This article was downloaded by: [Deakin University] On: 25 August 2009 Access details: Access Details: [subscription

number 738605264] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Angelaki
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713405211

Aristotle's dream
Lorenzo Chiesa a a School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent, UK Online Publication Date: 01 January 2006

To cite this Article Chiesa, Lorenzo(2006)'Aristotle's dream',Angelaki,11:3,83 84 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09697250601048523 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09697250601048523

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

ANGEL AK I
journal of the theoretical humanities volume 11 number 3 december 2006

ne differentiates between the object and the representation. We know this is in order to represent it mentally. It suffices to have words which, as we say, evoke, or summon, representation. How does Aristotle conceive of representation? We only know it by means of what has been retained by a certain number of disciples from his time. Disciples repeat what the master says. But only on condition that the master knows what he is saying. Who is the judge of this, beside the disciples? Thus, it is they who know. Unfortunately here I must bear witness as a psychoanalyst they also dream. Aristotle dreamed, like everyone else. Was it he who felt obliged to interpret Alexanders dream of besieging Tyrus? Satyros Tyrus is yours. A typical interpretation-game. Does the syllogism Aristotle practised it proceed from the dream? It must be said that the syllogism is always lame; in principle it is triple, but in reality it is an application of the universal to the particular. All men are mortal, so one among them must be too. Freud gets to this point and says that man desires it. What proves it is the dream. There is nothing so dreadful as dreaming that we are condemned ` to live repeatedly [a repetition]. Whence the idea of the death drive. By putting the death drive at the head, the Freudo-Aristoteleans suppose that Aristotle articulates the universal and the particular, that is to say they turn him into something like a psychoanalyst. Occasionally, the psychoanalysand syllogizes, that is to say he aristotelizes. In this way, Aristotle perpetuates his mastery. Which is not to say that he lives; he survives in his dreams. In each and every psychoanalysand, there is a disciple

Downloaded By: [Deakin University] At: 06:12 25 August 2009

jacques lacan translated bylorenzo chiesa ARISTOTLES DREAM1

of Aristotle. But it must be said that the universal realizes itself occasionally in jabbering. It is certain that man jabbers. He does it with considerable complacency. This is what is shown by the fact that the psychoanalysand goes back to the psychoanalyst at a fixed time. He believes in the universal, it is not clear why, since it is as a particular individual that he abandons himself to the care of what is known as a psychoanalyst. It is insofar as the psychoanalysand dreams that the psychoanalyst is to intervene. Is it a matter of waking the psychoanalysand? But he does not want to be awoken, under any circumstances; he dreams, that is to say, he sticks to the particularity of his symptom.

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN1469-2899 online/06/030083^2 2006 Taylor & Francis and the Editors of Angelaki DOI: 10.1080/09697250601048523

83

aristotles dream
The Peri psuches does not in the least suspect the existence of this truth, which constitutes the resistance to psychoanalysis. That is why Freud contradicts Aristotle, who, in this business of the soul, does not say anything good provided that what remains written is a faithful saying. The discrimination between the to ti esti and the to ti en einai, which we translate as essence and substance inasmuch as it is limited (to horismon), reflects a distinction in the real, that between the verbal and the real which is affected by it. This is what I have myself distinguished as symbolic and real. If it is true that, as I have stated, there is no sexual relationship, namely that in the human species there is no feminine universal, no all women [toutes les femmes], it follows that there is always someone else in addition [quelquun en plus] between the psychoanalyst and the psychoanalysand. There is that which I would not define as representation, but as presentation of the object. This presentation of the object is what I occasionally name object a. It is extremely complex. Aristotle neglects this because he believes that there is representation, and this entails that Freud writes it. Aristotle thinks for all that he does not conclude that he is he thinks the world [monde], and in doing so he dreams like what we name everybody [tout le monde], that is to say people. The world that he thinks, he dreams it, like all those who speak. The result is that as I have already said it is the world that thinks. The first sphere is what he names nous. We cannot know to what extent the philosopher always raves. Of course, Freud raves, too. He raves, but he notes that he speaks of numbers and surfaces. Aristotle might have supposed the existence of topology, but there is no trace of this. I have talked about waking [reveil]. It happens that I recently dreamt about the alarm clock [reveil] ringing. Freud says that we dream about waking when we do not want to wake up at all. Occasionally, the psychoanalysand quotes Aristotle. That is part of his material. Thus, there are always four personae between the psychoanalyst and the psychoanalysand. Occasionally, the psychoanalysand produces Aristotle. But the psychoanalyst has behind him his unconscious, of which he avails himself occasionally in order to give an interpretation. That is all I can say. The fact that in my dream I hallucinate the alarm clock ringing, I consider to be a good sign, since, contrary to what Freud says, it happens that I wake up. At least in this case, I woke up.

notes
1 Lacan delivered this paper at the Unesco in1978 on the occasion of the twenty-third centenary of Aristotles death. [Translators note]

Downloaded By: [Deakin University] At: 06:12 25 August 2009

Lorenzo Chiesa School of European Culture and Languages University of Kent Canterbury CT2 7NF UK E-mail: l.chiesa@kent.ac.uk