substitution. The three functions (Tonic, Subdominant, Dominant) are compared to Jacques Lacan's twin-concepts of metaphor and metonymy which drive the human desiring apparatus. Second, the book develops a technique for analysing the "drives" that pull chromatic music in multiple directions simultaneously, creating a libidinal surface that mirrors the tensions of the psyche found in Schopenhauer, Freud and post-Freudians, Lacan, Lyotard, and Deleuze.

The harmonic models are tested in psychologically challenging pieces of music by post-Wagnerian composers. From the obsession with death and mourning in Josef Suk's "Asrael" Symphony to an exploration of "perversion" in Richard Strauss's "Elektra"; from the post-Kantian transcendentalism of Charles Ives's "Concord" Sonata to the "Accelerationism" of Skryabin's late piano works; from the Sufi mysticism of Szymanowski's "Song of the Night" to the failed fantasy of the American dream in Aaron Copland's "The Tender Land", the book cuts a path through the dense forests of chromatic complexity, and digs deep into the psychological make-up of post-Wagnerian psychodynamic music.

In this essay we'll analyze the relationship between pornography and desire, moving from hints and suggestions offered by the most diverse subjects, such as philosophy, religion, literature and art. In the first part we will focus on desire, observing how it puts and at the same time destroys a subject in relation to an object. In the second part we will focus on pornography, differentiating it from eroticism mainly because of its purpose: arousing and satisfying (sexual) desire. We will see how pornography, in order to reach its goal, creates a 'subset of the world' that somehow 'obeys' the subject of the desire; finally, to make the illusion 'believable', pornography involves techniques that are similar or identical to those of the arts. In conclusion, we will emphasize how desire transcends illusion by appealing to 'details' outside the rules that break its mechanism, so revealing pornography's nature as a 'mise-en-scene of desire'.

« Le désir est l'essence de l'homme » écrit Spinoza dans l'Éthique. Il faut comprendre par là que l'homme est désir et qu'il s'affirme en exprimant pleinement la puissance qui le caractérise. Cette approche positive rompt avec l'idée selon laquelle le désir ne serait que manque et marquerait l'imperfection humaine. Cette conception du désir est au coeur d'une éthique de la joie s'appuyant sur la nécessité d'une réflexion par laquelle le désir, s'efforçant de mieux cerner sa véritable nature, s'oriente vers ce qui augmente sa capacité d'agir. En quoi cette éthique conduit-elle à se rendre utile aux autres hommes ? C'est la question à laquelle tentera de répondre cette intervention.

This is a comparison of Agathon’s role in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Plato’s Symposium. Firstly, I examine the Platonic version, and the unique, idiosyncratic part Plato gives Agathon to play, as a host to all, and a hostage to Socrates. Secondly, I discuss his interaction with Inlaw, the ordinary Athenian, in Aristophanes’ play. Such parallel reading allows us not only to refine our outlook on the dramatic construction both of the “talking party” and of the comic performance, but also to capture how really poikilos, for better or worse, that urban love could be. Finally, I analyze the significance of this juxtaposition, as an intertext. Plato, I argue, produces a proper palinode of Agathon, as an erotikos and a mimetic poet. By taking seriously the face-to-face between Agathon and Agathon, two dissonant and yet compatible variations on one man, our picture of Athenian erotic culture emerges sharper, and in greater detail. 
Key words:
Eros, sensuality, praise, blame, softness, manliness, effeminacy, body, language.

Begehren, Sexualität, Intimität und Affektivität sind feinmaschig in die spätkapitalistische Matrix des Sozialen eingewebt. Die Studie untersucht die politische Ökonomie des Begehrens nach 1968. Sie unternimmt einen Streifzug quer durch die Philosophiegeschichte – von Platon über die Psychoanalyse zum Poststrukturalismus. Dabei geht sie von der Annahme aus, dass Ökonomie einen konstitutiven Faktor darstellt, wenn man Begehren begreifen will. Umgekehrt lassen sich sozioökonomische Strukturen nicht ohne die Rolle des Begehrens verstehen. Begehren wirkt sozialmobilisierend, indem es normative Ordnungen sowohl errichten und aufrechterhalten als auch überschreiten kann. Neben paradigmatischen Positionen von Platon, Georg W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche und Sigmund Freud werden begehrensökonomische Thesen von Gilles Deleuze und Félix Guattari und der im Paris von Mai ’68 aufkommenden Philosophie des Begehrens betrachtet.

Resumen
La siguiente reflexión parte con un análisis lingüístico del léxico utilizado por Aristóteles en la primera frase de su Metafísica, en particular del verbo desear, como elemento rector de la naturaleza humana. La idea central es mostrar cómo el acto de tender-hacia se vuelve fundamental para el alma humana, en especial, por su carácter de potencia matriz de esta.

Desires matter. How are we to understand their intentionality? According to the main dogma, a desire is a disposition to act. In this article, I propose an alternative to this functionalist picture, which is inspired by the phenomenological tradition. On this approach, desire involves a specific manner of representing the world: deontic mode. Desiring a state of affairs, I propose, is representing it as what ought to be or, if one prefers, as what should be. Firstly, I present three principles of the semantics of desires that pertain to their satisfaction conditions, their world-to-mind direction of fit, and the idea that we desire what, we think, is not actual. Secondly, I examine the functionalist view in light of these features. Finally, I argue for the deontic mode conception: desire and ought-to-be fit like hand in glove. Consequently, desire’s intentionality is irreducible to desire’s functional role and calls for a first-person perspective taking modes seriously.

This article presents an ontological proof that God is impossible.I define an ‘impossibility’ as a condition which is inconceivable due to its a priori characteristics (e.g. a ‘square circle’). Accordingly, said conditions will not ever become conceivable, as they could in instances of a posteriori inconceivability (e.g. the notion that someone could touch a star without being burned). As the basis of this argument, I refer to an a priori observation (Primus, 2019) regarding our inability to imagine inconsistency (difference) within any point of space. This observation renders the notion of absolute power to be inconceivable, a priori. I briefly discuss the moral implications of religious faith in the context of Purism: a moral rationalist paradigm. I conclude that whilst belief in God can be aesthetically expressed it should not be possessed as a material purpose, due to the illogicality of the latter category of belief and/or expression. With this article I provide conceptual delineation between harmless religious belief and expression—which, I argue, should be protected from persecution, as per any other artistic expression— and religious belief and expression which is materially harmful to society. Whilst I aim to protect religious freedom of expression on one hand, I duly aim to reduce instances of material faith in God(s) on the other. Finally, I aim to bring hope in the possibility for human salvation via technology—such that they should exist indefinitely as ‘demigods,’ defined by conditional, relative power over their environment.

"Abstract:
Ovid's "Ars Amatoria" is meant to offer a true recantation of amor, a palinode of love that includes an apology of poetry. Palinode and apology have become necessary and urgent, for Ovid, for two reasons, which offer a double challenge.
The first challenge comes from the love poetry by his contemporaries. Elegy is lament, protest, recrimination, regret. Occasionally praise, it morphs, more
often, into blame. Supposedly intended to convey erotic passion and impatience for pleasure, it turns into an intermittent profession of pain.
The second challenge comes from the carmina of Lucretius. In those carmina,both love and poetry are crucial, and yet highly problematical, because both, poetry and love, undermine the project of an unrelenting argument on behalf of reason. Passion and fiction are a threat. The philosophical effect of such a critique is immense and terrifying.

I will set out to outline the discord between anti-erotic ratio and ars amatoria. I will then be in a position to provide a panoramic view of Ovid’s work. Ovid’s poetry, I will argue, is philosophy, the musical thinking of a lover of myths, a philómythos who, as Aristotle would put it, was a sort of philosopher, philósophos."

Nel presente lavoro si analizzano i concetti principali che concorrono alla definizione della natura dell'essere umano come essere sessuale, tra i quali: coscienza, intersoggettività, corpo e desiderio. Partendo dall'esistenzialismo di Jean-Paul Sartre si delinea mano a mano una fenomenologia che mette in risalto la sessualità come qualcosa di connaturato all'essere umano tanto quanto la razionalità. La sessualità infatti non è un accessorio aggiunto ma è 'coestensiva' all'uomo, sessualità ed esistenza si compenetrano mantenendosi entro un'unità che tiene insieme i diversi aspetti dell'essere umano.
La sessualità rivendica la sua importanza, soprattutto negli ultimi cent'anni che è stata esposta senza pudore e coinvolta in qualunque aspetto della vita dell'uomo, non vive più nell'ombra, e non è protetta dalla discreta intimità di una relazione, è uscita allo scoperto e i discorsi scientifici abbondano e hanno portato in vita una disciplina dedicata ad essa: la sessuologia. Il ragionamento filosofico non può essere escluso dal momento che accettiamo l'uomo come essere sessuale dobbiamo analizzarne le implicazioni che ne conseguono nella relazione con il mondo e con gli altri. La sessualità non è solo sesso e non è solo amore, è tutto, è uomo, corpo, desiderio, rapporto con l'altro, è esistenza.

In this article I attempt to overcome extant obstacles in deriving fundamental, objective and logically deduced definitions of personhood and their rights, by introducing an a priori paradigm of beings and morality. I do so by drawing a distinction between entities that are sought as ends and entities that are sought as means to said ends. The former entities, I offer, are the essence of personhood and are considered precious by observers possessing a logical system of valuation. The latter entities - those sought only as a means to an end - I term 'materials.' Materials are sought for their conditional value: Important for achieving sought ends, they are not considered precious in and of themselves. A normative system for how this dichotomy of entities should interact is consequently derived and introduced. This paradigm has applicability for modern humanism and beyond. Assuming societal technological progression whereby human bodies and their surrounding infrastructures continue to evolve and integrate, the distinction between beings and their supporting materials, and a moral code for their interactions, will become ever more relevant.

The invention of politicis, between the fall of reek tribes and the rise of what Nietzsche called the "Greek enlightment". Society as a body. Polis, and geometry. The end of the social body and the rise of an economy of the human. Temporalisation and monetarisation of the human. Finance and the "futures".

Il contributo intende ripensare l'intreccio di carenza ed eccedenza proprio del desiderio all'interno di una cornice antropologico-filosofica. Tale ripensamento prende le mosse dalla tematizzazione dell’interesse sempre maggiore che va assumendo il desiderio come questione filosofica oltre che più ampiamente sociale (§ 1), per concentrarsi in seguito sulla concezione hegeliana del bisogno animale e di quello umano (§ 2); tale concezione viene conservata/superata prima esplicitando i tratti peculiari della natura dell’animale umano (§ 3) e poi mettendoli direttamente in rapporto con la dialettica bisogno-desiderio (§ 4); in conclusione, si espliciterà più nettamente la dimensione insieme generica e relazionale del desiderare umano, culminando nella tematizzazione dell’esigenza di commisurare (§ 5).

Issues of subjectivity and consciousness are dealt within very different waysw in the analytic tradition and in the idealistic phenomenological tradition central to continental philosophy. This book brings together analytically inspired philosophers working on the contintent with English-speaking philosophers to address specific issues regarding subjectivity and consciousness. The issues range from acquaintance and immediacy in perception and apperception, to the role of agency in bodily 'mine-ness', to self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) through (free) action. Thus involving philosophers of different traditons should yield a deeper vision of consciousness and subjectivity; oe relating the mind not only to nature, or to first-perso authority in linguistic creatures Questions which, in the analytic tradition, are sometimes treated as exhausting the topic but also to many other aspects of mind's understanding of itself in ways which disrupt classic inner/outer boundaries.

Since the nineteenth-sixties the concept of desire has played a significant role in investigating politics and the nature of political subjects. Through the readings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Spinoza, to Nineteenth century political philosophy, this contribution highlights the main current development of this debate. The aim is to shed light on how, in contemporary political philosophy, the concept of desire is discussed to question the uniqueness of modern political subjectivity and to further political change, innovation and social transformation.

This is my contribution to an exciting conference in Basel on "Women and Objects", under the direction of Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer, and in the company of many wonderful scholars from the EUGESTA (European Gender Studies in Antiquity) network (Basel, October, 9 -11, 2017). The argumentative strategy is a criticism of the language of "objectification", on account of what ancient poets and philosophers actually cared about, in their conception of the dialectic of desire. The predominant focus of such a criticism is the importance of the male body, as object OF desire, therefore as INTENTIONAL object of the female gaze. But the overall line of thought is that, contrary to the crude, binary logic of so-called "objectification", we should read carefully the texts and understand how desire aims at the other person's desire, not at the possession of a reified body. I particularly insist on embodiment, as opposed to "the body", and I emphasize the significance of corporeal details, gestures and mannerisms as causes of desire, insofar as they  "accentuate" the beloved, and make him/her a singular individual, who stands apart from anyone else -- and whose corporeal presence is lived and lively.
This is what psychoanalysis, existential experience, and ancient texts -- when properly read  --  have to say.

The first fruits of the literary career of St. Augustine, the great theologian and Christian philosopher par excellence, are the dialogues he wrote at Cassiciacum in Italy following his famous conversion in Milan in 386 A. D. These four little books, largely neglected by scholars, investigate knowledge, ethics, metaphysics and the problem of evil, and the intriguing relationship of God and the soul. They also take up the ancient philosophical project of identifying the principles and practices that heal human desires in order to attain happiness, renewing this philosophical endeavor with insights from Christian theology. Augustine’s later books such as the Confessions would continue this project of healing desire, as would the writings of others including Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas.

The Conversion and Therapy of Desire investigates the roots of this project at Cassiciacum, where Augustine is developing a Christian theology of desire, informed by neo-Platonism but transformed by Christian teaching and practices.

The downloadable excerpt used with permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Available from Hearts and Minds Books (Dallastown, PA), Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Christian Books Distributors, and other places where fine books are sold!

Desire and its repression leaves indelible marks in the cognitive schema of sexualized subjects. This is manifested through language, when individuals articulate using a streamlined mental faculty that reflects the societal stranglehold on desire. From Freud, Kristeva, Lacan to Deleuze and Guattari, the paper explores post-structuralist ideas and frameworks that portray the interplay and interlude between power and desire, as well as how language is intertwined through it all.

Tommaso d’Aquino è considerato - non a torto - uno dei massimi campioni della razionalità occidentale. A conferma dell’intramontabile attualità del suo pensiero, sarebbe sufficiente notare come - nell’originale riformulazione della dottrina delle scienze subalternate - qualche studioso contemporaneo vi abbia per giunta potuto scorgere in embrione i principi dell’assiomatica moderna e delle geometrie non-euclidee. Eppure, in soccorso di chi fosse in qualche modo portato a considerare il pensiero dell’Aquinate alla stregua di una mera concatenazione intellettualistica di concetti, nel gigante del perfectum usum rationis, vi si trova anche formulata - in modo frammentario ma coerente fin dalle prime riflessioni giovanili - una delle dottrine meno conosciute e per questo forse più enigmatiche della sua gnoseologia, protesa verso “un ulteriore modo di conoscere che coinvolga la facoltà appetitiva e la volontà; si tratta di ciò che Tommaso descrive nei termini di una conoscenza per connaturalità (o per modum inclinationis)”, capace di sostenere quell’ampio spettro della cognizione morale, estetica e mistica, che sta in quella linea di confine tra epistème/doxa, tipica dell’intellectus fidei e della riflessione sapienziale. “Analizzando la nozione tommasiana di connaturalità, Mauro Mendula ci aiuta dunque a riconoscere l’originaria unità ontologica di logos e pathos e le vie possibili del dialogo tra volontà e ragione; individuare i modi concreti con cui quelle vie possono essere percorse, poi, rappresenta la sfida a cui tutti noi siamo chiamati”. (Dalla prefazione di Luca Grion)

Copertina flessibile: 177 pagine
Editore: CroceVia
Collana: SYNTHESIS
Lingua: Italiano
ISBN-10: 1709313315
ISBN-13: 978-1709313318

Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the end of analysis, which has different goals or aims, which were as follows: (1) when the unconscious “conveys” itself into the preconscious; (2) the overcoming of internal resistances; (3) the replacement of repression with condemnation; (4) the advance from the pleasure principle to the reality principle; (5) saving mental energy to make the best of one’s inherited capacities to become as capable of enjoyment as possible; and (6) partial or complete sublimation. There is debate about whether Jacques Lacan is to be considered a post-structuralist, but there is no doubt that he professed a unique school of psychoanalysis. According to Lacan there are six goals or aims of psychoanalysis that mark the end of analysis: (1) to articulate the truth about one’s desire; (2) the advent of true speech and the realization by the subject of their history; (3) to traverse the radical fantasy; (4) identification with the sinthome; (5) when the analyst becomes the object-cause of the analysand’s desire and falls from position of subject-supposed-to-know; and (6) if the analysand passes to become an analyst themself.

In the so-called "erotic dialogues", especially the Symposium and the Phaedrus, Plato explained why erotic desire can play an epistemic function, establishing a strong connection between erotic desire and beauty, "the most clearly visible and the most loved" (Phaedr. 250e1) among the Ideas. Taking the erotic dialogues as a background, in this paper I elucidate Plato's explanation in another context, the one of the Phaedo (72e3-77a5), for discussing the epistemic function of erotic desire in relation to the deficiency argument and the affinity argument. My claim is that the erotic desire of the philosopher is activated by the recognition of traces of the Ideas as something that the material world lacks and that, nevertheless, his soul is familiar with. This desire for the Ideas triggers the process of recollection, and thus erotic desire acquires a decisive role in the acquisition of knowledge in the Phaedo. In the final section of the paper, I highlight the contemporary relevance of Plato's epistemology of erotic desire.

The thesis defended, the “guise of the ought”, is that the formal objects of desires are norms (oughts to be or oughts to do) rather than values (as the “guise of the good” thesis has it). It is impossible, in virtue of the nature of desire, to desire something without it being presented as something that ought to be or that one ought to do. This view is defended by pointing to a key distinction between values and norms: positive and negative norms (obligation and interdiction) are interdefinable through negation; positive and negative values aren’t. This contrast between the norms and values, it is argued, is mirrored, within the psychological realm, by the contrast between the desires and emotions. Positive and negative desires are interdefinable through negation, but positive and negative emotions aren’t. The overall, Meinongian picture suggested is that norms are to desires what values are to emotions.

Since the nineteenth-sixties the concept of desire has played a significant role in investigating politics and the nature of political subjects. Through the readings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Spinoza, to Nineteenth century political philosophy, this contribution highlights the main current development of this debate. The aim is to shed light on how, in contemporary political philosophy, the concept of desire is discussed to question the uniqueness of modern political subjectivity and to further political change, innovation and social transformation.

Bu makale, bastırmanın eleştirisini radikalizmin ön-koşulu haline getirerek bir karşı-kültür şafağı tanımlayan XX. yüzyıl politik felsefesinin etik-politik özneleşmenin koşulunu enerjetik kipliklerde arama eğilimini sorunsallaştırmak suretiyle öznelliğin bilinçdışı dinamiklerine dair yeni bir bakış sunmayı hedefliyor. Özneleşmenin enerjetik bir yükselişten ziyade imgelem yetisindeki bir yetkinleşmeye tekabül eden ve özünde politik olan içtihat gücünün öznelliğin kalbinde işleyen anti-üretim sentezleriyle olan ilişkisine odaklanarak nicedir basit bir neşeli duygular retoriğine indirgenen mikropolitik tahayyülü yeniden tanımlamaya çalışıyor. Sağduyu etkisiyle bir-arada-olanaksız dünyalar halinde ıraksanmış mümkün başka dünyaları kendinde sarmalayan semiyotik üretim varyantı olarak imgelem yetisinin tarihin farklı kesitlerinde toplumsal makinelerin tözleriyle nasıl sefilleştirildiğini gösterirken semiyo-politik bir sömürüye normatif bir zorunluluk atfeden her türden sözde analizin ideolojik işlevinin ifşasıyla semiyotik bir çok-anlamlılığı ihtiva eden imgelem yetisinin sanatsal, pragmatik ve nihayet devrimci karakteristiğini ortaya koymayı hedefliyor. Öznelliğin kalbinde işleyen anti-üretim sentezinin, gerçeğin çölleştiği ya da faşizan bir projeksiyonla yeryüzünün üst-kodlandığı tarihsel kesitlerde kendi üstüne dönerek tetiklediği kara delik etkilerinin, günümüzde kolektif bilinçdışı sahasını güdümleyen dijitalin egemenliğinde edindiği yeni veçheleri sorunsallaştırıyor. Arzunun çok-sesliliğinde saklı semiyotik çok-anlamlılığı sarmalayan imgeleme özgü halüsinatif yatırımın semiyo-dijital modülasyonlarla ayartılmasının, post-politik toplumun empati ve sempati ilkesini dışlayan çölleşmesini pekiştiren olumsuz tesirini ortaya çıkarmaya çalışıyor. Kara delik etkisinin imgelem yetisini köreltmek suretiyle yeni bir toplumsal sinaps ve örgütlenme modeli üretme ihtimalini imkansızlaştıran etkisini inceliyor. Enerjetik eğilimin büyüsüne kapılan karşı-kültürün yenilgisi akılda tutulursa anti-üretim sentezinin rehberliğinde düşünülmesi gerektiği kesinleşen radikal stratejileri soruşturuyor.

Mouvement, stagnation et quête du bonheur dans Paludes et Les Nourritures terrestres d'André Gide Par Wilson Décembre Avant d'expliquer aux autres mon livre, j'attends que d'autres me l'expliquent. Vouloir l'expliquer d'abord c'est en restreindre le sens ; car si nous savons ce que nous voulions dire, nous ne savons pas si nous ne disions que cela.-On dit toujours plus que CELA.-Et ce qui surtout m'y intéresse, c'est ce que j'y ai mis sans le savoir,-cette part d'inconscient, que je voudrais appeler la part de Dieu. André Gide, Paludes (Avant-propos) Tout porte à croire que chez l'homme-auteur André Gide, il y a un-je-ne-sais-quoi qui légitime l'interférence de la vie et de l'oeuvre. C'est ce qui permet à E.U Bertalot, citant Marc Beigbeder, d'affirmer que "chez André Gide, plus que chez aucun autre […] l'oeuvre est inséparable de la personne". (Bertalot, 24) D'où une tendance chez bon nombre de commentateurs de Gide à faire une lecture excessivement biographique de son oeuvre étouffant ainsi la polyphonie impersonnelle de l'écriture elle-même. La plupart des fois, cela donne des approches unilatérales, unidimensionnelles, hyper-sexualisantes, qui projettent la personne de l'auteur sur l'oeuvre elle-même.1C'est que la personne de Gide est imposante. Alan Sheridan signale que le nom de Gide était connu dans le monde entier par des millions de personnes qui n'avaient jamais lu un seul de ses livres. (Sheridan, xi) Encore aujourd'hui tout se passe comme si ses positions morales, politiques et religieuses étaient plus importantes que son oeuvre créative elle-même. Mais plus que jamais, il est important d'affirmer que l'oeuvre est autonome et que cette autonomie qui la situe au-delà du biographique doit être "respectée", selon le mot d'ordre d'Alan Sheridan (xvi). D'ailleurs, ce n'est pas complètement à tort que la théorie et la critique littéraires modernes ne se contentent pas de proclamer la mort de l'auteur, qu'elles doublent leur annonce funéraire d'une injonction, d'un appel au meurtre : il faut aussi tuer l'ombre de l'auteur là où elle continue à hanter la réception de l'oeuvre. Barthes est catégorique, il faut que l'auteur meure pour que "l'écriture commence". Il déplore le fait que "l'explication de l'oeuvre est toujours cherchée du côté de celui qui l'a produite, comme si, à travers l'allégorie plus moins transparente de la fiction, c'était toujours finalement la voix d'une seule et même personne, l'auteur qui livrait sa "confidence""(Barthes, 61-67). Car il est vrai que l'omniprésence de l'auteur dans l'entreprise même de lecture peut aboutir à un rétrécissement des signes qui empêche le lecteur de saisir le champ indéfini de potentialités que ces derniers concentrent et qui attendent leur déploiement dans l'acte de lecture inédite. Il est donc impératif que le texte vive une vie libre. Mais évitons toute radicalité, tout extrémisme assassin des nuances. Car il n'est pas toujours vrai que le meurtre pur et simple de l'auteur soit toujours bénéfique. Car il y a des auteurs dont la présence dans leur texte nous amène à procéder plutôt à une mise entre parenthèses ou, mieux, une mise en suspension de leur personne ; procédé qui présente l'avantage de pouvoir les appeler quand c'est nécessaire. Non pas le meurtre donc, mais la mise en suspension.

The aim of this article is to investigate the correlation between semiotic and the question of subjectivity in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus. For doing so, the first part explores how Deleuze and Guattari move away from a negative interpretation of desire, and rethink in a productive way the movement and the investments of desire. This premise is fundamental to understand the nature and the function of a concept that, at first sight, seems to be irrelevant, the notion of pointsign. This concept is important for two reasons: indeed, it has a central role in both untangling the relationship that - inside the Lacan’s approach to psychoanalysis - connects desire to signifier and in creating a different relation between sign and desire. Finally, I will show how these semiotic considerations can be used as tools to search and investigate the new process of subjectification inside our contemporaneity.

An abstract notion of goal in terms of “regulatory state”, however necessary for a general
theory of motivated behavior, is still insufficient. Actually, a complex family of
regulatory states exist, such as desires, needs, and intentions. The general notion of goal
is to be subdivided into different kinds of “goal” endowed with special properties to
account for their different kinds of influence on people’s beliefs, behavior, and emotional
reactions. Our work aims to take some steps in this direction by providing the basic
ingredients which characterize intentions, desires, and needs. Special attention is paid to
needs, their distinguishing properties, the reasons for their driving force, the important
difference between “having a need” and “feeling a need” for something, and the crucial
3
role played by the body and by self-perception in “felt” needs. Actually, in our view the
analysis of “felt” needs points to the necessity for cognitive science to foster the
integration between cognitive ingredients – such as beliefs, goals, and expectations – and
the “feeling” typical of subjective experience, which implies a relation with the body and
its perceptions.
Key words: goal, desire, need, intention, behavior

Differently form the majority of the anglo-american Sartre scholars, who stress the line Husserl-Heidegger-Sartre, thus highlighting the 'existential' topics which gravitate around the apparent moral impasses of Sartre's thought, the paper attempts instead to read Sartre rather in dialogue with Hegel than with the latter mentioned. That is, to stress the 'dialectical structure' of consciousness, moreover to indicate a possible reading of Sartre's 'dialectic of the look (regard)' as a sublation (Aufhebung) of Hegel's Master-Slave dialectic. This brings to the suggestion, however not exhaustively treated in the paper, that the Marx-Engelsian notion of 'class struggle' appears to be the product of an hybrid historico-theoretical experience: the use of the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, which traces the concrete emergence of XIXth century Bourgeoisie, to describe a socio-economic relation which ought to be described with an other theoretical framework. The ultimate thesis of the paper is twofold. 1) that there is no discontinuity between the Sartre of 'Being and Nothingness' with the later Sartre of 'Question de Méthode' and 'Critique de la raison dialectique'; 2) that the aforementioned 'other theoretical framework' is precisely Sartre's 'dialectic of the look'.

In a well-known passage in the 'Big Typescript' Wittgenstein suggests that a philosopher’s unwillingness to renounce certain combinations of words as nonsensical arises from her seeing what she wants to see.  He seems to be postulating a combination of two problematic psychological phenomena: self-deception and illusions of meaning.  Accusations of self-deception in philosophy naturally invite counter-accusations of the genetic fallacy but, quite apart from that, there is, I argue, a special problem for Wittgenstein.  In examples of ‘normal’ self-deception someone believes what she wants to believe (sees what she wants to see) but what she believes (sees) has a content.  It makes sense, even though it might be false.  What is the analogue of this when it is nonsense that is in question?  Can the CONTENT OF A BELIEF be nonsensical?

When referring to rhetoric, most people focus on the argumentative, rational and critical reasoning involved in the art of persuasion. It is that logocratic (logos) dimension that is most alluded to when we think about the discursive skills an orator must possess in order to convince others that it is plausible to accept the arguments he advances that support his claims. Yet, affect is another way through which we reason and think. In this paper, I want to explore the genealogy of affective rhetoric. I suggest that not only pondering on emotional persuasion is crucial to contemporary, mediatized communication (including advertising and political communication), as also affective rhetoric is already implicit in the definition of early Greek rhetoric. In his dialogue Phaedrus, Plato already describes the affective nature of rhetoric and persuasion when he qualifies it as psychagogia. Exploring rhetoric as psychagogia opens the door to the rhetoric of desire and the pervasive role of emotions in today's advertising rhetoric. Emotions and desire are not a secondary or even a to-avoid aspect of rhetorical persuasion but the very core through which we think, decide and decide to act.

In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping. First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopa-mine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes.

Les désirs sont centraux pour agir et être heureux. Qu'est-ce qu'un désir et en quoi sont-ils importants ? Dans cette entrée, nous tenterons de mettre les mots sur cette expérience si familière. Nous présenterons les principales conceptions du désir en philosophie occidentale, en particulier la théorie motivationnelle (désirer est être motivé à agir) et la théorie évaluative (désirer est faire l'expérience du bien). Dans un deuxième temps, nous examinerons la thèse selon laquelle le bonheur consiste en la satisfaction de nos désirs. Enfin, nous conclurons en interrogeant trois types de désir qui semblent vitaux: l'espoir, la curiosité et le désir sexuel.

The thesis is an exploration on conceptions of the body, which is split in mind and body since Cartesian thinking, and where the main role is taken over by the mind.

The research shows that, in particular, in performance art of which it was assumed that it would regain the original unity increases rather than reduces dualism.

By coming to terms with the idea that desire indicates lack (Freud) and presenting desire as a creative autonomous force (Deleuze and Guattari) an opening is provided in coming to terms with dualism. Q.S. Serafijn

(the thesis is available in dutch)

Con l'adagio "non c'è rapporto sessuale" Lacan indica un buco nel sapere, una impasse nella conoscenza. Questo buco è la ragione di fondo di tutti gli scandali legati al sesso e alla sessualità. Come leggere questo buco in termini immanenti e non dialettici? Come un ritmo.

Prima parte.

Michel Foucault, Les Aveux de la chair. Histoire de la sexualité IV, édition établie, avertissement, index des ouvrages cités par Frédéric Gros, collection Bibliothèque des Histoires, Paris, Gallimard, februarie 2018, 448 pp.

Revista 22, nr. 10 (1459), 13-19 martie 2018, p. 14.