The Unthought in the 21st Century: A Political-Epistemological Dialogue Between Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, and Cybernetics

Abstract

The article examines a tension within the contemporary psychoanalytic field between two distinct ways of grounding its theory and clinical practice. Drawing on the contributions of Politzer and Foucault, it identifies an opposition between an anthropological orientation in psychoanalysis—which posits Man as a subject under the assumption of an internal unconscious—and a structural orientation, which locates the subject not in Man but in language, dispensing with interiority as a basis for conceptualizing the unconscious. Testing the convergent readings of Politzer and Foucault regarding the epistemological infertility and political risks implied by the classical notion of the subject as a human being bound to an internal unconscious, this work’s primary aim is to critique the persistence of an anthropological approach in psychoanalysis, insofar as it sustains an extraterritorial epistemological stance toward other bodies of knowledge and inadvertently aligns itself with the political logic of neoliberal individualism. In this sense, the article argues for the necessity of a structural foundation in psychoanalysis as a condition for establishing dialogue with contemporary forms of knowledge—such as the neurosciences—that reinforce its epistemological status and enable it to connect its horizon with the subjectivity of the present era—intertwined with cybernetics—on a shared ethical and political ground.