Book
The Unfinished Copernican Revolution
La révolution copernicienne inachevée
A collection of twenty-nine papers by Laplanche written between 1967 and 1992, published by Aubier in 1992 under the subtitle Travaux 1967–1992, reissued in the Presses universitaires de France's Quadrige series, and translated into English by Luke Thurston as The Unfinished Copernican Revolution. Its title essay of 1992 argues that Freud's discovery decentred the human subject toward the other, as Copernicus decentred the earth, but that Freud repeatedly fell back on self-centred, endogenous and phylogenetic explanations. For Laplanche the unconscious is neither inborn nor the expression of an instinctual id: it is an alien within the subject, formed from the untranslated remainders of the other's messages. The other papers trace the path from his readings of Freud in the late 1960s to the general theory of seduction. They treat defence and prohibition, the originary place of masochism in the sexual drive, the principles of mental functioning, the ego and the self, psychosis, anxiety, Melanie Klein, the death penalty and penal retribution, the translation of Freud, temporality and translation, transference as provoked by the analyst, and masochism within the general theory of seduction.
Main ideas
- Freud's discovery began a Copernican revolution, decentring the subject toward the other, but Freud left it unfinished by recentring the psyche on endogenous and phylogenetic causes.
- The unconscious is not innate or an instinctual id but an alien within, formed from the untranslated remainders of the other's messages.
- Translation serves as a model for repression and for psychic temporality, as in the papers on temporality and translation and on time and the other.
- Transference is provoked by the analyst, whose situation renews the enigma of the other.
- The collection shows the path from Laplanche's readings of Freud in the late 1960s to the general theory of seduction, including masochism's place in it.
What it shows
- 1992
Jean Laplanche reworked Unconscious
For Laplanche the unconscious is neither inborn nor the expression of an instinctual id. It is formed from the untranslated remainders of the adult other's messages, an alien within the subject. He calls Freud's discovery an unfinished Copernican revolution: Freud decentred the subject toward the other but repeatedly fell back on endogenous and phylogenetic explanations.