Papers on Psychoanalysis by Sean McGrath
In Western philosophy, the notion of the unity of the personality is as old as Plato, who disting... more In Western philosophy, the notion of the unity of the personality is as old as Plato, who distinguished three potentially conflicting parts of the soul. The three parts of the self are only fully functional when they are hierarchically ordered, with the rational part governing and directing the two irrational parts. 2 The corresponding political ideal is an absolute dictatorship, where the only one fit to rule—the philosopher king (i.e., reason)—is granted absolute power over the other members of the state. On the basis of such canonical Western texts, the integrity or wholeness of the self is often presumed to be the same as psychological homogeneity. A " healthy " self, like a totalitarian state, is a not a dynamic ordering of disparate entities but an organic whole composed of parts. All of the impulses, values, and attitudes present in the self must contribute to the unity of the self, just as the parts of an organism contribute to the life of the organism. Where there is a plurality of values and attitudes in a personality, a psychological heterogeneity, we are inclined to speak of an " unintegrated " self, a sick self, schizophrenic, dysfunctional, etc. The aim of this paper is to present a different historical model of the self, no less Western, but essentially opposed to the foregoing. The healthy self in this other view does not disallow plurality, e.g., contradictory desires, incompatible values, but presumes it, much like parliamentary systems in Western democracies presume multiple political parties. This self is never a homogenous whole. On the contrary, it is a federation of disparate, often contradictory tendencies, desires and ideals. We will call this the dissociative self. 3 It was first thematized by medical theorists in the early 19 th century, as psychiatry evolved from demonology into animal magnetism. The most articulate exponent of the view was F.W.J. Schelling. 4 After an overview of the notion of multiple personality as it emerged from animal magnetism, I will finish the paper with a formal account of why the self according to Schelling must be dissociative. The short answer is, because it lives and develops in time. mean to distinguish Schellingian psychology from traditions based upon a conception of the self as constitutively repressive. In earlier versions of this argument I have hastily identified the repressive self with the Freudian tradition, but it seems to me now that the latter is too pluralistic to be so described. Freud could and perhaps should be read as a proponent of productive dissociation. This has not, however, been the predominant interpretation. I will leave aside then, the complex question of Freud's relationship to the 19 th century psychiatric tradition with which I am here primarily concerned. 4 The middle and late Schelling are most important in this regard, especially the celebrated Freedom essay, and its companion, The Ages of the World drafts. See F.W. J. Schelling, Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom, (tr.) J. Love and J. Schmidt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006); Schelling, The Ages of the World, third draft, (tr.) J. Wirth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as AW. The Schellingian notion of the dissociative self seems to have had little direct influence on the development of Viennese (Freudian) psychoanalysis. On the other hand, its impact on French psychiatry was significant. Schelling played a role in the thought of Bergson and Janet, and through them influenced the dissociationism of Jung and Deleuze. On French dissociationism, see Christian Kerslake, Deleuze and the Unconscious (New York: Continuum, 2007).
Th e early Schelling and the romantics constructed the unconscious in order to overcome the moder... more Th e early Schelling and the romantics constructed the unconscious in order to overcome the modern split between subjectivity and nature, mind and body, a split legislated by Cartesian representationalism. Infl uenced by Boehme and Kabbalah, the later Schelling modifi ed his notion of the unconscious to include the decision to be oneself, which must sink beneath consciousness so that it might serve as the ground of one's creative and personal acts. Slavoj Zizek has read the later Schelling's unconscious as a prototype of Lacan's reactive unconscious, an unconscious that only exists as the excluded other of consciousness. Th is reading, though close to the text of Schelling, misses something essential: the unconscious for Schelling is not a repression but a condition of the possibility of life and love.
In Western philosophy, the notion of the unity of the personality is as old as Plato, who disting... more In Western philosophy, the notion of the unity of the personality is as old as Plato, who distinguished three potentially conflicting parts of the soul. The three parts of the self are only fully functional when they are hierarchically ordered, with the rational part governing and directing the two irrational parts. 1 The corresponding political ideal is an absolute dictatorship, where the only one fit to rule—the philosopher king (i.e., reason)—is granted absolute power over the other members of the state. On the basis of such canonical Western texts, the integrity or wholeness of the self is often presumed to be the same as psychological homogeneity. A " healthy " self, like a totalitarian state, is a not a sum of disparate entities but an organic whole composed of parts. All of the impulses, values, and attitudes present in the self must contribute to the unity of the self, just as the parts of an organism contribute to the life of the organism. Where there is a plurality of values and attitudes in a personality, a psychological heterogeneity, we are inclined to speak of an " unintegrated " self, a sick self, schizophrenic, dysfunctional, etc. The aim of this paper is to deploy a different historical model of the self, no less Western, but essentially opposed to the foregoing, to rough out the outline of an alternative practice of psychoanalysis. The healthy self in this other view does not disallow plurality, e.g., contradictory desires, incompatible values, but presumes it, much like parliamentary systems in Western democracies presume multiple political parties. This self is never a homogenous whole. On the contrary, it is a federation of disparate, often contradictory tendencies, desires and ideals. We will call this the dissociative self. It was first thematized by medical theorists in the early 19 th century, as psychiatry evolved from demonology into animal magnetism. The dissociative self features prominently in the thought of several 19 th century thinkers (James and Pierce for example), but its most articulate exponent was F.W.J. Schelling. 2 After an overview of the notion of multiple personality as it emerged from animal magnetism, I will provide a formal account of why the self according to Schelling must be dissociative. The short answer is, because it lives and develops in time. I will conclude with a programmatic statement outlining seven principles that could govern a dissociative psychoanalytical practice, one foregrounded in Schelling's philosophy. But to begin it will be necessary to sharpen the idea of a dissociative self by contrasting it with its better known Freudian alternative, the repressive self.
Schelling has been exploited for a variety of psychoanalytical projects, from Marquard's revision... more Schelling has been exploited for a variety of psychoanalytical projects, from Marquard's revision of Freud, to various readings of Jung, to Ž ižek's interpretation of Lacan. What we have not seen is an elaboration of the psycho-therapeutical implications of Schelling's metaphysics on its own terms. What we find when we read Schelling as metapsychologist is a nonpathologizing theory of dissociation. Like anything that lives, the psyche dissociates for the sake of growth. The law of productive dissociation is the source of psyche's adaptive power and an explanation of the structure of its illnesses.
Schelling is the least understood of the major German philosophers. His work has a clearly demons... more Schelling is the least understood of the major German philosophers. His work has a clearly demonstrable influence on the late nineteenth-century psychologies of the unconscious that were a decisive influence on both Freud and Jung. Where the mature Freudian metapsychology is a systematic effort to de-Romanticize the unconscious, purging it of the characteristic Schellingian themes of transcendence, teleology, and theology, Jung goes in the opposite direction: toward a psychology of transcendence, with cosmological and religious implications. This makes Schellingian psychology a natural ally to analytical psychology. But to exploit this hitherto neglected resource, Jungians must overcome Jung's antipathy for metaphysics.
Papers on Ecology by Sean McGrath
The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Ecology, ed. Alex Hampton (Cambridge University Press), 197-214., 2022
The landscape of contemporary religious ecology is presented as a variety of responses to disench... more The landscape of contemporary religious ecology is presented as a variety of responses to disenchantment and what Lynn White Jr. identified as the theological roots of environmental ruin (Biblical divine transcendence and human exceptionality). The various positions are mapped in terms of those who deny divine transcendence and make nature, either as actually or potentially infinite, the highest (pantheists); those who deny divine unicity and return to a pre-Christian, “enchanted” nature (neo-pagans), and those who defend in various ways the ecology implicit in the Biblical account of creation (Jewish, Muslim, and Christian monotheists).
The following paper takes Pope Francis' Encyclical on Climate Change as an opportunity to reopen ... more The following paper takes Pope Francis' Encyclical on Climate Change as an opportunity to reopen the debate, begun in 1967 by Lynn White Jr., on the theological origins of the environmental crisis. I note that the Pope's critique of consumerist modernity is strong, but his lack of a genealogical account of modernity remains a weakness of the text. I argue, with White, that the technological revolution which has caused climate change would not have been possible without Christian assumptions. The original disenchantment of the world was the Abrahamic revelation which disjoined divinity and nature, and contra to appearances, the disjunction was only exacerbated by the doctrine of the incarnation. With climate change, modernity is returning to this revelation in the form of the sobering experience of the precarity of the planet. Nature is now experienced as finite once again, and it includes us. Modernity, however, cannot be disavowed any more than disenchantment can easily be forgotten. A return to the Christian roots of disenchantment might help us to remember what we have forgotten: the virtue of contemplation, which could qualify modern attitudes of control and domination, and engender a Christian experience of reverence for nature. While this is a Christian response to the climate crisis, other religious traditions will need to come to analogous forms of earth-centered ethics if we are to achieved the integrated ecological pluralism needed for the future of civilization.
Thinking Nature, 2019
Chapter Two of Thinking Nature: An Essay in Negative Ecology.
Thinking Nature tracks the history of the concept of nature from the Hebrew Bible, through Renais... more Thinking Nature tracks the history of the concept of nature from the Hebrew Bible, through Renaissance philosophy and science, to dark ecology. Critical of the post-humanist trend in contemporary eco-criticism, Sean McGrath makes a compelling case for a new anthropocenic humanism-a humanism that is not at the expense of nature, and a naturalism that is not at the expense of the human. Sean McGrath brilliantly deploys the resources of apophatic wisdom in response to the acute ecological challenge of our time. He taps the distinct eco-anxiety of contemporary culture while endorsing a radical contemplative attunement to the call of deep nature. A passionate, timely and audacious book.-Richard Kearney, Boston College Sean J. McGrath Save 30% when you order direct • If you're ordering from Europe, Asia, Africa or Oceania, please visit edinburghuniversitypress.com and enter the discount code NEW30 • If you're ordering from the Americas, visit oup.com/us and use the code ADISTA5 Offer valid until 31st May 2019; does not include postage and packaging.
Environmental Philosophy, 2018
Against the prevalent trend in eco-criticism which is to deny the human difference, I summon a se... more Against the prevalent trend in eco-criticism which is to deny the human difference, I summon a set of untimely tropes from metaphysics in the interest of advancing an ecological humanism: the difference in kind between human consciousness and animal sensibility; the uniquely human capacity for moral discernment; and the human being's peculiar freedom from the material conditions of existence. While I agree with eco-critics who argue that anthropocenic nature is not only finite, but sick: sickened by our abuse and neglect, I disagree that this abuse is simply a result of insisting on the human difference (" anthropocentrism "), nor is species egalitarian-ism the way forward. On the contrary, the eco-collapse, referred to as the sixth great extinction event is the consequence of a general disavowal of the human's special call to take responsibility for the relation between the human and the non-human, and only a reawakening of this responsibility can restore health to anthropocenic nature. The non-human cannot effect this restoration, for that is not its vocation. A difference in vocation is not necessarily a difference in moral worth, and so the human difference does not justify denying the " intrinsic value " of the non-human. Humanity is uniquely responsible both for the mess we are in and for cleaning it up.
The history of modern Western thinking about nature devolves into a stalemate between anthropocen... more The history of modern Western thinking about nature devolves into a stalemate between anthropocentrism and cosmocentrism. For the former, nature is there for our use; it is resource, and we, as lords and masters of nature, can do with it what we wish. For the latter, nature is a balanced order, regulated by its laws, and directed by its own agenda. It is does not belong to us, we belong to it. Failure to recognize this basic fact of earthly existence, cosmocentric thinkers maintain, has got us into the pickle we are in today. Applied to the sea, we get two alternative models: the sea as resource for human need and development; and the sea as world unto itself, as agent, with an agenda of its own. We can describe the two alternatives as the sea for us, or the sea for itself. It is important to recognize that these two obviously contradictory positions are rooted in ethico-religious assumptions about the human being and its place in the universe. Anthropocentrism is rooted in a certain form of monotheism; cosmocentrism is rooted in modern pantheism. The former is humanistic, the latter is post-human. The Anthropocene, the recognition of the human species as a geological force, and the convergence of deep geological time with human history, now makes it increasingly impossible to maintain either of these alternatives.
Philosophy and Theology Papers by Sean McGrath
What is beginning in our time is a movement of such immeasurable significance for the future of h... more What is beginning in our time is a movement of such immeasurable significance for the future of humanity that only the most dramatic comparisons are adequate. It is one of two or three really big paradigm shifts in the evolution of consciousness. It is a new Axial Age. It is a second Copernican revolution. As did the invention of writing some 5000 years ago, datafication, the digital transformation of information into new forms of value, will change everything we do. 2 The excessive significance of this moment renders its meaning obscure to us who are its first witnesses. So it has always been: the significance of pivot moments in history always eludes those contemporaneous with them. They axial shifts are for future thinkers to interpret. Parmenides, Siddhartha Gautama, and Zhuang Zhu knew nothing of the first Axial Age of which they are now recognized to be the chief representatives. The first experiments in writing in 3 Mesopotamia were not alarmist propositions by thinkers conscious that a new era of human development was beginning; they were tallies of grain on cuneiform tablets. And still, philosophy always begins with what is on the table, as John Rist once said of Plato in a seminar I attended at the University of Toronto. I shall attempt to speak here of the danger implicit in the great socio-political transformation which is beginning in our time and which will leave no human traditions unchanged, from how we work, to how we play, to how we speak and relate to one another. We are at ground zero in a crisis of language, more specifically a crisis of understanding what exactly we are doing when we do that most characteristic human act, symbolically expressing the sense of our lives as we experience it. I will risk sounding like an irrelevant voice from the recent past and say that the greatest threat AI poses to us today concerns human self-understanding. I am not worried about the socalled singularity because I do not believe we have come anywhere close to producing genuine intelligence in a machine (the "artificial" qualifier in AI being the key term). I will not waste 4
The perfect storm of COVID-19, international collapse, and climate change is an opportunity for t... more The perfect storm of COVID-19, international collapse, and climate change is an opportunity for the Church to remember her eschatological call. Through a reading of the the Epistle of Barnabas and a retrieval of Heidegger's reading of Paul, eschatology is contrasted with teleology and utopianism and presented as an attitude for our time. I summarise the essence of eschatology in two theses: one concerning the uni-directionality or eventfulness of eschatological time, and a second concerning the futurity of justice. In the end I locate the heart of eschatology in the active-passivity of investing in this world while trusting in its divine transfiguration.
Journal of the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, 2019
Without doubt, the piece of the late Schelling that has received the least amount of scholarly at... more Without doubt, the piece of the late Schelling that has received the least amount of scholarly attention is the conclusion of the Philosophy of Revelation. 1 In the two concluding lectures, which take up a mere forty pages of Schelling's Sämtliche Werke, Schelling offers a theory of three ages of revelation, materialized in three historical forms of will bring the strife between churches, states, and world religions to an end. While Schelling does not reference it, his theory echoes the traditional theological trope of the two resurrections, which are separated by the thousand years of peace prophesied in the Book of Revelation, to occur before the Parousia and the end of time. 2 Each of the three forms of ecclesia actualise one of three historical possibilities for resolving the internal diversity under the coercive rule of a single external authority; the second, the Pauline theory is not entirely original-it is a version of the 12 th century prophet Joachim of Fiore's trinitarian philosophy of history. 3 But the way Schelling underwrites the schema, through a theological-political is certainly unique to him. There is no question in my mind that Schelling regarded this philosophy of history as the centerpiece of his last, positive philosophy. In what follows, I wish to modestly counteract the scholarly silence on Schelling's theory of the three ages of revelation by giving 1 F.W.J. Schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung, zweiter Theil, Vorlesungen 36-37, in Schellings Sämtliche
The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy, 2006
A critical analysis of the early Heidegger's relation to the theology of Luther.
The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy, 2006
A post-Heideggerian account of the internalized eschatology of medieval Christian thought.
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Papers on Psychoanalysis by Sean McGrath
Papers on Ecology by Sean McGrath
Philosophy and Theology Papers by Sean McGrath