Lacan, Language, and Philosophy (Suny Series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature) [Hardcover]

Russell Grigg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0791473457 | ISBN-13: 978-0791473450 | Publication Date: February 7, 2008

Clinical and philosophical perspectives on key issues and debates in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Lacan, Language, and Philosophy explores the linguistic turn in psychoanalysis taken by Jacques Lacan. Russell Grigg provides lively and accessible readings of Lacan and Freud that are grounded in clinical experience and informed by a background in analytic philosophy. He addresses key issues in Lacanian psychoanalysis, from the clinical (how psychosis results from the foreclosure of the signifier the Name-of-the Father; the father as a symbolic function; the place of transference) to the philosophical (the logic of the "pas-tout"; the link between the superego and Kant's categorical imperative; a critique of Zizek's account of radical change). Grigg's expertise and knowledge of psychoanalysis produce a major contribution to contemporary philosophical and psychoanalytic debates.

"This is an excellent, well-written, and important book by a major scholar. Grigg is unique, indeed famous, in the field for his combination of clarity, philosophical acumen, and scholarliness. His readings show the benefits of a combination of clinical experience, a scholarly eye, and a philosophical mindset." -- Henry Krips, author of Fetish: An Erotics of Culture
"Grigg presents exceptional articulations of crucial ideas within the Lacanian field. Some of these issues have been dealt with before by other Lacanians, but Grigg brings his own style, erudition, and grace to these questions." -- Kareen Ror Malone, coeditor of The Subject of Lacan: A Lacanian Reader for Psychologists

About the Author

Russell Grigg is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Studies at Deakin University in Australia. He is the translator of The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book III: The Psychoses, 1955-1956 and The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 199 pages
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr (February 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791473457
• ISBN-13: 978-0791473450
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,532,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent essays, April 29, 2009

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Lost Lacanian (Lost-in, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Lacan, Language, and Philosophy (Insinuations Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature) (Paperback)

In this book, Russell Grigg, who has rendered exemplary translations of Seminar III and XVII, collects eleven wonderfully written essays. Grigg is not only a translator of Lacan's, he is also a practising analyst and a trained philosopher. That background gives his texts a clearity and exactness that is sorely missing in much of the literature. That Grigg is clear and exact does not mean that his writing is easy. In fact, though many of his essays are short, I found myself going over and over them to try and grasp the difficult ideas he was handling so precisely.

As this book is essentially a collection of essays, I recommend it, highly, to those who are already well versed in Lacan and psychoanalysis. For these readers, Grigg's book will provide fascinating reading that is both informative and polemical (he offers correctives to Fink, Badiou, and Zizek). If you have some background and are curious about a certain concept, for example, foreclosure, then I recommend getting this book and then refering to the exact chapter that deals with your question. If you are completely new, this book maybe a bit of a leap into a cold pool--I recommend starting with Fink's Clinical Introduction and The Lacanian Subject.

Along with Fink, Grigg is one of Lacan's most attentive and faithful of Lacan's translators. As a result, I am always interested to know their take on Lacan's texts. This book is intruiging for that fact alone. However, in the end, I gave this book only four stars because while the essays collected here are excellent and very interesting in themselves, unlike Fink's books, Grigg's essays do not cohere into the book form. (Take the very last comment for what it is worth, since I am fully aware it is a comment of taste.)