Desire paradoxes

Freedom or evil is at the core of Jacques Lacan's text Kant with Sade (1963), for whom Sadeanian thought has a familiar air with Kant's moral imperative —formulated in the Critique of Practical Reason just eight years before Philosophy in the Boudoir—. This seminar, co-organized by the UPF Institute of Culture, will raise the implications of claiming, as Sade does, that access to pleasure is never outside of law and right. Sade presents a universal rule sanctioned by society, by the Republic, which stipulates that one can use another person's body without any kind of limit. The paradoxical status of this rule, its black humor, should not prevent us, according to Lacan, from taking it seriously. The evil that derives from the Sadean formulation is intimately connected with freedom and autonomy, which are the basis of Kantian morality. Lacan also points out that Sade corrects Saint Just, who said that happiness had become a new factor in politics. The author of Philosophy in the Boudoir saw with lucidity that the novelty was in the freedom to desire.

The seminar, organized with the Biblioteca del Camp Freudià de Barcelona and the Institute of Culture (IUC), will feature interventions by Professor Sonia Arribas, psychoanalysts Enric Berenguer, Vicente Palomera, Iván Ruiz and Leonora Troianovski, and artist Laura Piñel.

Program

10.00 - 11.30 
First round table
Vicente Palomera / Laura Piñel / Sonia Arribas
Moderator: Iván Ruiz

11.30 - 11.45
Pause

11.45 - 13.45
Second round table
Enric Berenguer / Leonora Troianovski / Iván Ruiz
Moderator: Sonia Arribas