Sexuality and meaning in Freud and Merleau‐Ponty

Translations of summary

This article analyzes the links between the conception of the body and of sexuality found in Freud and Merleau‐Ponty. The French philosopher refers to Freud in various of his works, and performs a reading of Freud through which he rescues the meaning that the latter gives to sexuality as he integrates it into the totality of the person, without making it into a blind or merely instinctive force. As a consequence of this integration, the notions of the unconscious and of instinct or drive are interpreted in the light of the meaning or signification that they have in the person's behavior. Merleau‐Ponty's notion of pre‐reflective knowledge plays a decisive role in this understanding of meaning. In the same way, it allows important contemporary analysts to use these studies in their therapeutic work and also in psychological studies.

Sexualité et sens chez freud et merleau‐ponty

Dans cet article, l'auteur analyse les liens entre la conception du corps et celle de la sexualité chez Freud et Merleau‐Ponty. Le philosophe français fait référence à Freud dans plusieurs de ses travaux et effectue une lecture de Freud à travers laquelle il restitue le sens que ce dernier donne à la sexualité en l'intégrant à l'individu dans sa totalité, sans la réduire à une simple force instinctuelle aveugle. Du fait de cette intégration, les notions d'inconscient et d'instinct ou de pulsion sont interprétées à la lumière du sens ou de la signification qu'elles revêtent dans le comportement de l'individu. La notion de connaissance préréflexive de Merleau‐Ponty joue un rôle décisif dans la compréhension du sens. De la même manière , il permet aux analystes contemporains importants d'utiliser ces études dans leur travail thérapeutique et également dans les études psychologiques.

Sexualität und bedeutung bei freud und merleau‐ponty

Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Verbindungen zwischen Freuds und Merleau‐Pontys Verständnis des Körpers und der Sexualität. Der französische Philosoph hat in mehreren seiner Schriften auf Freud Bezug genommen. Er integriert die Sexualität in die Gesamtheit der Persönlichkeit, ohne sie in eine blinde oder lediglich instinktive Macht zu verwandeln, und vertritt so eine Lesart Freuds, in der die Bedeutung, die dieser der Sexualität beilegte, erhalten bleibt. Ausgehend von dieser Integration werden die Konzepte des Unbewussten und des Triebes im Licht der Bedeutung oder des Sinns interpretiert, die sie im Verhalten der Person besitzen. Merleau‐Pontys Verständnis des prä‐reflexiven Wissens spielt für dieses Bedeutungsverständnis eine maßgebliche Rolle. In gleicher Weise ermöglicht es wichtig, zeitgenössische Analysten diese Studien in ihrer therapeutischen Arbeit zu nutzen und auch in der psychologischen Studien.

Sessualità e significato in freud e merleau‐ponty

Questo articolo analizza i collegamenti tra la concezione del corpo e della sessualità che si possono trovare in Freud e in Merleau‐Ponty. Il filosofo francese fa dei rimandi a Freud in molti dei suoi lavori e propone una lettura di Freud che gli permette di recuperare il significato che questi dà alla sessualità mentre la integra nella totalità della persona, evitando di trasformarla in una forza cieca o meramente istintuale. Come ricaduta di questa integrazione, i concetti di inconscio e di istinto o pulsione sono interpretati alla luce del senso o della significazione che hanno nel quadro del comportamento della persona. Il concetto di conoscenza pre‐riflessiva di Merleau‐Ponty gioca un ruolo decisivo in questa visione del significato. Allo stesso modo , consente importanti analisti contemporanei di utilizzare tali studi nel loro lavoro terapeutico e anche in studi psicologici.

Sexualidad y sentido en freud y merleau‐ponty

El artículo analiza los vínculos entre la concepción del cuerpo y de la sexualidad entre Freud y Merleau‐Ponty. El filósofo francés ve en la teoría de Freud una coincidencia relevante para ser aprovechada por la fenomenología, particularmente para su comprensión de la corporalidad como clave interpretativa esencial de la existencia humana. Merleau‐Ponty se refiere a Freud en varias de sus obras y hace una lectura del psiquiatra vienés en la que rescata el sentido que éste otorga a la sexualidad integrándola a la totalidad de la persona, sin hacer de ella una fuerza ciega o instintiva. Como consecuencia de dicha integración, las nociones de inconsciente y de instinto o pulsión se interpretan a la luz del sentido o significación que tienen en el comportamiento de la persona. La noción merleau‐pontyana de conocimiento pre‐reflexivo juega un papel decisivo en esta comprensión del sentido. Permite así mismo que importantes analistas contemporáneos utilicen estos estudios en su labor terapéutica y también en trabajos psicológicos

Key words:

• corporality
• sexuality
• meaning
• Freud
• Merleau‐Ponty
• phenomenology
• psychoanalysis

1. This article has been translated and funded by the research grant from Universidad de los Andes called FAI 2013.

1. This article has been translated and funded by the research grant from Universidad de los Andes called FAI 2013.

Notes

1. This article has been translated and funded by the research grant from Universidad de los Andes called FAI 2013.

2. We have opted to emphasize the work of the Barangers because Lacan's writings require an attention that exceeds the objectives of this article.

3. Pintos Peñaranda has encountered references to Freud in 12 works by Merleau‐Ponty, see 2009, p. 52.

4. For a more complete vision of this evolution, see Pintos Peñaranda (2009) and Lutereau (2011, p. 284).

5. Referring to the appropriate way to read Freud, he writes: “[we must] learn to read Freud as we would read a classic, that is, taking the words and their theoretical components which we find useful not in their lexical and common meaning, but rather according to the meaning that they acquire in the interior of the experience that they speak of, an experience which is much more within our power than we have supposed” (Merleau‐Ponty, 2000, p. 283). Lutereau emphasizes that Merleau‐Ponty stayed close to psychoanalysis: “There could be an agreement that M. Merleau‐Ponty has been the philosopher from the phenomenologist tradition who most kept up a dialogue with psychoanalysis” (2011, p. 284).

6. We employ this translation of the Freudian concept of Triebe, following Strachey.

7. In French Merleau‐Ponty uses the word esprit, which in this context has been traditionally translated into English by mind.

8. See Freud (1950, pp. 283–294). The hydraulic concept has been used in a metaphorical manner in order to express the functioning of the nervous system and the mental apparatus in terms of a complex system of tubes through which something like fluids pass: a quantity of energy that moves, becomes excited and puts pressure on the system. The instinctive energies would suffer many vicissitudes along these pathways, but the quantity of energy would remain constant in the system. Freud used words like quantity, principle of inertia and blockages and applies them in order to understand how motor activity is proportional to the quantity of stimulation that the sense organs receive.

9. “Sensation, such as it is presented to us by experience, is no longer an indifferent matter and an abstract moment, but rather one of our surfaces of contact with being, or a structure of consciousness. Rather than presenting us with a unique space or a universal condition of all qualities, each sensation gives us a particular manner of being in space and, in a certain, sense of creating space” (Merleau‐Ponty, 2012, p. 230).

10. De Lattre (1974, p. 283) comments that for Merleau‐Ponty there is a single a priori: that of incarnate and lived experience.

11. See also p. 102, where he notes that the body points or directs itself towards the world as the latent horizon of our experience: “as a posture toward a certain task, actual or possible”.

12. In the same text he links the comprehension of the body to motricity. The linkage of the subject with the world by means of perception attains its maximum expression in his posthumous work Le visible et l'invisible, especially in ch. 4. See also Carman (2007, ch. III).

13. See Merleau‐Ponty (1968b, p. 248): “That means that my body is made of the same flesh as the world (it is a perceived), and moreover that this flesh of my body is shared by the world”. See also in the same work, pp. 269–271.

14. Who in turn took this term from Gestalt psychology. Kurt Lewin uses it frequently in his works.

15. The term imago is used in the psychoanalytic vocabulary, beginning with Jung, in order to express the unconscious prototype of personas that orient the form in which the subject apprehends others. This imago develops on the basis of the first real and fantasized intersubjective relations in the family environment. See Laplanche and Pontalis (1981, pp. 191–192).

16. For a study of the libido in Merleau‐Ponty see Weiss (1981).

17. See Merleau‐Ponty (2012), where he makes many reference to habit. Noteworthy passages include pp. 139, 143–148, 153. One example is the practice of typing, where the person integrates the space of the keyboard into his/her own bodily space. On this topic see Moya (2012).

18. Merleau‐Ponty (2012, p. 48). See also Daly (1967, pp. 150–151).

19. Although this aspects leads directly to the technical topic of transference and countertransference, we will not enter into a discussion of it in the present article.

20. Merleau‐Ponty explains the Freudian concept of polymorphic childhood (the polymorphic perverse), showing that it refers to the state in which the child is not yet a self, nor an other either. For this reason the child's maturation must be understood as a way of channeling this polymorphism (Merleau‐Ponty, 1968b, pp. 269–270; see also 2010, p. 377).

21. “In his empirical studies, Freud himself leaves causal thought behind when he shows that symptoms always have several senses, or, as he puts it, are ‘overdetermined’. For this comes down to admitting that a symptom, at the moment it is established, always finds some raison d’être in the subject, such that no event in a life is strictly speaking determined from the outside. Freud compares the external accident to the foreign body, which is, for the oyster, merely the opportunity for secreting a pearl”. (Merleau‐Ponty, 2012, p. 528, n. 5).

22. Laplanche and Pontalis (1981, p. 198 and 324–347), explain that instinct is a term used by certain French psychoanalytic authors as a translation or equivalent for Freud's term Trieb, for which, in a coherent terminology, it is appropriate to use the French term ‘pulsion’.

23. Merleau‐Ponty comments that Freud understood in his later years that sexuality, in its relation with others, was a “sexual‐aggressive” relation, understanding this as an interpersonal link marked by our carnal reality: “Since sexuality is relationship to other persons, and not just to another body, it is going to weave the circular system of projections and introjections between other persons and myself” (1964, p. 230).