Lacan and Probability

2000

In the general frame of an inquiry concerning Lacan and mathematics, the author is interested in the treatment of the probabilities, the theory and decision, all topics that give way to an interpretation of Pascal's calculus of partition and, in its wake, of the famous argument of betting. Starting from a critical examination of Kant's transcendental aesthetics, that Lacan propounds

This article provides a detailed commentary on Lacan's statement that "death belongs to the realm of faith" and relates it to a dream discussed briefly yet repeatedly in his work. This nightmare by one of his patients is qualified by Lacan as 'Pascalian', which allows for a discussion that takes into account Pascal's famous pensée on 'the wager' and Lacan's analysis of it in Seminar XVI. From this, the conclusion is drawn that the life of the conscious individual may be experienced as finite and mortal, but the life of the subject (of the unconscious) is immortalized by an infinite, repetitive signifying order. This idea is further explored via both Pascal's argument that life is something one can wager and the Lacanian notion of object a.

God is Undead: Psychoanalysis Between Agnosticism and Atheism, 2023

Pascal, especially as the author of the Pensées and the famous wager therein, is a recurring point of reference for Lacan. By Lacan’s own admission, he has a pronounced passion for the writings of the Jansenists. But, why do Pascal and his co-religionists at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs fascinate Lacan? What does he see in them and, in particular, in Pascal? The combination of Lacan’s enthusiasm for Jansenism with the opacity and obscurity of his various commentaries on Pascal might lead some readers to take Lacan’s Pascalian meditations as further evidence of an alleged covert religiosity on his part (given also Lacan’s Catholic background, his early Jesuit education, his closeness to his Benedictine monk brother Marc-François, his frequent references to the likes of Augustine, and so on). However, I will argue on this occasion that, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Lacan’s recasting of Pascal’s wager, rather than signaling a lingering Catholicism within Lacanianism, actually reveals the profundity and intensity of Lacan’s virulent atheism. Indeed, through unpacking Lacan’s psychoanalytic interpretations of Pascal and his wager, I seek herein to articulate an atheism radicalized on the basis of a Lacanian advancement of certain atheistic theses contained in the works of Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud.

Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 2005

V AN STADEN AND HINSHELWOOD'S commentaries raise a number of issues, but there are two particular themes common to both that we pick up in this response. The first theme concerns the reconcilability of Lacanian theory to the disciplines of analytic philosophy and "Anglo-American positivist psychiatry." This is closely related to the relationship between the unconscious and the empirical sciences discussed in the editorial (McConnell and Pickering 2005). The second theme concerns the relevance of Lacanian theory to our understanding of free will and the structure of the mind.

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2021

Lacan's contribution in applying and promoting game theory in the early 1950s is mostly ignored in the history of game theory. Yet his early analyses of logical reasoning made him one of the first social scientists to consider the importance of the hypothesis of common knowledge. By retracing Lacan's path in his discovery of game theory, we show how much he has been a precursor in applying it. While accommodating a narrative approach, he demonstrated rigor and originality. Soliciting mathematicians open to interdisciplinarity, he introduced as early as 1945 modes of reasoning which corresponds to reasoning based on common knowledge.

Crisis and Critique vol. 1 issue 1, 2014

This present text argues for a re-appropriation of the science of economics for use in political struggles. Both economics and psychoanalysis revolve around the problem of rational action, one which requires a notion of utility in the case of the former and enjoyment in the latter. However, we show that these are not equivalent terms – psychoanalysis is uniquely positioned to put the notion of utility under a radical critique. Namely, it poses the question: what would economic science look like after we have removed a reference to homeostatic principles? We propose that it would be what Lacan called a “science which includes psychoanalysis”, one which will allow us to re-evaluate the role of knowledge and incentives in group action. Errata: - p. 160 the quote beginning with “How are the Lacanian categories..." at the top should be indented - p. 161 the quote beginning with " “The peculiar character of the problem..." should also be indented - p. 161 Hayek's quote at the bottom doesn't have quotes at all, and should also be indented - p. 164 Freud's quote “A daytime thought may very well..." should be indented"

American Imago, 2001

A commentary to the lectures: "Calliope’s Sc(D)ream" by Prof. Shirley Sharon-Zisser and "Lacan and the Philosophical Soul" by Prof. Ruth Ronen, in the conference "Lacan and Philosophy", Tel Aviv University, 18-19 of November 2015.

Axiomathes, 2017

According to Antoine Augustine Cournot, chance events are the result of the intersection between independent causal chains. This coincidental notion of chance is not a new one, but-as Cournot remarks-it comes from Saint Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, and more probably from Jean de La Placette. Such a conception of chance phenomena seems to be very important, not only because it is closely related to the Principle of Causality, but also since it grounds Cournot's theory of objective probability. Starting from Martin's work (Probabilités et Critique Philosophique selon Cournot. Vrin, Paris, 1996), the main attempt of this survey is to endorse the idea that Cournot's coincidental notion of hasard is objective, that is it is ontic (i.e. it comes from some real feature of the world) and it does not dependin some sense-on our degree of knowledge. In order to do that, a central role in the discussion will be given to the meaning of the independence between the intersecting causal chains and to Cournot's conception of causation.

Mathematics Education Library, 2005