Psychoanalysis and türban
self-castrating objects, or transformational-transformative subject-objects of historical time-soci(et)al discourse-political imaginary spheres?
pp. 241-270
in: Aydan Gülerce (ed), Re(con)figuring psychoanalysis, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
Wittgensteinian maxims "meaning is/as use' and "nothing is hidden' might serve as a couple of general departure and arrival points of this overdetermined essay. Because I basically intend to suggest flexible and responsibly (re)constructive "uses' of a multitude of psychodynamic knowledge-practices that relate more "inclusively' to diverse human intelligibilities, lived experiences, social conditions and creative imagination. It is ironic, perhaps, that in both of the arguments, the prominent philosopher of language was particularly critical of psychoanalysis. He referred to the interpretation of dreams and words with fixed meanings (a "way of speaking') in the former, and unconscious determinism based in mythology (a "way of seeing') in the latter. Yet, Wittgenstein was (ambivalently) fond of the third aspect of psychoanalysis as a "way of thinking' (Bouveresse, 1995). That is where, perhaps, I also find its sociopolitically transformative and underutilized potentials. Psychoanalysis went through "considerable changes' in various directions after both Freud and Wittgenstein. However, its significance as a unique hermeneutic resource towards more egalitarian and dialogical knowledge-practices of/for/with contemporary human life forms within their particular glocal historical contexts do require its further substantial revisions and more intelligible uses.
