Lacan’s Epistemic Role in Ricœur’s Re-Reading of Freud

Abstract

In this paper, the author reconsiders the role played by Lacan in Ricœur’s philosophy of psychoanalysis by reconstructing the history of the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy, and by focusing on some of the important aspects of the reception of Ricœur’s work in France. The reception of his work is directly connected to Lacan’s School and the role played by his followers, who were against Ricœur. Some of the unpublished documents kept at the Fonds Ricœur should help to clarify some points in this regard. These documents should help to demonstrate how the incompatibility of Ricœur’s interpretation with Lacan’s structural perspective was determined more by their personal incompatibility and their different interests than by a genuine incommensurability in their theories.

Keywords

• Psychoanalysis, Hermeneutics, Structuralism, Language, Epistemology