Professional Documents
Culture Documents
When Georges Bataille died in July 1962, there was never any doubt
that a special issue of Critique, the journal he had founded in 1946,
should be devoted to his memory and legacy. The issue eventually
appeared as a double installment in August 1963, four months after
Lacans Kant with Sade had been published in Critique, and it featured
tributes to the journals founder by some of Frances most renowned
intelligentsia, including Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre
Klossowski, Michel Foucault and Michel Leiris. In his lengthy contribu-
tion to the commemorative issue, Foucault paid homage to Batailles
philosophical analyses of sexuality, eroticism and transgression, which
prompted him to revisit the inuence and impact of Sade on the
development of a language and space for human desire. How is it
possible to discover, under all these dierent gures, Foucault won-
dered, that form of thought we carelessly call the philosophy of
eroticism, but in which it is important to recognize . . . an essential
experience for our culture since Kant and Sadethe experience of
nitude and being, of the limit and transgression? (Foucault, 1977,
p. 40). Given the fact that Lacan had recently devoted an entire essay to
the not-quite-obvious link between Kant and Sade, and notably in the
same journal, one could have expected Foucault to engage with Lacans
text, or at least to provide the reader with a reference to it, especially
since Lacan himself had expressed his appreciation for Foucaults work,
in an act of intellectual generosity for which he was not particularly well-
known. But Foucault remained silent about Kant with Sade.
When, in 1965, Jean-Jacques Pauvert decided to extract Franais,
encore un eort . . . from La philosophie dans le boudoir, in order to
release it as a separate volume, Blanchot accepted the task to write a
new preface for it, in which he duly acknowledged the profound
reections of both Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski (Blanchot,
1993, p. 219), yet without paying any attention to Lacans essay.
Critique was suciently well-established for Blanchot to have known
about the text, and given its central concern with Philosophy in the
Boudoir, and the pamphlet within it, it is quite unlikely that Blanchot
had not consulted it. Maybe he had decided to ignore it on account of
the fact that Lacan himself had failed to mention Blanchots own
previous work on Sade in it, despite his clearly having relied on it.
Much like Foucault, Blanchot remained silent about Kant with Sade.
A year after Kant with Sade was included in crits, the French literary
avant-garde journal Tel Quel devoted a special issue to La pense de Sade
(Sades Thought), including some of the usual suspects (Klossowski,
Barthes), alongside essays by the writer Phillippe Sollers, the philosopher
Hubert Damisch and the psychoanalyst Michel Tort. The latter gure was
broadly sympathetic to the Lacanian cause, and was an active participant in
Lacans seminar. In his essay entitled Leet Sade (The Sade eect) (Tort,
1967), he wrote extensively about the fantasy, without distinguishingas
Lacan had donebetween Sades literary fantasy and that which would
have ruled the Marquis life, and without showing any trace of a certain
Lacan eect on his own, distinctly psychoanalytic views. None of the
other contributors to the special issue made a single mention of Kant
with Sade either. In 1967, Gilles Deleuze published a lengthy introduction
to Leopold von Sacher-Masochs Venus in Furs, which was as much a study
of Sade and sadism as it was an exploration of Sacher-Masoch and
masochism (Deleuze, 1991). Deleuze relied on all the established French
Sade-scholars (Klossowski, Bataille, Blanchot), and drew extensively on
psychoanalytic concepts to argue in favour of a strict separation of sadism
Conclusion 143
Ignored and neglected by one and all, Kant with Sade nonetheless
received a great deal of attention by Lacan himself, more in fact than
most of his other essays in crits. After its rst publication in April
1963, Lacan returned to Kant with Sade on a regular basis in his
seminars, not only in the context of his yearlong seminar on The Logic
of the Fantasy (Lacan, 196667), but equally in further elaborations of
his theory of desire, and in advanced conceptual developments of the
inter-relations between jouissance, desire and truth. As to Kant with
Sade, Ive written things that are actually pretty good, he admitted to
his audience in March 1974, things no one evidently understands . . .
(Lacan, 197374, session of 19 March 1974). Of the 34 essays that
were included in crits, Kant with Sade comes third in Lacans tally of
references to his own work, after the seminal Rome Discourse (Lacan,
2006g) and the 1955 paper on The Freudian Thing (Lacan, 2006b),
although the latter paper received only one more mention than Kant
with Sade (Le Gaufey et al., 1998, p. 66). If Kant with Sade had been
published 10 years earlier, or some time during the 1950sbut it
would undoubtedly have been a very dierent textLacan would have
had more time to re-engage with his essay, and it may very well have
come out top of the list. Unlike his contemporaries, including those
philosophers and psychoanalysts attending his seminar, Lacan thought
extremely highly of Kant with Sade and did not let an opportunity go
by to remind his audience of what he had accomplished in it
incomprehensible as it may have been.
Since Lacans death in 1981, Kant with Sade has received more
extensive critical attention, both in France and in other parts of the
world, yet compared to some of Lacans other adventures in the world
of literature, such as the essay on E. A. Poes Purloined Letter (Lacan,
2006c), the seminar sessions on Antigone (Lacan, 1992, pp. 241287),
and the yearlong seminar on Joyce (Lacan, 2016), Kant with Sade is
by no means a household reference in contemporary explorations of
the so-called literary Lacan. This is all the more remarkable since one
of Lacans main arguments in Kant with Sade, which set him apart
from mainstream psychoanalytic interpretations of literary texts, is that
there is no strict correspondence between authors and their work,
between the authors subjective fantasy and the literary fantasy that
146 Conclusion
and the Imaginary, anxiety, the phallus, the Oedipus complex, the
Name-of-the-Father, identication. In many ways, Kant with Sade
still remains to be discovered and properly evaluated in its implications
for the status of Kantian moral philosophy, the style and scope of
Sades libertine novels, the psychoanalytic conceptions of desire, jouis-
sance, fantasy and the Law, and the power of creative writing as literary
fantasy.
Bibliography
Boehme, J. (1909). The Three Principles of the Divine Essence (161819), trans.
J. Sparrow, London: L. N. Fowler & Co.
Bongie, L. L. (1998). Sade: A Biographical Essay, Chicago, IL/London: The
University of Chicago Press.
Bosteels, B. (2005). Badiou without iek, Polygraph: An International Journal
of Culture and Politics, 17, pp. 221244.
Bourdin, P. (ed.) (1929). Correspondance indite du marquis de Sade, de ses
proches et de ses familiers, Paris: Librairie de France.
Braunstein, N. (2005). La jouissance. Un concept lacanien (1990), deuxime
dition, Toulouse: rs.
Breton, A. (1977). Enn Jean Benoit nous rend le grand crmonial (1959),
Obliques, 12/13, pp. 169174.
Breton, A. (2009). Anthology of Black Humour (1939), trans. M. Polizzotti,
London/San Francisco, CA: Telegram Books.
Brighelli, J.-P. (2000). Sade. La vie, la lgende. Paris: Larousse.
Brissenden, R. F. (1974). Virtue in Distress: Studies in the Novel of Sentiment
from Richardson to Sade, London/Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Brochier, J.-J. (1991). Pauvert sous le signe de Sade, Magazine Littraire, 284,
pp. 2325.
Buuel, L. (1983). My Last Sigh, trans. A. Israel, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Can, J. (1968). Le fantasme sadique et la ralit, in Le Marquis de Sade, ed.
Centre Aixois dtudes et de recherches sur le dix-huitime sicle, Paris:
Librairie Armand Colin, pp. 279286.
Camus, A. (2000). The Rebel (1951), trans. A Bower, London: Penguin.
Carter, A. (1979). The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History,
London: Virago.
Castel, P.-H. (2014). Pervers, analyse dun concept, suivi de Sade Rome,
Montreuil-sous-Bois: Ithaque.
Cazotte, J. (2011). The Devil in Love (1772), trans. J. Landry, Sawtry: Dedalus.
Cicero. (1931). On Ends (45), trans. H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA/London:
Harvard University Press.
Cioran, E. M. (1976). The Trouble with Being Born (1973), trans. R. Howard,
New York: Seaver Books.
Clarck-Taoua, Ph. (2002). In Search of New Skin: Michel Leiriss LAfrique
fantme, Cahiers dtudes africaines, 42(3), pp. 479498.
Claudel, P. (1945). Three Plays (The Hostage/Crusts/The Humiliation of the
Father) (191120), trans. J. Heard, New York: Howard Fertig.
152 Bibliography
Lacan, J. (1966b). Kant avec Sade, in Marquis de Sade, uvres compltes, Vol.
II, Tome 3, Paris: Cercle du Livre Prcieux, pp. 551577.
Lacan, J. (19661967). Le Sminaire XIV, La logique du fantasme, unpublished
Lacan, J. (1970). Prsentation, in crits I, Paris: du Seuil, pp. 712.
Lacan, J. (19731974). Le Sminaire XXI, Les non-dupes errent, unpublished.
Lacan, J. (1979). The Neurotics Individual Myth (1953), trans. M. N. Evans,
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 48(3), pp. 405425.
Lacan, J. (1988a). The Seminar. Book I: Freuds Papers on Technique (1975),
trans. J. Forrester, ed. J.-A. Miller, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lacan, J. (1988b). The Seminar. Book II: The Ego in Freuds Theory and in the
Technique of Psychoanalysis (1978), trans. S. Tomaselli, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lacan, J. (1989). Kant with Sade (1971), trans. J.B. Swenson, Jr., October, 51,
pp. 5575.
Lacan, J. (1992). The Seminar. Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1986),
trans. D. Porter, ed. J.-A. Miller Grigg, New York/London: W.W. Norton
& Company.
Lacan, J. (1993). The Seminar. Book III: The Psychoses (1981), trans. R. Grigg,
New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Lacan, J. (1994a). Le Sminaire. Livre IV: La relation dobjet, texte tabli par
J. A. Miller, Paris: du Seuil.
Lacan, J. (1994b). The Seminar. Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-
Analysis (1973), trans. A. Sheridan, ed. J.-A. Miller, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Lacan, J. (1998). Le Sminaire. Livre V: Les formations de linconscient, texte
tabli par J.-A. Miller, Paris: du Seuil.
Lacan, J. (2003). De la ralisation du fantasme, texte tabli par J.-A. Miller,
Magazine littraire, 424, pp. 4647.
Lacan, J. (2006a). The Function and Field of Speech and Language in
Psychoanalysis (1953), Ecrits, trans. B. Fink, New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, pp. 197268.
Lacan, J. (2006b). The Freudian Thing, or the Meaning of the Return to
Freud in Psychoanalysis (1955), Ecrits, trans. B. Fink, New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, pp. 334363.
Lacan, J. (2006c). Seminar on The Purloined Letter (1957), crits, trans.
B. Fink, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 648.
Lacan, J. (2006d). The Youth of Gide, or the Letter and Desire (1958), crits,
trans. B. Fink, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 623644.
Bibliography 159
Lacan, J. (2006e). The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in
the Freudian Unconscious (1960), crits, trans. B. Fink, New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, pp. 671702.
Lacan, J. (2006f). The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its
Power (1961), crits, trans. B. Fink, New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, pp. 489542.
Lacan, J. (2006g). Kant with Sade (1963), crits, trans. B. Fink, New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 645668.
Lacan, J. (2006h). Position of the Unconscious (1964), crits, trans. B. Fink,
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 703721.
Lacan, J. (2007). The Seminar. Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
(1991), trans. R. Grigg, ed. J.-A. Miller, New York/London: W.W. Norton
& Company.
Lacan, J. (2009). Kant with Sade (1966), trans. W.J. Richardson, The Letter:
Irish Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis, 42, pp. 2156.
Lacan, J. (2011). Le Sminaire. Livre XIX: . . . ou pire, texte tabli par J.-A.
Miller, Paris: du Seuil.
Lacan, J. (2013a). The Triumph of Religion (1975), in The Triumph of
Religion, preceded by Discourse to Catholics, trans. B. Fink, Cambridge:
Polity, pp. 5385.
Lacan, J. (2013b). Lituraterre(1971), trans. D. Nobus, Continental Philosophy
Review, 46, pp. 327334.
Lacan, J. (2014a). Le Sminaire. Livre VI: Le dsir et son interpretation, texte
tabli par J.-A. Miller, Paris: La Martinire.
Lacan, J. (2014b). The Seminar. Book X: Anxiety (2004), trans. A. R. Price, ed.
J.-A. Miller, Cambridge: Polity.
Lacan, J. (2015). The Seminar. Book VIII: Transference (2001), trans. B. Fink,
ed. J.-A. Miller, Cambridge: Polity.
Lacan, J. (2016). The Seminar. Book XXIII: The Sinthome (2005), trans. A. R.
Price, ed. J.-A. Miller, Cambridge: Polity.
La Fontaine, J. de. (2007). The Complete Fables of Jean de la Fontaine (1668),
Champaign, IL: The University of Illinois Press.
Lagache, D. (1993). Aggressivity (1960), in The Work of Daniel Lagache:
Selected Writings, trans. E. Holder, London: Karnac Books, pp. 207236.
La Vopa, A. (1997). The Philosopher and the Schwrmer: On the Career of a
German Epithet from Luther to Kant, Huntington Library Quarterly, 60(1/2),
pp. 85115.
160 Bibliography
Wlng, N. (Ed.) (2004). Kant with Sade: NLS Seminar 20032004, London:
London Society of the New Lacanian School.
Zevnik, A. (2016). Kant avec Sade: Ethics Entrapped in Perversions of Law and
Politics, in Jacques Lacan: Between Psychoanalysis and Politics, eds. S. Tomi
& A. Zevnik, London/New York: Routledge, pp. 217232.
iek, S. (1998). Kant and Sade: The Ideal Couple, Lacanian Ink, 13,
pp. 1225.
iek, S. (1999). Kant with (or against) Sade, in The iek Reader, eds.
E. Wright & E. Wright, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 283301.
iek, S. (2014). The Most Sublime Hysteric: Hegel with Lacan (2011), trans.
T. Scott-Railton, Cambridge: Polity.
iek, S., Santner, E. L. & Reinhard, K. (2005). The Neighbor: Three Inquiries
in Political Theology, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Zupani, A. (1998). The Subject of the Law, in Cogito and the Unconscious,
ed. S. iek, Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press, pp. 4173.
Zupani, A. (2000). Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan, London/New York: Verso.
Zweifel, F. (Ed.) (2004). Kant avec Sade. Commentaire des rfrences de Lacan,
Paris: Bibliothque Conuents.
Zweifel, F. (Ed.) (2005). Kant avec Sade. Commentaire des schmas de Lacan,
Paris: Bibliothque Conuents.
Index
A B
Adorno, Theodor W., xxviiixxix, Bad(ness), 1012
xxxi, 6, 15 Barbey dAurevilly, Jules, 6
Alienation, 47, 51, Barthes, Roland, 141143
5556, 63 Bataille, Georges, xxx, 85, 141143
Allouch, Jean, xviii Baudelaire, Charles, 5
Amboceptor, 32 Beauty, 59
Analytic propositions, 1415, 25 Being-in-the-world, 34, 37, 39
Antigone, 130, 145 Belmor (libertine), 44, 94
Anti-weight, 13 Benevolence, 13
Anxiety, 146147 Between two deaths, 59
Aphanisis, 58 Black fetish, 39, 83, 94, 122
Apollinaire, Guillaume, xxiv Black humour, 20, 33, 76, 128
Apologue, 95, 99, Blanchot, Maurice, xxx, 3, 6, 38,
105, 107 5254, 56, 58, 61, 141143
Arendt, Hannah, xxxi Bloch, Iwan, 1
Aristotle, 4, 122 Body, 19, 2324, 33, 45, 57, 89, 126
Ataraxia, 36, 114, 117 maternal, xviii, 139140
Atheism, 131 Boehme, Jakob, 36
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 80 D
Bonnefoy, Yves, xxiv Damisch, Hubert, 142
Borghese, Olympia (libertine), 43, 100 DAnnunzio, Gabriele, 5
Breton, Andr, 2, 76 Death, 7, 38, 43, 6162, 95, 100,
Brissenden, Robert Francis, 33 108, 122
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter, 111 second, 45, 6263, 6567,
Buddha, 92 82, 123
Buddhism, 67 transcendental, 57
Buloz, Franois, 67 Death drive, 6569
Burnouf, Eugne, 6768 Death penalty, 9596, 121, 136
De Beauvoir, Simone, xxix, 3, 7576,
85, 143
C De La Fontaine, Jean, 91
Can, Jacques, 143 Deleuze, Gilles, 142143
Calculus, 58 Desire, xix, xxv, 6, 26, 3839,
Capitalism, 69 42, 4445, 49, 52, 59, 62,
Carter, Angela, 22 75, 85, 8792, 9597,
Categorical imperative, 1215, 19, 99100, 104, 110, 113118,
21, 24, 9495, 107109, 113, 122, 125, 135, 140141,
115, 117, 143 143146
Cause, 55 law of, 87, 94, 97, 113, 119,
Celsus, 30 123, 126127, 129, 134,
Chaplin, Charlie, 91 137, 140, 144
Charles V, 111 lawless, xix
Chrysippus, 114 liberation of, 119120, 123, 127,
Cicero, 114 137, 140
Clairwil (libertine), 41, 123 natures, 55, 93, 118, 122
Claudel, Paul, 130, 132 object of, xviii, 89, 111
Cleanthes, 114 as the Others desire, 9394, 110
Comedy, Comic, xxv, 21, 105 Sades, 78, 125
Communism, 69 subject of, 92
Compulsion to repeat, 65 unconscious, 115
Conscience, 21 Destruction, xxvi, 52, 54, 57, 59, 67,
Constancy principle, 65, 68 71, 73, 75, 89, 118, 122123,
Contempt, 30, 33, 96 127, 131, 133
Coulmier, Franois Simonet Diotima, 139
de, 102103 Disavowal, 143
Courtly love, 16, 99, 105 Displeasure, 10, 12
Index 169
Dolmanc (libertine), 1718, 22, 27, Sadean, xxvi, 4763, 70, 73, 85,
3031, 3334, 38, 45, 49, 54, 87, 89, 125126, 132, 144, 146
60, 77, 138139 Sadistic, 3839, 42, 47, 55, 71,
Dream, 18, 68, 73, 137 93, 143
Duc de Blangis (libertine), 75 unconscious function, 48
Dhren, Eugne, 1 Fink, Bruce, xxiii
Du Plessix Gray, Francine, 58 Foucault, Michel, xxx, 101, 103,
Duty, xxx, 8, 94, 108110 141143
Francis I, 111
Freedom, 8, 33, 95, 99, 101,
E 103104, 108, 119121, 131
Ego, 4, 115 Freud, Sigmund, 25, 18, 20, 32, 53,
pleasure-, 53 6566, 6869, 97, 113, 115,
puried, 53 134136, 143
reality-, 53 Freudo-sadism, 2
Ehrlich, Paul, 32 Fromm, Erich, 69
Eichmann, Adolf, xxxi, xxxiii
Epictetus, 30, 114
Epicurus/Epicureanism, 11416 G
Eugnie, 1718, 22, 3031, 33, 45, Gaze, 111112
77, 126127, 138140 God, 8, 37, 5253, 59, 131132, 134
Evil, 56, 35, 100, 118, 121, 132 as supreme intelligence, 7, 3536
delight in, 56, 11 as supreme cause of nature, 7
happiness in, 122 death of, 131
enjoyment of, 35
Good, Goodness, 1012, 132
F highest good, 78, 10, 13, 1516,
Fantasy, 6, 32, 3738, 4145, 29, 3435, 57, 88, 113, 146
4851, 5455, 58, 60, 75, 80, Grimmigkeit, 36
8283, 87, 9394, 123, 126,
134, 137, 142143, 146
algebraic notation, 48 H
fundamental, 48, 50, 73 Hallucination, 35
inverted, 4950, 52 Happiness, 7, 3435, 88, 113118,
of limitless jouissance, 137 120, 122
literary, 73, 76, 123, 126, 131, politicization of, 119
142, 145146 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 93,
perverse, 146 111
170 Index
Miller, Jacques-Alain, xiii, xvii, xxiii of the moral law, 8, 12, 14, 16,
Mirbeau, Octave, 5 3335, 57, 88, 113, 143
Mirvel, Chevalier de (libertine), 17, 31 subject of, 88
Mistival, Eugnie de, see Eugnie voice-, 35
Mistival, Madame de, 3031, 33, 38, Object a, 48, 78, 83
60, 139 Object-relation, 48
Modesty, 3032, 50 Oedipus, 82, 130
Montreuil, Prsidente de, 78, 80, 83 Oedipus complex, 146
Origen, of Alexandria, 30
Other, 2122, 24, 2627, 30, 3233,
N 35, 38, 50, 52, 70, 7980, 92,
Name-of-the-Father, 146 110111
Nature, 14, 26, 3334, 36, 39, 42,
45, 49, 5153, 5556, 59,
6263, 67, 89, 93, 114, P
121124, 127, 131133, Pain, 4, 13, 27, 2930, 31, 33, 38,
135136, 138 42, 45, 50, 56, 58, 61, 77,
Need, 104 107109, 114, 122
Negation, 53 of Existence, 6768, 7071
Neighbour, 3031, 132136 Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 143
Neiman, Susan, 85 Patron, Sylvie, xviixviii
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 78 Paul (Apostle), 128, 137
Nirvana (Principle), 6568 Paulhan, Jean, xvii, xix, xxx, 2, 75, 143
Noirceuil (libertine), 124 Pauvert, Jean-Jacques, xvxvi, 2, 84,
Non-reciprocity, 2022, 51 142
Penis envy, 139
Perversion, 2, 146
O Phallus, 146
Object, 10, 12, 1516, 25, 3335, Phobia, 32
48, 50, 90, 110, 114, 118 Picasso, Pablo, xxix
of desire, xviii, 48, 55, 88, 89, 94 Picon, Gatan, xxiv
(see also object a) Pinel, Philippe, 101
empirical, 1112, 1415, 24, 34, Plato, 4, 120, 122, 139
39, 44, 88, 94, 108, 113, 146 Pleasure, 4, 1012, 22, 26, 30, 31,
eternal, 7071 38, 4245, 50, 5254, 5657,
feminine, 105 60, 100109, 113116, 119,
moral law as, 3435 122, 125
of practical reason, 9 brute subject of, 53
Index 173
V W
Verdoux, Monsieur, 9192, 111 Wahl, Franois, xx
Victim, 2223, 27, 30, Well-being, 11
3133, 38, 4243, Whitehead, Alfred North, 70
45, 5254, 5761, Will, 1213, 29, 34, 94, 108109
63, 7071, 77, 100, free, 11, 87, 108
132 incentives of the, 13, 114115
Vigny, Alfred de, xv to jouissance, 3132, 42, 49,
Virtue, 29, 3435, 39, 5256, 7980, 83, 93, 137
45, 50, 7576, to power, 78
113114, 117, maxim of the, 15
120, 124, 127 Wish, 66
Voice, 35, 92 Witticism, 128
in conscience, 14 Writing, xxvi, 6, 75, 100, 124, 126,
of nature, 34, 3839, 42, 49, 143, 146
9293, 122
object, 35
of reason, 12, 14, 16, 2426, Z
9293 Zeno, 114