Dallmayr Fred - Freud Nietzsch

Freud, Nietzsche, Lacan:
A Discourse on Critical Theory

Fred Dallmayr
As I u n d e r s t a n d it, the term "political psychology" seeks to

capture the correlation of psyche a n d polls; instead of simply
reducing one d i m e n s i o n to the other, it aims to h i g h l i g h t the peculiar
interlacing between psychic drives a n d social contexts, between
inner h u m a n " n a t u r e " a n d public institutions or norms. The same
ambition, it appears, lies at the heart of psychoanalysis--despite a
shift of accent from m a n i f e s t behavior to latent or covert motiva-
tions. Ever since Civilization and its Discontents, a central preoc-
cupation of Freud's heirs h a s been the linkage of instinctual
impulses and social constraints, of unconscious "libido" and publicly
sanctioned rules. To be sure, p s y c h o a n a l y t i c theory does not offer a
compact consensus on these matters. In fact, F r e u d i a n i s m in our
century h a s splintered into an array of competing schools--all of
t h e m providing a distinct slant on the mentioned correlation.
During recent decades, a n t a g o n i s m has prevailed chiefly between
spokesmen of libidinal or "id" psychology, on the one hand, a n d
c h a m p i o n s of "ego" a n d "superego" psychology (and facets of
"object relations" theory), on the other. In large measure, the conflict
centers a r o u n d the definition of h u m a n "nature": with proponents of
the two schools stressing unconscious, inner-psychic and moral or
interpersonal c o m p o n e n t s respectively. 1 The conflict carries over
into conceptions of psychic illness a n d therapy. While "id" psy-
chologists seek to rescue the individual from the t r a u m a t i z i n g or
destabilizing effects of society, their opponents see the m a i n goal of
t h e r a p y in the effort to reintegrate the patient into the world of social
n o r m s a n d public meanings.
It c a n n o t be m y task here to sort out the m a n y disputes r a g i n g
between Freud's h e i r s - - a task exceeding not only the confines of one
paper but also the limits of m y professional competence. Instead,
adopting a more restricted focus, I i n t e n d to concentrate on the
status a n d c h a n g i n g fortunes of p s y c h o a n a l y s i s in the context of the
F r a n k f u r t School. Even within t h a t context I shall not offer a
detailed historical narrative but rather h i g h l i g h t salient views of
some p r o m i n e n t spokesmen of "critical theory" (notably Adorno,
Politics, Culture, and Society
Volume 2, Number 4, Summer 1989 46-] 9 1989 H u m a n Sciences Press
468 Politics, Culture, and Society
Marcuse, a n d Habermas). My overall concern here, I should add, is

not so m u c h historical or descriptive as theoretical in c h a r a c t e r - - t h e
latter term embracing the fields of both psychoanalytic theory and
political theory (and their m u t u a l connection). A crucial, but largely
unresolved issue in m u c h p s y c h o a n a l y t i c literature involves the
relation of "inner" a n d "outer" domains. Frequently, the libidinal
unconscious is treated as a completely internal or privatized sphere,
as an " i n n a t e " e n d o w m e n t of individuals segregated from inter-
personal contacts or social rules. Yet, how plausible is this concep-
t i o n - g i v e n t h a t libidinal nature basically precedes or antedates the
process of i n d i v i d u a t i o n a n d thus the emergence of subject-object
and inner-outer dualisms? A corollary of this issue is the nexus of
reason a n d libido, especially to the extent t h a t the two are construed
as polar antipodes. For how can reason (and n o r m a t i v e rules) be
viewed as entirely alien or external to libidinal n a t u r e - - w i t h o u t
d e g e n e r a t i n g quickly into u n n a t u r a l or c o u n t e r n a t u r a l constraints?
Conversely, how can libido be entirely privatized a n d recalcitrant to
rules (no m a t t e r how embryonic)--without n e g a t i n g the centrality
a n d civilizing effect of l a n g u a g e in h u m a n life?
Issues of this kind are p r o m i n e n t l y displayed in the writings of the
F r a n k f u r t School. My thesis is t h a t the accent of the School h a s
shifted over time from a relatively "orthodox" Freudianism, stressing
libido a n d instinctual frustrations, to a position more akin to ego-
a n d superego psychology, t h a t is, to an e m p h a s i s on normatively
regulated interpersonal relations. In the case of H a b e r m a s who
epitomizes this trend, the c h a n g e is buttressed by a presumed
" p a r a d i g m shift" in c o n t e m p o r a r y t h o u g h t - - n a m e l y , the move from
an individualist philosophy relying on reflection a n d "inner" nature
to a linguistically informed outlook focusing on interpersonal
c o m m u n i c a t i o n . A l t h o u g h n o t entirely in a g r e e m e n t with t h e
libidinal stance of the older F r a n k f u r t School, I am troubled by
H a b e r m a s ' s progressive w e a k e n i n g of the F r e u d i a n legacy a n d its
virtual replacement by theories of cognitive a n d moral development
p a t t e r n e d on Piaget a n d Kohlberg. As an antidote to H a b e r m a s ' s
a p p r o a c h I shall invoke the neo-orthodoxy of Jacques L a c a n whose
work i n s t a n t i a t e s the p a r a d i g m shift or "linguistic t u r n " postulated
by H a b e r m a s , but w i t h o u t in a n y way a b a n d o n i n g the insights of
F r e u d i a n "id" psychology. Accordingly, the middle section of the
paper offers a synopsis of central L a c a n i a n themes or teachings,
together with a critical application of these themes to H a b e r m a s i a n
developmentalism. In the concluding section I turn to one of Freud's
crucial precursors, Friedrich Nietzsche, in an a t t e m p t to illustrate
the implications of the preceding discussion--namely, by sketching
a L a c a n i a n or quasi-Lacanian reading of The Birth of Tragedy.
Fred Dallmayr 469
A review of the F r a n k f u r t School's t r e a t m e n t of psychoanalysis

m a y u s e f u l l y - - t h o u g h not lightly--begin with Theodor Adorno. The
b e g i n n i n g is appropriate in view of Adorno's grasp of the broad
r a n g e a n d tensional character of Freud's legacy; it is also difficult
since it m e a n s starting in medias res a n d because he was perhaps
the most complex, occasionally enigmatic representative of the
School. Adorno's i n v o l v e m e n t with psychoanalysis dates back to an
early essay on the "unconscious" and, more importantly, to the first
phase of his association with the F r a n k f u r t Institute (during the
1940's) when he actively participated in various social-psychological
research projects dealing with prejudice, authoritarianism, a n d the
like. The type of p s y c h o a n a l y s i s which Adorno, together with most
other m e m b e r s of the Institute, embraced at the time was libidinal or
"id" psychology, t h a t is, a more or less orthodox version of the
F r e u d i a n theory of instincts, but minus the death instinct. F r o m the
v a n t a g e of this theory, h u m a n b e h a v i o r - - a t least in its psycho-
biological depth structure--was seen as outgrowth of unconscious
libidinal drives or energies, drives which are only precariously
channeled by a supervening rational ego a n d modified or constrained
by societal n o r m s internalized in the "superego." The attractiveness
of this outlook for critical theory resided in its radical anti-idealism,
t h a t is, in its refusal to dissolve the unconscious in rational
t r a n s p a r e n c y and to blend psychoanalysis into Geisteswissenschaft.
In political terms, the Freudian stance entailed t h a t deep-seated
drives could be invoked as potential antipodes or countervailing
challenges to existing social n o r m s and thus as sources of resistance
to societal m a n i p u l a t i o n . As Adorno wrote in an essay of 1946 which
sharply attacked revisionist tendencies to water down or emasculate
F r e u d i a n libido theory: "Concretely, the denunciation of Freud's
so-called instinctivism a m o u n t s to the denial t h a t culture, by
enforcing restrictions on libidinal a n d particularly on destructive
drives, is i n s t r u m e n t a l in b r i n g i n g about repressions, guilt feelings,
a n d need for self-punishment. ''2
As espoused by Adorno at the time, F r e u d i a n i s m t h u s involved a
profound a n t a g o n i s m between drives a n d social rules or, loosely,
between i n n e r a n d outer domains. To this extent, his outlook clearly
showed the i m p r i n t of Civilization and Its Discontents with its bold
t h e m a t i z a t i o n of the conflict between societal progress a n d in-
stinctual frustration, between reason a n d "inner" nature. According
to Adorno, this conflict reached its apex in the contemporary period
of organized or late capitalism with its large-scale and systematic
m a n i p u l a t i o n of h u m a n lives; at this stage, a n y notion of a h a r m o n y
or congruence between society a n d individual h a p p i n e s s was in his

view preposterous. As he observed in his "The Revised Psycho-
a n a l y s i s " (of 1946) t h e merit of Freud consisted precisely in his
decision to leave the contradictions between " h u m a n nature" a n d
society unresolved, in his refusal "to pretend a systematic h a r m o n y
w h e n the subject itself is torn. ''8 To be sure, in the m o d e r n age the
restrictions on instinctual n a t u r e were not simply externally
imposed, but in some measure the result of individual self-restraint.
For the sake of a d v a n c i n g his economic interests as well as his
religious aspirations, the m o d e r n rational subject adopted initially a
system of instinctual repression or n o n g r a t i f i c a t i o n - - a system
which, in part, forms the basis of the capitalist mode of production.
In more general terms, the m o d e r n ego--construed along Cartesian
l i n e s - - w a s b o u n d to confront the s u r r o u n d i n g world as an arena of
external objects amenable to control a n d exploitation, t h a t is,
amenable to the dictates of scientific a n d " i n s t r u m e n t a l " reason. In
the course of time, however, this extension of control carried a price:
namely, the progressive subjugation of h u m a n inner nature, in the
sense t h a t this n a t u r e was increasingly alienated from the subject
(and thus turned into an internal "foreign territory"). Moreover, the
development of organized capitalism steadily transferred the seat of
control from the rational ego to a n o n y m o u s social institutions, to
systemic societal forces sedimented in the superego. Thus, the
a u t o n o m o u s individual ultimately became the victim of his own
designs: the victim of the u n l e a s h i n g of i n s t r u m e n t a l reason.
In d r a m a t i c form, the sketched development constitutes the
central t h e m e of Dialectic of Enlightenment (of 1947), authored
jointly by Max H o r k h e i m e r a n d Adorno. Going back to the roots of
Western civilization, the study offers a cost-benefit analysis of
Western r a t i o n a l i s m a n d rationalization: an analysis carefully
weighing the undeniable advances in scientific knowledge a n d
technological prowess a g a i n s t the losses in terms of h u m a n integrity
a n d h a r m o n y with inner a n d outer nature. Streamlined under the
auspices of i n s t r u m e n t a l reason, the authors noted, m o d e r n civiliza-
tion tends to m a k e "the d o m i n a t i o n of outer a n d inner nature the
absolute goal of life"; rationalization accordingly becomes the motor
of a " s a v a g e (verwildert) self-a•rmation or self-maintenance."
A l t h o u g h at first l a u n c h e d by the rational ego, the a s s a u l t on nature
progressively rebounds a g a i n s t the i n d i v i d u a l m i n a m a n n e r which
links the story of rationalization with the "history of subjectivity."
In the authors' words: "At the m o m e n t w h e n m a n undercuts
awareness of his own 'nature' (i.e., of h i m s e l f as nature), all purposes
of s u r v i v a l m i n c l u d i n g social progress, the cultivation of material
a n d intellectual capacities, a n d even consciousness itself--become
Fred Dallmayr 471
null and void . . . . The domination of m a n over himself which

establishes his ego or selfhood m e a n s at the same time potentially
the destruction of the subject in whose service it occurs; for, the
dominated and repressed substance--dissolved for the sake of
survival--is nothing but life itself whose m a i n t e n a n c e survival is
m e a n t to promote, t h a t is, the very thing which is supposed to be
preserved." As antidote to progressive self-destruction or self-
mutilation accomplished via instrumental survival, Dialectic of
Enlightenment appealed to a critical mode of thinking transgressing
the bounds of instrumental reason: a kind of recollective thought in
which reason remembers its rootedness in nature, thus enlightening
itself about its own dialectic. "Through such recollection of nature in
the subject," we read, "a recollection containing within itself the
ignored truth of all culture, enlightenment is basically opposed to
domination. ''4
Recollection of this kind, and its promise of a "reconciliation with
nature," became the consuming focus of Adorno's later thought and
works. Without relinquishing the claims of reason or rationality, his
Negative Dialectics appealed to the rational ego to open itself to
radical "otherness" beyond the confines of instrumental control--to
a domain of "non-identity" transcending rational thought and
comprising both inner and outer nature. Similarly, his Aesthetic
Theory adumbrated a mode of creative behavior w h i c h - - f a r from
subjugating or manipulating the world--seeks to preserve and
recreate "objects" by inserting them in a series of novel constella-
tions. The chief means of reconciliation in these works was the
endeavor of "mimesis" or mimetic r a p p r o c h e m e n t m a term denoting
neither mere external adaptation nor subjective projection or inven-
tion. 5 Despite its intriguing and immensely suggestive power, one
should note the tensional and deeply antinomial, if not paradoxical,
character of Adorno's later thought: Described as an "impulse" and
thus located outside rational cognition, mimesis was supposed to
serve as a bridge between consciousness and the unconscious,
between reason and nature; in psychological terms, the category
functioned both as an internal or intrapsychic capacity ("impulse")
and as a m a g n e t catapulting the subject toward "otherness." On a
more general plane, the same tension pervades Adorno's conception
of "non-identity" or his notion of ego-other relations. For, how can
reason or the ego possibly be reconciled and even correlated with a
domain which is defined as radically nonidentical or "other" t h a n
the rational ego? Does such reconciliation not presuppose a common
b o n d m p e r h a p s something like the bond of"being" or of an ontologi-
cal h a p p e n i n g - - w h i c h undergirds both consciousness and libido,
both reason and non-reason in their mutual difference?6
The t h e m e of "reconciliation with n a t u r e " was not the exclusive

preserve of Adorno but was shared by other m e m b e r s of the early
F r a n k f u r t School, m o s t p r o m i n e n t l y by Herbert Marcuse. Like
Adorno, Marcuse relied with slight modifications on orthodox
psychoanalysis, t h a t is, on Freudian "id" psychology or libido
theory. In his more optimistic moods, he tended to place his hopes for
reconciliation entirely in m a n ' s instinctual structure--the pent-up
potential o f " E r o s " - - w h i l e relegating reason a n d societal n o r m s to a
derivative a n d relatively subordinate status. Whereas Adorno pre-
ferred to u p h o l d the stark a n t i n o m y of reason a n d nature, Marcuse
at crucial j u n c t u r e s was inclined to s u s p e n d or at least relax this
tension in favor of libidinal drives defined as m a n ' s "inner" or
pre-social n a t u r e a n d as h a r b i n g e r s of a t r a n s f o r m e d or liberated
future society. To be sure, this t e n d e n c y was not uniformly main-
tained a n d was subject to d r a m a t i c oscillations--to m o m e n t s w h e n
libidinal hopes seemed crushed by the weight of societal, technologi-
cal domination. In a sense, Adorno's tension t h u s resurfaces in
Marcuse's intellectual biography, as illustrated, for example, in the
alternation between the gloomy One-Dimensional Man (of 1964) and
the more ebullient Essay on Liberation (of 1969). 7
As in the case of Adorno, Marcuse's involvement with psycho-
analysis goes back to the early years of his institutional affiliation,
to the period w h e n F r a n k f u r t t h e o r i s t s - - u n d e r Horkheimer's leader-
s h i p - - s o u g h t to define the p r o g r a m or basic tenets of the Institute
under the label of "critical theory." While participating actively in
this endeavor, Marcuse from the start gave to critical theory a less
social-scientific a n d more psychological or emotive s l a n t - - a slant
m a n i f e s t in the combination of Hegel, Marx, a n d Freud. In this
combination, while Hegel provided basic philosophical premises
a n d Marx concrete social-economic parameters, the importance of
Freud consisted in f u r n i s h i n g the actual goal a n d substantive
context of h u m a n liberation or emancipation. In Marcuse's portray-
al, this goal was h u m a n " h a p p i n e s s " defined as instinctual fulfill-
m e n t or t h e fulfillment of the d e m a n d s of i n n e r h u m a n nature.
Whenever the structure of a given society--particularly the structure
of m o d e r n capitalist society--conflicted with the striving for h u m a n
happiness, the structure stood c o n d e m n e d in the eyes of critical
theory a n d h a d to be c h a n g e d or amended. As Marcuse wrote in an
essay of 1937, entitled "Philosophy and Critical Theory": "Two
aspects above all link (Marxist) m a t e r i a l i s m with the correct or
proper theory of society: the concern with h u m a n h a p p i n e s s a n d the
conviction t h a t such h a p p i n e s s can only be achieved t h r o u g h a
t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of the material conditions of h u m a n life. ''s Thus,
w h e n capitalist society imposed on its members severe deprivations
Fred Dallmayr 473
in terms of unemployment or military service (entailing the possible

loss of life or limb), the basic principle a n i m a t i n g this society was
defective and illegitimate and needed to give way to a social
formation more conducive to h u m a n need satisfaction and self-
development.
Regarding Marcuse's psychoanalytic approach, the most im-
portant and revealing work is undoubtedly his Eros and Civilization
(of 1955). Harking back, even in its title, to Freud's Civilization and
Its Discontents, the study depicted modern social developments in
terms of a complex balance sheet of h u m a n gains and losses. On the
one hand, autonomous ego structures and cognitive enlightenment
could only emerge as a result of instinctual frustration and of a
certain emancipation from inner nature and its guiding "pleasure
principle." On the other hand, individual and social rationalization
has come to rebound against the ego by extending the control over
external nature to individual and social life, thus subjugating
libidinal drives increasingly to a rigid "reality principle" wedded to
instrumental reason and competitive performance or achievement.
While, up to this point, Marcuse's narrative largely coincided with
Freud's account, the study proceeded to propose a dramatic d~noue-
ment of developmental conflicts and paradoxes--a d~nouement
which radically departed from Freud's ingrained pessimism. The
proposal consisted in the convergence or simultaneity of further
rationalization and libidinal gratification--a notion predicated on
the assumption that economic abundance, accomplished through
technological advances, would permit the reduction of societal
"surplus repression" and thus the reinvigoration of man's libidinal
or erotic potential. Although still channeled by efforts of self-
sublimation, this resurgence of the "pleasure principle," in Marcuse's
view, would not be limited to the libidinal or unconscious domain,
but permeate ego and superego structures as well. In line with an
"eroticization of the whole h u m a n being," the same resurgence
would also promote a strengthening of p h a n t a s y and recollection in
h u m a n thought, thus curbing the predominance of instrumental
reason. 9
Marcuse's hope for a revival of libidinal energies was not limited
to the cited study but resurfaced also in his later works--after the
more subdued and austere interlude of One-Dimensional Man. Thus,
his E s s a y on Liberation pinned the expectation of further h u m a n
emancipation on the potency of frustrated or repressed cultural and
aesthetic needs--needs ignored by contemporary capitalist society
preoccupied exclusively with vulgar consumption rather t h a n the
quality of life. Similarly, his Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972)
detected even in the face of the pervasive coadaptation of the
working class a n d the "technostructure of exploitation" muffling

dissent the potential of social t r a n s f o r m a t i o n rooted in unfulfilled
moral a n d aesthetic needs, in d e m a n d s for a qualitatively enriched
life style a n d for participation in public life. Challenging the
conservative a n d reactionary tendencies of those times, Marcuse
wrote: "A potential m a s s base of social c h a n g e finds its diffuse,
prepolitical expression in the work attitudes a n d protests which
t h r e a t e n to u n d e r m i n e the operational requirements a n d values of
capitalism. ''1~ The question Marcuse failed to address in this as well
as in his previous writings was how " i n n e r n a t u r e " could be
liberated in the prevailing industrial technological setting, more
precisely: how the u n l e a s h i n g of libidinal drives could be deliberately
promoted or engineered without subjecting libido even more fully to
the dictates of i n s t r u m e n t a l reason from which liberation was
sought? A closely related question was how, without some radical
transformation, technological m a n was still supposed to have
access to the buried or eroded d o m a i n s of Eros a n d sensuality?
To some extent, attentiveness to such questions--especially t h a t
of the inner-outer i s s u e - - f o r m s the dividing line between the older
a n d the y o u n g e r generation of F r a n k f u r t theorists. The work of
J(irgen H a b e r m a s , above all, approaches h u m a n a n d social emanci-
p a t i o n not so m u c h from the angle of inner-psychic drives as from
the perspective of social coordination a n d interpersonal correlation.
While Marcuse took his b e a r i n g s from "id" psychology a n d a
strongly internalized conception of libido, Habermas, even w h e n
i n v o k i n g F r e u d i a n teachings, resolutely shifted the accent to the
level of ego a n d superego structures, t h a t is, the level of h u m a n
rationality a n d n o r m a t i v e l y guided communication. To be sure, the
difference of focus emerged at first haltingly, a n d only slowly
a s s u m e d the character of a stark contrast or opposition. A measure
of intergenerational consensus or continuity was still evident in
some of H a b e r m a s ' s early writings. Thus, his Knowledge and
Human Interests (1968) assigned to the F r e u d i a n model not merely a
m a r g i n a l but a crucial a n d constitutive role: namely, the role of
f u n c t i o n i n g as epistemological p a r a d i g m for critical theory or for a
critical social science wedded to the "critique of ideology." In
H a b e r m a s ' s portrayal, the model could fulfill this function because
of its peculiar blending of explanatory a n d interpretive meth-
odologies. While n a t u r a l or empirical science is restricted to the
causal explanation of (unconscious) n a t u r a l processes, a n d while
the h u m a n sciences, following Dilthey, seek to " u n d e r s t a n d " cultural
or symbolic m e a n i n g s , critical social science pursued a more
ambitious task: t h a t of analyzing structural social deformations in
the hope of p r o m o t i n g more equitable and intelligible social arrange-
Fred Dallmayr 475
ments. Although limited to individual experiences, Freudian psycho-

analysis followed a similar path by seeking to unravel not only
intentional m e a n i n g s but rather subconscious inhibitions and
"systematically distorted" modes of self-understanding. In Haber-
mas's words: "Psychoanalytic inquiry is not directed at meaning
structures on the level of conscious intentions; its critical labor
removes not merely accidental lapses . . . . The symbolic structures
t h a t psychoanalysis seeks to grasp are corrupted by the impact of
internal constraints; mutilations (of meaning) have meaning as
8uch."11
Although reflecting a methodological blend, psychoanalysis in
Habermas's view in the end accorded preeminence to intelligible
meaning. It is true that in its effort to overcome inner constraints
and inhibitions, Freudian theory offered both a structural model of
the psyche and a number of explanatory hypotheses pinpointing the
causes of psychic traumas. In Habermas's account, however, such
devices were at best a means, but in no way the end or goal of
psychoanalysis: as reflected in the interaction between analyst and
patient, this goal consisted in the recovery of unimpaired ego and
superego structures through therapeutic exchanges. Once an
explanatory proposal was accepted by the patient as fitting his or
her case, the deformation of inner nature was assumed to be removed
in favor of self-understanding and a restored ego-identity. As
endorsed in Knowledge and H u m a n Interests Freudianism thus
carried a pale and distinctly reflective cast: in comparison with
Adorno's stark antinomial conception, therapy in Habermas's
construal seemed capable of dissolving the conflict between libido
and societal norms (including linguistic norms) and thus of"sublat-
i n g " inner nature into reflective rationality. Building on this
construal, Habermas's subsequent writings further mitigated
libidinal factors and the impact of psychoanalysis in general by
subordinating the latter progressively to formal-pragmatic and
"reconstructive" modes of analysis. As a corollary of this shift,
Habermas explicitly limited the role of psychoanalysis to individual
experience and private "self-reflection," while affiliating critical
social inquiry more closely t h a n before with general societal and
linguistic structures and with the basic " r a t i o n a l i t y claims"
embedded in such structures. Differently phrased: while psycho-
analysis was confined to the domain of "particularity" and in-
dividual abnormality, social or sociological theory was tied to the
"rational reconstruction" of the universal features of h u m a n interac-
tion, including the normative and normal components of social life.
On the level of a "universal pragmatics" of language, inner psychic
life figured basically as one ingredient in an interlocking set of
validity claims i n h e r e n t in social communication: namely, as

anchor of the claim to "truthfulness" or personal sincerity juxtaposed
to the s t a n d a r d s of truth, rightness, a n d comprehensibility. 12
In H a b e r m a s ' s presentation, the modified outlook reflected or
i m p l e m e n t e d a deep-seated " p a r a d i g m c h a n g e " in a c o n t e m p o r a r y
thought: the c h a n g e from a focus on self-reflection to concern with
l a n g u a g e a n d interpersonal communication. The same shift, in his
view, resolved or rendered moot the issue of a "reconciliation"
between society a n d libido, between reason a n d nature, the theme so
central to the first generation of F r a n k f u r t theorists. This claim is by
no m e a n s m a r g i n a l or incidental; it forms the topic of an extensive
polemic a g a i n s t Adorno a n d Marcuse in H a b e r m a s ' s recent work.
As The Theory of Communicative Action bluntly states: "A
philosophy which retreats behind the arena of discursive reasoning
toward a 'recollection of nature' pays for the suggestive power of its
endeavor with the renunciation of theoretical knowledge. ''13 The
contrast with the earlier generation is particularly pronounced
regarding "external" n a t u r e - - w h e r e Habermas endorses a d a m a n t l y
the project of i n s t r u m e n t a l control as the goal of science a n d
technology. With regard to inner psychic nature, H a b e r m a s ' s ethical
writings occasionally suggest a willingness to compromise, t h a t is,
to incorporate an element of libidinal " h a p p i n e s s " into discursive
ethical s t a n d a r d s or formal-rational validity claims. The theoretical
fragility or incongruence of this compromise, however, has been
widely noted by a n u m b e r of critics, above all by Joel Whitebook. In
his essay on "Reason a n d Happiness," Whitebook points to "certain
tensions a n d ambiguities" in H a b e r m a s ' s analysis which suggest
t h a t "the d e m a n d for h a p p i n e s s c a n n o t be adequately accom-
m o d a t e d within a formalistic approach as he conceives it." The
reason for this fact resides in H a b e r m a s ' s basic sociological or
social-psychological orientation, his p r e p o n d e r a n t concern with ego
a n d superego structures. While conceding t h a t the extent to which
inner n a t u r e can be socialized r e m a i n s " a n historically open ques-
tion," Whitebook comments: "It does not follow, however, from the
linguisticality of society a n d the linguisticality of the socialization
process t h a t a preestablished h a r m o n y exists between society a n d
inner n a t u r e . . . . The possibility of a completely public l a n g u a g e is
not entailed by the d e m o n s t r a t i o n of the impossibility of a totally
private l a n g u a g e . " A n d he adds: "I am afraid t h a t H a b e r m a s ' s
linguistic reinterpretation of Freud h a s the effect of, as it were,
destroying certain of Freud's central intentions in order to save
t h e m . . . . The requirements of his communicatively conceived meth-
odological p r o g r a m cause H a b e r m a s to violate a cardinal tenet of
Fred Dallmayr 477
F r e u d i a n psychoanalysis, namely, the reality and independence of

the body as formulated in the theory of the drives. ''14
Whitebook's comments, one should note, were not m e a n t as a

defense of traditional F r e u d i a n school doctrines. In fact, his essay
chides both generations of F r a n k f u r t theorists for adhering too
closely to elements of Freud's structural model. Both Marcuse a n d
H a b e r m a s are said to reach a theoretical impasse, t h o u g h for
radically different reasons: "Marcuse d r a w i n g on 'id' psychology,
p r e s u p p o s e s an a b s o l u t e o p p o s i t i o n - - a p r e e s t a b l i s h e d dis-
h a r m o n y - - b e t w e e n the instinctual substratum, which is the seat of
happiness, a n d the repressive ego. H e calls for a revolt of the
i n s t i n c t s as the only w a y of m e e t i n g the d e m a n d s of h a p p i n e s s . " By
contrast, H a b e r m a s "like the ego psychologists" errs in the opposite
direction: "Because of the t h r u s t of his linguistic approach, he fails
to capture the sense of an 'inner foreign territory' which is the
h a l l m a r k of Freudian thought; in principle, everything is potentially
t r a n s p a r e n t . " By e m p h a s i z i n g opposed c o m p o n e n t s of the psyche,
both thinkers, according to Whitebook, are tempted to embrace
utopian social schemes: schemes predicated in one case on the
"eroticization" of the total personality and, in the other, on the
prospect of a rational, discursively t r a n s p a r e n t society: "With both
Marcuse a n d Habermas, u t o p i a n i s m results from the failure to grasp
theoretically the dialectic of h a r m o n y and d i s h a r m o n y between
h u m a n rationality a n d its instinctual substratum. ''1~
A l t h o u g h largely correct in its diagnosis, Whitebook's essay is
u n f o r t u n a t e l y m u c h less helpful regarding remedies or possible
alternative ways of f o r m u l a t i n g the F r e u d i a n legacy. 16 A m a i n
reason for this gap, it seems to me, resides in Whitebook's continued
e n d o r s e m e n t of some traditional c o n u n d r u m s : above all the inner-
outer bifurcation. Clearly, as long as libidinal nature or the "natural"
d i m e n s i o n in m a n is viewed as strictly internal, privatized a n d
irrational, h u m a n libido necessarily calls for as its complement and
corrective the d o m a i n of public, rational relationships. Undeniably,
the older F r a n k f u r t School a n d especially Marcuse attributed to the
unconscious a p r e d o m i n a n t l y internal, "monological" a n d thus
n o n r e l a t i o n a l character. A c c o r d i n g l y a n d a l m o s t predictably,
H a b e r m a s ' s antidote to this approach consists in his so-called
"linguistic turn," t h a t is, in his decision to insert libido into the
context of normative-societal rules; a turn, by the way, which does

not by itself obviate the inner-outer distinction. But how, prior to the
emergence of ego a n d superego structures, can libido possibly be the
inner property or faculty of individual agents? Another related
c o n u n d r u m concerns the issue of linguistically. Whitebook tends to
concede the d o m a i n of l a n g u a g e or linguisticality to H a b e r m a s ' s
focus on interpersonal relations, while seeking to defend the strictly
nonlinguistic character of the unconscious. But this concession, in
m y view, is u n w a r r a n t e d . For w h y should l a n g u a g e be restricted to a
H a b e r m a s i a n range of discursive-rational communication? Why
should l a n g u a g e - - a s a replica of the p s y c h e - - n o t also be g r a n t e d its
"unconscious," as well as its dimension of silence and a m o r p h o u s
creativity?
To a p p r o a c h these c o n u n d r u m s from a different angle, I draw
upon selective parts of the work of Jacques Lacan a n d his interpreta-
tion of Freud. One i n t r i g u i n g a n d attractive aspect of Lacan's work
is his own "linguistic turn," t h a t is, his semiotic, post-Saussurean
construal of p s y c h o a n a l y s i s t h a t culminated in the well-known
p h r a s e t h a t the unconscious is "structured like a language."
Contrary to facile misreadings, this phrase does not attribute to the
unconscious a rational-discursive quality, which would be a non-
sensical notion, but rather highlights its nonsubj ective or decentered
character, the fact that, like a language, libido is not the private
possession or m e d i u m of individual agents. F a r from pressing
p s y c h o a n a l y s i s into a narrow syntactical or discursive straitjacket,
Lacan's approach opens F r e u d i a n i s m to the multidimensionality of
language, to the i n t e r m i n g l i n g of discursive a n d nondiscursive,
rational a n d n o n r a t i o n a l strata. The same multidimensionality is
also evident in another t r a d e m a r k of L a c a n i a n theory: the juxtaposi-
tion of the " I m a g i n a r y " a n d the "Symbolic." In sharp contrast to
c u s t o m a r y inner-outer or private-public dichotomies, Lacan views
the prediscursive not as the locus of intra-psychic w h i m but as the
d o m a i n of imagination, of an amorphous-creative potency a n d
inventiveness. In adopting this view, his approach returns to an
i n s i g h t already thematized by Vico but later buried under the weight
of rationalization: the notion t h a t the precursor of discourse is not
mere babbling or "distorted c o m m u n i c a t i o n " but r a t h e r poetry or
poetic speech. Supervening on such speech, the "Symbolic" heralds
the rise of rational-discursive or rule-governed language, a develop-
m e n t c a r r y i n g in its wake both the formation of ego-identity a n d the
alienation of the ego from "its" unconscious. S u p p l e m e n t i n g the two
linguistic layers in L a c a n ' s scheme is the realm of the "Real," a term
denoting radical "otherness" or the sphere of non-identity never
completely absorbed in l a n g u a g e or thought. 17
Fred Dallmayr 479
These c o m m e n t s call for amplification. In L a c a n i a n theory, the

I m a g i n a r y performs not only a different function form the Symbolic,
but also indicates an earlier but never a b a n d o n e d layer in the
process of psychogenesis or h u m a n maturation. The most p r o m i n e n t
threshold in the f o r m a t i o n of this layer is said to be the "mirror
stage," t h a t is, the stage of infancy between six a n d eighteen m o n t h s
in which the child first recognizes his or her own image in the mirror
without the aid of self-reflection or a developed ego-structure.
Basically, the mirror stage i n a u g u r a t e s a phase of multiple bodily
images, of an indiscriminate melee of visual impressions and
counter-impressions which are not yet tied to ego-alter or subject-
object categories. Following Charlotte Bfihler, Lacan speaks at this
point of a " n o r m a l t r a n s i t i v i s m " between agents or between actions
a n d reactions, adding: "The child who hits says he has been hit, the
child who sees a n o t h e r child fall begins to cry. Similarly, it is by way
of identification with the other t h a t the i n f a n t lives the entire
spectrum of reactions from ostentation to generosity. ''is As portrayed
by Fredric J a m e s o n whose useful synopsis I follow in part, the
mirror p h a s e corresponds essentially to " t h a t pre-individualistic,
pre-mimetic, pre-point-of-view stage in aesthetic organization which
is generally designated as 'play"' a n d whose distinctive work lies "in
the frequent shifts of the subject from one fixed position to another,
in a kind of optional multiplicity of insertions" of the agent into a
broader fabric. As a pre-individual stage, this phase of infancy is not
simply an "inner" preserve, nor is it discursively rational in a proper
sense since it is unavailable to inspection by a detached spectator.
To quote J a m e s o n again, the I m a g i n a r y opens up a space of
experience which is "not yet organized a r o u n d the individuation of
m y own personal body, or differentiated hierarchically according to
the perspective of m y own central point of view" a n d which, instead,
" s w a r m s with bodies a n d forms intuited in a different way, whose
f u n d a m e n t a l property is, it would seem, to be visible without their
visibility being the result of the act of any particular observer . . . . In
this," he adds, " - - t h e indifferentiation of their esse from a percipi
which does not know a percipienswthese bodies of the I m a g i n a r y
exemplify the very logic of mirror images. ''19
Indifferentiation in this case, however, does not m e a n a complete
a m a l g a m a t i o n of perspectives or a h a r m o n i o u s symbiosis. While it
is preindividual, mirror perception heralds the b e g i n n i n g of a self-
other distinction, a l t h o u g h on a purely immediate, dyadic a n d non-
reflective level. According to Lacan, the perceiving i n f a n t discovers
in objects a n d fellow h u m a n s an i m a g e of h i m s e l f or herself; but this
discovery h a s itself an i m a g i n a r y or p h a n t a s t i c character a n d does
not promote stable relationships. While conducive in large measure
to a stance of narcissism, the mirror stage thus harbors also its own
peculiar mode of nondescript conflict a n d a n t a g o n i s m , but a conflict
which does not obey fixed rules or lines of demarcation. In J a m e s o n ' s
words, the I m a g i n a r y level is p r e g n a n t with a p o l y m o r p h o u s kind of
agressivity which results "from t h a t indistinct rivalry between self
a n d other in a period t h a t precedes the very elaboration of a self or
t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of an ego"; far from c a n c e l i n g t h e " n o r m a l
t r a n s i t i v i s m " between agents, aggressivity at this point manifests a
" s i t u a t i o n a l experience of o t h e r n e s s as pure r e l a t i o n s h i p , as
struggle, violence, a n d a n t a g o n i s m , in which the child can occupy
either term indifferently, or indeed, as in transitivism, both at once."
These experiences of e m p a t h y a n d rivalry, of i m a g i n a r y identifica-
tion a n d conflict also provide initial clues for later moral distinctions
a n d ethical valorizations of h u m a n conduct. To this extent, the
I m a g i n a r y level reflects a concretely lived "ethos" which can
function as a storehouse of n o r m a t i v e precepts. Thus, it is possible to
describe the I m a g i n a r y as the scene of " t h a t primordial rivalry a n d
transitivistic substitution of imagoes, t h a t indistinction of p r i m a r y
narcissism a n d aggressivity, from which our later conceptions of
good a n d evil derive. ''20
In L a c a n ' s theory, the I m a g i n a r y functions as a backdrop, a n d as
a necessary a n d ineradicable backdrop, to the Symbolic order which
is the level of rule-governed, syntactical a n d discursive language. As
he writes, h i g h l i g h t i n g the crucial i m p o r t a n c e of this sequence: the
m o m e n t w h e n "the child is born into l a n g u a g e is also t h a t in which
'desire becomes h u m a n . '''21 For Lacan, the move to discursive
l a n g u a g e is by no m e a n s arbitrary or fortuitous, but rather an
integral part of the infant's " h u m a n i z a t i o n . " Nevertheless, in
contrast to the h a r m o n i z i n g claims of ego a n d superego psychology
(as well as theories of c o m m u n i c a t i v e rationality), the move is not
seen as an u n m i t i g a t e d advance, nor does it result in stable
interactions. By being "born into language," the child acquires an
ego a n d a sense of self-identity--mainly by relying on personal
p r o n o u n s which enable the child to differentiate between ' T ' a n d
others or between "mine" and "yours." However, pronouns do not
provide a secure identity; in linguistic theory they are k n o w n as
"shifters" because they can be appropriated indiscriminately by
speakers a n d a g e n t s - - w i t h the result t h a t subjectivity is simultane-
ously constituted a n d dispersed or discarded. Moreover, discursive
l a n g u a g e does not establish a stable reference to the world but only
an indirect or "symbolic" linkage. According to Saussure, words or
"signifiers" do not directly or unequivocally relate to objects; rather,
the function of signification is to point circuitously to missing or
absent objects. This point is accentuated by L a c a n into an intimate
Fred Dallmayr 481
connection between symbolization and absence or non-identity. In

the words of Jacqueline Rose: "Symbolization starts when the child
gets its first sense t h a t s o m e t h i n g could be missing; words s t a n d for
objects, because they only have to be spoken at the m o m e n t when the
first object is lost. For Lacan, the subject can only operate within
l a n g u a g e by c o n s t a n t l y repeating t h a t m o m e n t of f u n d a m e n t a l a n d
irreducible division. The subject is therefore constituted in l a n g u a g e
as this division or splitting (Freud's Ichspaltung, or splitting of the
ego)."22
In L a c a n ' s view, the most f u n d a m e n t a l division or splitting
pertains not so m u c h to signifiers and their objects but to the relation
of the subject to itself. Following Freud, L a c a n sees the formation of
the ego also as the scene of a "primal repression," in the sense t h a t
the emergence of ego identity drives u n d e r g r o u n d the teeming
ambivalence of experiences thematized on the I m a g i n a r y level, thus
giving rise to the unconscious as the n e t h e r side of the ego. With this
development, the subject is cut adrift from its own a m o r p h o u s
moorings a n d henceforth exposed to the stark duality of conscious-
ness a n d the unconscious, of reason a n d "nature," an exposure
which L a c a n describes as a "lack of being" (manque it ~tre), a lack
n u r t u r i n g a profound y e a r n i n g or "desire" whose fulfillment is
forever barred or forestalled (at the level of the subject). The chief
barrier to such fulfillment is rule-governed, syntactical l a n g u a g e
itself, t h a t is, the Symbolic order as an order of n o r m a t i v e prohibi-
t i o n - - a s the "No" a n d " N a m e of the F a t h e r " (le nora [non] du p~re)
forever militating a g a i n s t the a m o r p h o u s union or reunion of child
a n d i m a g e and, especially, of child a n d mother. In terms of
psychogenesis, the Symbolic order links up with the Freudian
t h e m e s of the "Oedipal complex" a n d of c a s t r a t i o n - - t h e m e s which
in turn are at the root of sexual differentiation a n d identification. As
J a m e s o n writes, in an instructive passage: "The very cornerstone of
Freud's conception of the psyche, the Oedipus complex, is translit-
erated by L a c a n into a linguistic p h e n o m e n o n which he designates
as the discovery by the subject of the Name-of-the-Father, a n d which
consists, in other words, in the t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of an I m a g i n a r y
relationship to t h a t particular imago which is the physical p a r e n t
into the new a n d m e n a c i n g abstraction of the p a r e n t a l role as the
possessor of the m o t h e r a n d the place of the Law. ''23
Without going into further details I w a n t to lift up some features
w h i c h seem p a r t i c u l a r l y r e l e v a n t in t h e p r e s e n t context. A n
i m p o r t a n t aspect of Lacan's "linguistic turn" is the rejection of the
internalization or privatization of the psyche and its a t t e n d a n t
inner-outer, private-public dichotomies. On both the I m a g i n a r y and
Symbolic levels, the subject, while not abolished, is radically
dislocated or decentered, either by participating in a melee of

interactions or by being basically split or divided against itself.
Therefore, in contrast to Marcuse (and other Freudo-Marxists), relief
from societal pressures c a n n o t simply be expected from a revitaliza-
tion of "inner n a t u r e " or libidinal energies. 24 E v e n less can psychic
or social h a r m o n y be found t h r o u g h an e m p h a t i c cultivation of
syntactical-rational discourse in the H a b e r m a s i a n sense, given t h a t
discursive rationality or the Symbolic order is precisely the site of
psychic alienation a n d of the reason-nature conflict. The contrast
between L a c a n a n d H a b e r m a s ' s critical theory has frequently been
noted by commentators, on both sides of this theoretical divide.
Pleading the former's case, Norbert Haas in a translation of Ecrits
voiced strong reservations regarding a reflective-discursive con-
s t r u m of psychic events. "The ideal dialogue situation which is the
heritage of the historical E n l i g h t e n m e n t , " he wrote, "can be distilled
from the processes of the psychoanalytic situation only on the basis
of deformations. We read of 'intact l a n g u a g e g a m e s ' (Lorenzer), of
'symmetrical communication' and 'nonrepressive discourse' (Haber-
mas)." However, in L a c a n one finds t h a t "there is no l a n g u a g e g a m e
u n t o u c h e d by the unconscious, no c o m m u n i c a t i o n which is not
a s y m m e t r i c a l in relation to the being of the c o m m u n i c a n t , no
discourse in which there is no repression. L a c a n is an ontologist only
in the sense t h a t he believes the being of subjects dominates their
consciousness." Similar sentiments were expressed by Rainer N~igele
who observed t h a t "if in H a b e r m a s ' s work reflection appears as a
k i n d of m e t a p o w e r w h i c h sublates all other powers, experience
nevertheless teaches t h a t being is always prior to reflection. ''25
As indicated, however, L a c a n ' s critique of a discursive "cultural-
ism" does not vindicate an archaic naturalism. Wedded to a strongly
tensional or conflictual view of the p s y c h e - - r e m i n i s c e n t in m a n y
w a y s of A d o r n o - - L a c a n i a n theory militates both a g a i n s t a simple
"return" to nature a n d a g a i n s t a single-minded embrace of rational
or rationalized culture: the first alternative, in his view, is regressive
by c a n c e l l i n g t h e " h u m a n i z i n g " a c h i e v e m e n t s of symbolic
language; the second alternative is repressive by neglecting the
counter-natural constraints thematized in Freud's notion o f " p r i m a l
repression." E n t a n g l e d in the nature-culture dilemma, L a c a n i a n i s m
at this point seems to offer a counsel of d e s p a i r - - b u t only at a first
glance. The structural tension discovered by Freud a n d reaffirmed
by L a c a n does not produce a psychic stalemate but r a t h e r a creative-
d y n a m i c potential or unrest. Once inducted into the Symbolic order,
the subject's "lack of being" generates a persistent y e a r n i n g which
permanently transgresses natural-biological and discursive
resources. Unable to be stilled by purely n a t u r a l or else discursive
Fred Dallmayr 483
m e a n s , fulfillment of "desire"--beyond the satisfaction of w a n t s - -

takes on the character of a trans-natural ':]ouissance" or on ontologi-
cal "'promesse de bonheur" (although this aspect is relatively under-
thematized by Lacan). P u r s u i n g its path beyond or outside regression
a n d repression such fulfillment can take place only in the d o m a i n of
art viewed as the reconciliation of reason a n d n a t u r e or the recovery
of n a t u r e on a higher plane. In social a n d political terms the same
promise is m a n i f e s t in those m o m e n t s or interludes w h e n ill will and
r e s e n t m e n t are temporarily suspended in favor of generous playful-
ness. Such m o m e n t s m a y well be the unrelinquishable kernel of the
classical notion of the "good life. ''26
III
To illustrate the implications of the preceding discussion, I w a n t to

m o v e from t h e level of p s y c h o a n a l y t i c t h e o r i z i n g to t h a t of
aesthetics--more specifically, to a well-known text about aesthetics:
Nietzsche's text as the conflict between Dionysos and Apollo or
between the Dionysian a n d Apollonian dimensions of experience.
" M u c h will be g a i n e d for aesthetics," the o p e n i n g p a r a g r a p h
latter's p s y c h o a n a l y t i c i n s i g h t s . The psychic split m e n t i o n e d
a b o v e - - t h e d r a m a of "civilization a n d its discontents"--surfaces in
Nietzsche's text as the conflict between Dionysus a n d Apollo or
between the Dionysian a n d Apollonian dimensions of experience.
"Much will be gained for aesthetics," the opening p a r a g r a p h
asserts, "once we have succeeded in a p p r e h e n d i n g directly (rather
t h a n merely intuiting) t h a t art owes it continuous evolution to the
Apollonian-Dionysian duality, even as the propagation of the
species depends on the duality of the sexes, their c o n s t a n t conflicts
and periodic acts of reconciliation." While reflecting deep-seated
principles, the two Greek deities, Apollo a n d Dionysos, represented
for Nietzsche concrete " e m b o d i m e n t s " of divergent energies or
creative tendencies, energies giving rise respectively to the "plastic,
Apollonian arts" a n d the "non-visual art of music inspired by
Dionysos." According to the text, the d e v e l o p m e n t of the arts
involved over long stretches the juxtaposition a n d "fierce opposi-
tion" of the two creative tendencies, "each by its t a u n t s forcing the
other to more energetic production, both perpetuating in a discordant
concord t h a t agon which the term 'art' but feebly d e s i g n a t e s - - u n t i l
at last, by the t h a u m a t u r g y of an Hellenic act of will, the pair
accepted the yoke of m a r r i a g e and, in this m a n n e r , begot Attic
tragedy which exhibits the salient features of both parents. ''27
Profiled a g a i n s t the b a c k g r o u n d of classicist interpretations of

Greek art, the most innovative a n d disturbing discovery of The Birth
of Tragedy, the one articulated most vividly, was the realm or reign
of Dionysos. In Nietzsche's portrayal, Dionysos holds sway in a
world of u n t a m e d intoxication a n d rapture, a world not yet stream-
lined t h r o u g h civil discourse: " D i o n y s i a n stirrings arise either
t h r o u g h the influence of those narcotic potions of which all primitive
races speak in their h y m n s , or t h r o u g h the powerful approach of
spring which penetrates with joy the whole frame of nature. So
stirred, the individual forgets himself completely." As the last
phrase indicates, Dionysos does not rule over subjects or individuals;
in L a c a n i a n language, his realm is the d o m a i n of I m a g i n a r y a n d
pre-Imaginary experience, a d o m a i n subsequently exiled into the
unconscious under the aegis of the ego. Moreover, Dionysos' reign
disregards not only ego-alter d e m a r c a t i o n s but also the boundaries
between m a n a n d nature: "Not only does the b o n d between m a n and
m a n come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite,
but n a t u r e itself, long alienated or subjugated rises a g a i n to
celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal son, m a n . The earth
offers its gifts voluntarily, and the savage beasts of m o u n t a i n a n d
desert a p p r o a c h in peace." Even long s t a n d i n g social h i e r a r c h y a n d
discrimination is suspended by the i m p a c t of Dionysian rapture a n d
a m o r p h o u s nondifferentiation: "Now the slave emerges as a free-
man; all the rigid, hostile walls which either necessity or despotism
h a s erected between m e n are shattered." What results from the
destruction of these walls is a kind of "oceanic feeling," a sense of
m u t u a l implication a n d substitutability--a condition in which m a n
"becomes not only reconciled to his fellow but actually at one with
him, as t h o u g h the veil of Maya h a d been torn apart a n d there
r e m a i n e d only shreds floating before the vision of mystical One-
ness."28
As Nietzsche goes on to argue, the Greek version of Dionysian
rapture m u s t be distinguished from the still wilder celebrations of
Dionysos by b a r b a r i a n peoples. While Greek culture from the
b e g i n n i n g was tempered by the subdued light of Apollonian
constraint, b a r b a r i a n rituals or festivals were a stark mixture of
Eros a n d destruction. "All the savage urges of the m i n d were
unleashed on those occasions," Nietzsche writes, "until they reached
t h a t p a r o x y s m of lust a n d cruelty which h a s always struck me as the
'witches cauldron' par excellence." Even in the milder Greek setting,
Dionysian revelrie still was m a r k e d by a "peculiar blending of
e m o t i o n s " - - a basic " a m b i g u i t y if you will"--harking to those days
" w h e n the infliction of pain was experienced as joy while a sense of
supreme t r i u m p h elicited cries of a n g u i s h from the heart." In
Fred Dallmayr 485
L a c a n i a n terms, the Greek version of Dionysos carried overtones not

only of the I m a g i n a r y m~lange of narcissism a n d aggressivity but
also hints of an incipient "lack of being," a lack i n a u g u r a t e d by
civilized life. " I n every exuberant joy," we read, "there now is heard
an u n d e r t o n e of terror, or else a wistful l a m e n t over an irrecoverable
loss. It is as t h o u g h in these Greek festivals a sentimental trait of
n a t u r e were c o m i n g to the fore, as t h o u g h n a t u r e were b e m o a n i n g
the fact of her fragmentation, her decomposition into separate
individuals." At its peak, Nietzsche reiterates, the u n l e a s h i n g of
Dionysian energies issues in an obliteration of boundaries, in a state
of a m o r p h o u s nondifferentiation: "In the Dionysian d i t h y r a m b
m a n is incited to strain his faculties of i m a g i n a t i o n to the utmost.
S o m e t h i n g quite u n h e a r d of is now clamoring to be heard: the desire
to tear a s u n d e r the veil of Maya, to sink back into the original
oneness of nature; the desire to express the very essence of nature
symbolically. ''29
In contrast to Dionysian frenzy, Apollo in Greek culture is the
representative of light or e n l i g h t e n m e n t , or rather of a mild light
suffused with dream a n d illusion. As Nietzsche points out, Apollo is
etymologically "the 'lucent' one, the god of light" a n d thus exudes a
luminous quality. Endowed with a "sunlike" eye, he brings light
where otherwise there is darkness or rapture; he is able to establish
distinctions a n d boundaries, a n d to weigh or balance judiciously
diverse elements. Following a clue contained in S c h o p e n h a u e r ' s The
World as Will and Representation, Nietzsche links Apollo with
i n d i v i d u a l i s m or the rise of the subject a n d thus with a cornerstone
of discursive civilization: "One m i g h t say t h a t the u n s h a k a b l e
confidence in t h a t principle (i.e., of individual selfhood) h a s received
its most magnificent expression in Apollo, a n d t h a t Apollo himself
m a y be regarded as the marvelous divine image of the principium
individuationis, whose looks a n d gestures radiate the full delight,
wisdom, a n d beauty of 'illusion.'" The process of individuation
encourages self-reflection a n d rational insight, including reflection
on the limits of individual life. F r o m an Apollonian perspective,
Nietzsche comments, "there is one n o r m only: the individual--or,
more precisely, the observance of the limits of the individual:
sophrosyne. As a moral deity Apollo d e m a n d s self-control from his
people and, in order to observe such self control, a knowledge of self;
a n d so we find t h a t the aesthetic postulate of beauty is accompanied
by the imperatives, 'Know t h y s e l f and 'Nothing too m u c h . ' " Self-
knowledge, however, is not unproblematic a n d exacts a price:
rigorously pursued individuation entails division and thus incipient
modes of m a s t e r y or domination. In a striking passage, The Birth of
Tragedy anticipates aspects of L a c a n ' s "law" or " n a m e of the
father," albeit in a mythological setting. Pointing to the place of

Apollo among the Olympian gods and the latter's role in Greek
culture, the text observes: "At first the eye is struck by the marvelous
shapes of the Olympian gods who stand upon its pediments and
whose exploits, in shining bas-relief, adorn its friezes. The fact that
a m o n g them we find Apollo as one god among many, making no
claim to a privileged position, should not mislead us: the same drive
t h a t found its most complete representation in Apollo generated the
whole Olympian world, and in this sense we m a y consider Apollo the
father of that world. ''3~
To be sure, Apollo was still the symbol of creative-artistic energies
and not merely the representative of discursive knowledge and
civilized rationality. According to Nietzsche, such rationality arose
only in the twilight or aftermath of Greek culture and found its chief
incarnation in Socrates--the great exemplar of the purely "theoreti-
cal man," that is, the m a n wedded to the belief that "reason might
plumb the farthest abysses of being and even correct it. ''a In the
heyday of Greek culture, on the other hand, Apolonian beauty was
still in creative tension with, and intimately related to, Dionysian
turbulence, just as the Olympians were linked with the Titans. In
Nietzsche's words, although Apollo m a y be the "apotheosis of the
principium individuationis," he is also the figure in whom "the
eternal goal of the original Oneness, namely its redemption through
illusion, accomplishes itself. With august gesture the god shows us
how there is need for a whole world of torment in order for the
individual to produce the redemptive vision and to sit quietly in his
rocking rowboat in mid-sea, absorbed in contemplation." Contrary
to modern conceptions of classical "naivets or simplicity, Greek
culture was from the beginning rent by a profound tension: the calm
reign of Apollo was established on the volcano of Dionysian torment
and excess: "Whenever we encounter 'naivete in art, we are face to
face with the ripest fruit of Apollonian culture--which must always
triumph first over titans, kill monsters, and overcome the somber
contemplation of actuality, the intense susceptibility to suffering, by
means of illusions strenuously and zestfully entertained. ''32
This combination reached its highest and most captivating
expression in Greek or Attic tragedy. In Nietzsche's portrayal, Attic
tragedy was an intricate blending of Dionysian and Apollonian
energies--the former represented chiefly in the lyrical or dithyrambic
chorus, the latter in the measured flow of the dramatic action.
Together with Schiller he views the introduction of the chorus as the
"decisive step" in the birth of tragedy; the chant of the chorus, he
notes, erects a "living wall against the onset of reality because it
depicts reality more truthfully and more completely than does
Fred Dallmayr 487
civilized m a n , who ordinarily considers himself the only reality."

The reality evoked by the chorus is the pre-civil teeming non-
division, the world between m a n a n d n a t u r e symbolized by the
D i o n y s i a n satyr. To this extent, the chorus of early tragedy was a
"projected image of Dionysian m a n , " a n d the satyr quality of the
chorus a "vision of the D i o n y s i a n multitude" or the t h r o n g of
D i o n y s i a n revelers. The measured lines of the " d r a m a t i s personae,"
on the other hand, are emblems of Apollonian reflection and
d i s t i n c t n e s s - - b u t a distinctness which is never (at least not until
Euripides) severed from its d i t h y r a m b i c moorings. Thus, Nietzsche
writes, "we h a v e come to interpret Greek tragedy as a Dionysian
chorus which again and again discharges itself in Apollonian
images. Those choric portions with which the tragedy is interlaced
constitute, as it were, the m a t r i x of the dialogue, t h a t is to say, of the
entire stage,world of the actual d r a m a . " Differently phrased, the
choric m a t r i x or s u b s t r a t u m permeates or "irradiates" t h r o u g h its
consecutive interventions the entire action on stage, t r a n s f o r m i n g
the latter from an epic spectacle into a symbolic rite or festival. To
this extent, Greek tragedy presented a vision which, on the one
hand, was "completely of the nature of Apollonian dream-illusion
a n d therefore epic," but on the other hand, "as the manifestation of a
D i o n y s i a n state" tended toward "the s h a t t e r i n g of the individual
a n d his fusion with the original Oneness." Thus, ancient tragedy
was "an Apollonian e m b o d i m e n t of Dionysian insights and powers,
a n d for t h a t reason separated by a tremendous gulf from the epic. ''~a
To Nietzsche The Birth of Tragedy was not merely an a n t i q u a r i a n
exercise, but carried broader diagnostic and therapeutic signifi-
cance. The tensional correlation of Dionysos a n d Apollo appeared to
him not simply as an isolated or curious historical p h e n o m e n o n , but
as a continuing possibility a n d challenge--even in our completely
c h a n g e d m o d e r n conditions. As epitomized in Greek tragedy, h i g h
art involved not merely regression or a relapse into the frenzy of
subconscious drives; nor could art be streamlined into rational
i n s i g h t - - t h e abstract "Socratism" of discursive civilization. With-
out instinctual energies, it is true, art could never flourish; to this
extent, the Dionysian element "proves itself to be the eternal and
original power of art, since it calls into being the entire world of
p h e n o m e n a . " Yet, for this power to be compatible with civilization, a
"new t r a n s f i g u r i n g light" is needed to t r a n s f o r m Dionysian chaos
and to "hold in life the stream of individual f o r m s " - - w h i c h is the
contribution of Apollo. Extracted from its narrowly aesthetic con-
text, Nietzsche's therapeutic counsel t h u s is not simply a return to
n a t u r e nor the a b a n d o n m e n t of n a t u r e in favor reason, but rather a
reconciliation achieved on a higher level (though not without
t r a u m a or dislocation). "Art," he writes, "is not an imitation of

n a t u r e but its m e t a p h y s i c a l supplement, raised up beside it in order
to overcome it. I n s o f a r as tragic m y t h belongs to art, it fully shares
its t r a n s c e n d e n t intentions." In Nietzsche's view, this supplementa-
tion can still provide a guidepost in our h i g h l y rationalized age and
civilized w a y of life. "We m u s t hold fast to our luminous guides, the
Greeks," he pleads. "It is from t h e m t h a t we h a v e borrowed, for the
purification of our aesthetic notion, the twin divine images, each of
w h o m governs his own realm a n d whose commerce a n d m u t u a l
e n h a n c e m e n t we h a v e been able to guess at t h r o u g h the m e d i u m of
Greek tragedy. ''34
These c o m m e n t s lead me back to the b e g i n n i n g of the present
essay where I addressed the issue of F r e u d i a n i s m or of the status of
Freud's legacy today. As I indicated, this legacy in recent decades
h a s been deeply divided a m o n g competing factions or doctrines, a n d
particularly between two opposing orientations: traditional Freud-
ians stressing the p r i m a c y of the libidinal unconscious, on the one
hand, a n d more "revisionist" schools a c c e n t u a t i n g the role of ego
a n d superego, a n d hence of moral a n d societal rules, on the other.
This division, I suggested, h a s troubling effects on the conception of
" h u m a n nature" as well as on the character of therapy. Does
F r e u d i a n theory, I asked, support a rigid inner-outer dichotomy, by
identifying h u m a n nature with inner-psychic drives while relegating
society a n d rational n o r m s to an external environment? By the same
token: does t h e r a p y aim at the healing a n d restoration of instinctual
drives--or does it seek to reintegrate the p a t i e n t into the world of
n o r m s a n d public m e a n i n g (rescuing h i m from inner traumas)? In
its first section, this essay explored these questions in the context of
the F r a n k f u r t School, focusing on the reception of p s y c h o a n a l y s i s
by critical theorists. As I tried to demonstrate, the noted dilemmas
a n d bifurcations largely persisted in t h a t context. In Adorno's
writings, instinct a n d reason, libido a n d social rules tended to
confront each other in an aporetic or a n t i n o m i a l fashion. Attempts
to resolve the conflict were u n d e r t a k e n by other critical theorists--
but at the price of t r u n c a t i n g the tensional richness of Feud's model:
While Marcuse subordinated social rules to the reinvigoration of
inner-psychic drives, particularly the "eroticization" of h u m a n life,
H a b e r m a s tends to treat the libidinal unconscious as only a
deviation from, or prelude to, societal rationality. As this point the
essay turned to the writings of Lacan, in a n effort to disclose a
different theoretical possibility. L a c a n ' s "linguistic turn," I sought
to show, undercuts the inner privatization of libido a n d its opposition
to social-linguistic norms. More importantly, b y p a s s i n g dualism as
well as coincidence, his correlation of the " I m a g i n a r y " a n d the
Fred Dallmayr 489
"Symbolic" points in the direction of a complex intertwining of

nature and culture, psyche and society--akin to Nietzsche's entwin-
ing of Dionysos and Apollo. This aspect has been ably expressed by
Ragland-Sullivan whose comments I invoke by way of conclusion.
Lacan, she writes, problematized psychoanalysis by taking seriously
the tensions in Freud's model. In doing so, "he showed that there are
no clear-cut polarities between subject and object, inside and outside,
self and other, conscious and unconscious. He also complicated
philosophy by making others--human interdependence--the sole
proving ground in human causality, and unconscious intentionality
the motive force. ''~5
NOTES
1. The status of"obj ect relations" theory in the above conflict is difficult to pinpoint
due to its complexity and many nuances. Recently Fred Alford has marshalled
the resources of that theory (with a focus on Melanie Klein and her successors) for
a critical assessment of the contributions of the Frankfurt School. While Alford
tends to stress the ego- or subject-pole of "object relations," I find the approach
more congenial when that pole is deemphasized. See C. Fred Afford, "Habermas,
Post-Freudian Psychoanalysis and the End of the Individual," Theory, Culture
and Society, vol. 4 (1987), pp. 3-29; and his Narcissism: Socrates, the Frankfurt
School, and Psychoanalytic Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
Compare also Jay Greenberg and Stephen Mitchell, Object Relations in Psycho-
analytic Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
Press, 1983).
2. Theodor W. Adorno, "Social Science and Sociological Tendencies in Psycho-
analysis" (unpublished); cited in Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1973), p. 104.
3. Adorno, "Die revidierte Psychoanalyse," in Adorno, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Rolf
Tiedemann, vol. 8 (Frankfurt-Main: Suhrkamp, 1972), p. 40.
4. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans.
John Cumming (New York: Seabury Press, 1972), pp. 31-32, 40, 54-55.
5. See Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury Press,
1973), and Aesthetic Theory, trans. Christian Lenhardt (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 198). For a discussion of mimesis compare Martin Jay, Adorno
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), pp. 155-158.
6. The antinomial character of Adorno's thought in this field is evident from a
memorandum of 1944 pinpointing methodological maxims: "We do not call the
influence of socio-economic factors psychological since they are more or less on a
rational level. . . . The term psychological should be reserved for those traits
which are prima faeie irrational. This dichotomy means that we do not approve
of a socio-psychological approach ~ la Fromm, but rather think in terms of
rational and irrational motivations which are essentially to be kept apart." Cited
in Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, pp. 229-230.
7. See Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Ad-
vanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), and An Essay on
Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969).
8. Marcuse, "Philosophy and Critical Theory," in Negations: Essays in Critical
Theory, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), p. 135 (translation
slightly altered).
9. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, i955). For a sensitive
synopsis of some of the main arguments of the study see Jay, The Dialectical
Imagination, pp. 107-112. Regarding the difference of Marcuse from his former
Frankfurt colleagues J a y writes (p. 107): "Unlike Horkheimer and Adorno, who
used Freud's insights into the profound contradictions of modern man to support
their arguments about non-identity, Marcuse found in Freud, and the later,
meta-psychological Freud to boot, a prophet of identity and reconciliation."
10. Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 23.
11. J~irgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 216-217.
12. Compare Habermas, "What is Universal Pragmatics?" in Communication and
the Evolution of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979),
pp. 1-68. In terms of speech-act theory, subjective experience in Habermas's
scheme provides the ground for "expressive" or self-representative speech acts,
just as in the field of sociological action theory, subjectivity serves as springboard
for "dramaturgical" action geared toward self-display in front of an audience. In
every instance, thus, psychic life is integrated into a fabric of complementary
and mutually supportive categories: in the case of validity claims, into the
structure of "communicative rationality," and in the case of action types, into the
framework of communicative action and interaction. Among the types of
"reconstructive" analysis Habermas pays tribute particularly to Chomsky's
generative grammar, Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and Kohlberg's
model of stages of moral maturation.
13. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. I: Reason and the
Rationalization of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press,
1984), p. 385. The case against the older Frankfurt School is broadly developed on
pp. 366-390.
14. Joel Whitebook, "Reason and Happiness: Some Psychoanalytic Themes in
Critical Theory," in Richard J. Bernstein, ed., Habermas and Modernity
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 154-155. Compare also his comments (p.
155): "Where the philosophers of the consciousness had difficulty reaching extra-
mental existence from within the closed circle of subjectivity, Habermas has
difficulty contacting extralinguistic reality from within the equally closed circle
of intersubjectivity." Habermas's compromise with hedonism occurs chiefly on
the highest (seventh) stage of moral development where discursive reasoning is
given the task of interpreting private needs.
15. Whitebook, "Reason and Happiness," p. 157. His observations seem less
applicable, in my view, to Adorno whose ambition was precisely to maintain the
mentioned "dialectic of harmony and disharmony."
16. The essay does contain, however, numerous suggestive or tantalizing passages,
for instance the following (pp. 145-146): "While we are indeed accustomed to
thinking of the ego as anti-instinctual, I would like to suggest that, insofar as the
ego possesses a synthetic function, and insofar as Eros is defined as the drive to
establish and preserve 'ever greater unities,' we can locate something like Eros in
the ego itself."
17. For helpful introductions to Lacan's thought see Anthony G. Wilden, The
Language of the Self (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); Anika
Rifflet-Lemaire, Jacques Lacan (Brussels: Dessart, 1970); John P. Muller and
William J. Richardson, Lacan and Language: A Reader's Guide to Ecrits (New
York: International Universities Press, 1982); J a n e Galop, Reading Lacan
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, Jacques
Lacan and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1986); and Shoshana Felman, Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of
Insight: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1987). These comments by Felman strike me as particularly
insightful (p. 57): "As for the theory of psychoanalysis, its originality for Lacan
consists not so much in Freud's discovery of the u n c o n s c i o u s . . , as in Freud's
discovery of the unprecedented fact that the unconscious speaks . . . . The
unconscious is therefore no longer--as it has traditionally been conceived--the
Fred Dallmayr 491
simple outside of the conscious, but rather a division, Spaltung, cleft within
consciousness itself." In relying on Lacan I do not mean to endorse all his
teachings--for the simple reason that I cannot claim to understand all of them
fully.
18. Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), p. 113.
19. Fredric Jameson, "Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan: Marxism, Psychoanalytic
Criticism, and the Problem of the Subject," in Yale French Studies, No. 55/56
(1977), pp. 354-355.
20. Jameson, "Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan," pp. 356-357.
21. Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1977), p.
103.
22. Jacqueline Rose, "Introduction--II," in Juliet Mitchell and Rose, eds., Feminine
Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the Ocole freudienne (New York: Norton, 1985), p.
31. Rose (pp. 31-32, note 2) also points to Lacan's concern with "the structure of
metaphor (or substitution) which lies at the root of, and is endlessly repeated
within, subjectivity in its relation to the unconscious. It is in this sense also that
Lacan's emphasis on language should be differentiated from what he defined as
'culturalism,' that is, from any conception of language as a social phenomenon
which does not take into account its fundamental instability (language as
constantly placing, and displacing, the subject)."
23. Jameson, "Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan," p. 359. Jameson (p. 363) also
quotes Rifflet-Lemaire to the effect that "the subject mediated by language is
irremediably divided because it has been excluded from the symbolic chain (the
lateral relations of signifiers among themselves) at the very moment at which it
became 'represented' in it."
24. This stricture also seems to apply to the Deleuze-Guattari endorsement of
schizophrenia and their celebration of archaic, pre-verbal layers of the psyche;
see Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hanley, Mark
Selen and Helen Cane (New York: Viking Press, 1982). Regarding Lacan's
linguistic turn and his critique of a subjectivist humanism compare also the
comments by Juliet Mitchell: "The humanistic conception of mankind assumes
that the subject exists from the beginning. At least by implication ego psy-
chologists, object-relations theorists and Kleinians base themselves on the same
premise. For this reason, Lacan considers that in the last analysis, they are more
ideologues than theorists of psychoanalysis . . . . Lacan dedicated himself to
reorienting psychoanalysis to its task of deciphering the ways in which the
h u m a n subject is constructed--how it comes into being--out of the small h u m a n
animal. It is because of this aim that Lacan offered psychoanalytic theory the
new science of linguistics which he developed and altered in relation to the
concept of subjectivity." See Mitchell and Rose, Feminine Sexuality, pp. 4-5.
25. Jacques Lacan, Schriften II, ed. Norbert Haas (Freiburg: Olten, 1975), p. 263;
Rainer N~igele, "Freud, Habermas and the Dialectic of Enlightenment: On Real
and Ideal Discourses," New German Critique, No. 22 (1981), p. 43. The comments
by Haas are cited in N~gele, "The Provocation of Jacques Lacan: An Attempt at
a Theoretical Topography apropos a Book about Lacan," New German Critique,
No. 16 (1979), pp. 8-9. On the other side of the fence see, e.g., Peter C. Hohendahl,
"Habermas and His Critics," New German Critique, No. 16 (1979), pp. 89-118.
26. I realize that the above comments are not fully supported by Lacan's writings.
However, the themes have been developed or at least sketched by some of Laean's
critical students or readers. Compare Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One,
trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1985); Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language, trans. Thomas Gara, Alice
Jardine and Leon S. Roudier (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980) and
Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Margaret Waller (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1984). Jameson points vaguely in the above direction when he
writes that "at a time when the primacy of language and the Symbolic Order is
widely understood--or at least widely asserted--it is rather in the underestima-
tion of the Imaginary and the problem of the insertion of the subject that the
'un-hiddenness of truth' (Heidegger) may now be sought." See "Imaginary and
Symbolic in Lacan," p. 383.
27. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, in The Birth of Tragedy and the
Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing (Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1956), p. 19 (translation slightly altered for purposes of clarity). In
invoking Dionysos and Apollo, Nietzsche explicitly rejects customary inner-
outer dichotomies or the distinction between "subjective" and "objective" art.
Challenging the Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics of taste he writes (p. 37):
"All that more recent aesthetics has been able to add by way of interpretation is
that here the 'objective' artist is confronted by the 'subjective' artist. We find this
interpretation of little use, since to us the subjective artist is simply the bad artist
and since we demand above all, in every genre and range of art, a triumph over
subjectivity, deliverance from the self, the silencing of every personal will and
desire." Compare also these comments on lyrical poetry (pp. 38-39): "The T here
sounds out of the depth of being; what recent writers on aesthetics call
'subjectivity' is a more figment . . . . Being the active center of that world he (the
poet) may boldly speak in the first person, only his T is not that of the actual
waking man, but the T dwelling, truly and eternally, in the ground of being."
28. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 22-23.
29. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 25-27. A little later Nietzsche adds (p. 32): "The more I
have come to realize in nature those omnipotent formative tendencies and, with
them, an intense longing for illusion, the more I feel inclined to the hypothesis
that the original Oneness, the ground of being, ever-suffering and contradictory,
time and again has need of rapt vision and delightful illusion to redeem itself."
30. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 21-22, 28, 34.
31. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 92-93. Somewhat later (p. 137), Nietzsche attacks "a
Socratism bent on the extermination of myth. Man today, stripped of myth,
stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots, be it
among the most antiquities. What does our great historical hunger signify, our
clutching about us of countless other cultures, our consuming desire for
knowledge, if not the loss of myth, of a mythic home, the mythic womb?"
Nietzsche's ambivalence regarding Socrates is well known. Elsewhere he calls
for an "artistic Socrates," that is, a balance of knowledge and art, reason and
nature.
32. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 31, 33-34.
33. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 49, 53-54, 56-57. Compare also this comment (p. 58):
"Thus we may recognize a drastic stylistic opposition: language, color pace,
dynamics of speech are polarized into the Dionysian poetry of the chorus, on the
one hand, and the Apollonian dream world of the scene on the other."
34. The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 138, 142, 145.
35. Ragland-Sullivan, Jacques Lacan and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis, p. 65.

Dallmayr Fred - Freud Nietzsch

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Dallmayr Fred - Freud Nietzsch

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Freud, Nietzsche, Lacan:

A Discourse on Critical Theory

As I u n d e r s t a n d it, the term "political psychology" seeks to

Marcuse, a n d Habermas). My overall concern here, I should add, is

A review of the F r a n k f u r t School's t r e a t m e n t of psychoanalysis

or congruence between society a n d individual h a p p i n e s s was in his

null and void . . . . The domination of m a n over himself which

The t h e m e of "reconciliation with n a t u r e " was not the exclusive

in terms of unemployment or military service (entailing the possible

working class a n d the "technostructure of exploitation" muffling

ments. Although limited to individual experiences, Freudian psycho-

validity claims i n h e r e n t in social communication: namely, as

F r e u d i a n psychoanalysis, namely, the reality and independence of

Whitebook's comments, one should note, were not m e a n t as a

context of normative-societal rules; a turn, by the way, which does

These c o m m e n t s call for amplification. In L a c a n i a n theory, the

connection between symbolization and absence or non-identity. In

dislocated or decentered, either by participating in a melee of

m e a n s , fulfillment of "desire"--beyond the satisfaction of w a n t s - -

To illustrate the implications of the preceding discussion, I w a n t to

Profiled a g a i n s t the b a c k g r o u n d of classicist interpretations of

L a c a n i a n terms, the Greek version of Dionysos carried overtones not

father," albeit in a mythological setting. Pointing to the place of

civilized m a n , who ordinarily considers himself the only reality."

t r a u m a or dislocation). "Art," he writes, "is not an imitation of

"Symbolic" points in the direction of a complex intertwining of

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen