Adrian Johnston: “‘You have nothing to lose’: Pascal, Lacan, and the Risks of Desire” (Keynote talk)

Pascal, especially as the author of the Pensées and the famous wager therein, is a recurring point of reference for Lacan. By Lacan’s own admission, he has a pronounced passion for the writings of the Jansenists. But, why do Pascal and his co-religionists at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs fascinate Lacan? What does he see in them and, in particular, in Pascal? The combination of Lacan’s enthusiasm for Jansenism with the opacity and obscurity of his various commentaries on Pascal might lead some readers to take Lacan’s Pascalian meditations as further evidence of an alleged covert religiosity on his part (given also Lacan’s Catholic background, his early Jesuit education, his closeness to his Benedictine monk brother Marc-François, his frequent references to the likes of Augustine, and so on). However, I will argue on this occasion that, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Lacan’s recasting of Pascal’s wager, rather than signaling a lingering Catholicism within Lacanianism, actually reveals the profundity and intensity of Lacan’s virulent atheism. Indeed, through unpacking Lacan’s psychoanalytic interpretations of Pascal and his wager, I seek herein to articulate an atheism radicalized on the basis of a Lacanian advancement of certain atheistic theses contained in the works of Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud.

[@TheDangerousMaybe]

Thanks so much for posting this, Derek!

[@dissatisfiedphilosophy]

I disagree with Johnston’s conclusion but I am very excited for this text! I personally believe that Lacan’s work is Christian through and through. Few have even looked into the Thomistic relevance in Lacan’s work, especially through the writings of Eitenne Gilson, a Neo-Thomist, who was one of Lacan’s favorite authors. But hey! it’s good to disagree

[@dissatisfiedphilosophy]

Not to mention the “pure” Thomistic tendencies in Lacan’s theory of desire.

[@lacanian_lifter]

Of course, there is always a response--God wants our satisfaction, only, on his terms! Anyone, however, who has been subject in their youth to the discourse of the, "God-shaped hole" has learned how quixotic a task it is to sort out the edification of God's desire from the satisfaction of one's own...