Subjectivation et mélancolie. La fonction des fantasmes dans les stratégies de la perte

Abstract

Subjectivation and Melancholia: The Function of Phantasma in the Strategies of Loss

Following Freud’s suggestion that we are able to recognize in the others some parts of our unconscious life that we are not keen to admit as our owns, this paper draws a theory of empathy understood as a double intention affecting the self and the other, each of them being connected indirectly to an unconscious phantasm sustaining the social relations. The subjectivation is to be described as a process driving the self from what is seen in the other towards some parts of his unconscious that remain unknown. Violence and freedom in the social field are to be examined in relation to this difficult self-knowledge that we may access when the other is not only a limit, but also an indicating sign of what we are, without knowing it.

Keywords: Phantasm, Subjectivity, Empathy, Freedom, Melancholia, Loss, Violence, Agamben, Freud, Pankow