A brief introduction to the work of Jean Laplanche

The author proposes an introduction to the work of Jean Laplanche, a well‐known figure of psychoanalysis who recently passed away. He foregrounds what he views as the three main axes of Laplanche's work: firstly, a critical reading method applied to Freud's texts; secondly, a model of psychic functioning based on translation; and, thirdly, a theory of general seduction. Far from being an abstract superstructure, the theory of general seduction is firmly rooted in the analytic situation, as the provocation of transference by the analyst best illustrates. The analytic situation indeed consists in a revival and a reopening of the ‘fundamental anthropological situation’ which, according to Laplanche, is the lot of every human baby born in a world where he or she is necessarily exposed to the enigmatic and ‘compromised’ messages of the adult other. Thanks to the process of analytic de‐translation, the analysand is therefore granted an opportunity to carry out new translations of the other's enigma – translations or symbolizations that might be more inclusive and less rigid than the pre‐existing ones. Incidentally, such a model brings together the purely psychoanalytic and the psychotherapeutic aspects of the treatment.     

Slavery on the Frontier

Abstract

This document is a report sent in 1654 by Jean Le Vacher, member of the Congregation of the Mission, vicar apostolic of the Holy See and acting French consul in Tunis, to the cardinals of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in Rome. It describe his missionary work in and around Tunis. Le Vacher’s letter focuses on the life and conditions of the Christian slaves (mostly Catholic, but Protestant too) in the region and on his efforts to provide spiritual and material assistance to them. It offers insights into early modern slavery in North Africa, the efforts of the Catholic Church to strengthen its presence in the area, and the culture and organisation of societies on the border between Islam and Christianity. This presentation includes the full text of Le Vacher’s report in the original Italian and in English translation, together with an introduction, commentary, and editorial notes.     

A Transformative Eucharistic Vision for the Entire Oikoumene

This article begins from the awareness that in a world of affluence, millions are hungry. It addresses the question as to whether this is merely an economic issue or whether it also poses an ethical and theological dilemma, considering ways in which the situation we are living in challenges our faith in the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. It asks how, in the situation as it is, there is any possibility of believing in such a transformation. Finally it questions whether there is any relationship between hope for the transformation of hunger amidst affluence and belief in the transformation of bread into the body of Christ, and outlines a transformative eucharistic vision for the global Christian Church.     

Believers and Their Disbelief

Several recent Roman Catholics who were known for their devotion have left accounts of their troubled faith. I consider three of these: St. Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Then I tell of the troubled atheism of Jean‐Paul Sartre. Finally, I use texts of Sartre and Teilhard to understand the unsettled nature of belief.     

Speaking to Pictures

A review of Peter Steele’s Plenty, a book in which each poem is faced by a colour plate of the painting or object which sparked it off. Hollander’s ecphrasis and Krieger’s ekphrasis are held in – possibly unresolvable – dialectic by Steele’s poems. The only resolution which one can find is one of wit rather than of philosophy.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN'S EVOLUTIONARY NATURAL THEOLOGY

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin develops, as is well known, a model of evolution as a convergent progression from primordial multiplicity through increasing degrees of complexity toward a final Omega point of spiritual consummation. I explore how Teilhard fuses Darwinian and Lamarckian theories of evolution in developing his own, and in particular his defense of the view that Lamarckism is fundamental to a proper understanding of evolution's human phase. Teilhard's scientific interpretation of evolution is inspired by Christian cosmological insights derived from patristic theology and contemporary Pauline scholarship and cannot be separated from them. His integration of science and theology provides the basis for a renewed evolutionary natural theology that supplants the traditional static models developed by William Paley and others. Teilhard's natural theology also provides a framework for theological ethical reflection on how humanity should act in its capacity as created co‐creator with God. In later work, he considers the implications of his evolutionary theology for the wider universe. Teilhard thus presents an invigorated natural theology grounded in evolution that confirms and completes a dynamic and teleological view of the cosmos.     

Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Piaget's conservation-of-number task in preschool and school-age children: a neo-Piagetian approach

Jean Piaget’s theory is a central reference point in the study of logico-mathematical development in children. One of the most famous Piagetian tasks is number conservation. Failures and successes in this task reveal two fundamental stages in children’s thinking and judgment, shifting at approximately 7 years of age from visuospatial intuition to number conservation. In the current study, preschool children (nonconservers, 5-6 years of age) and school-age children (conservers, 9-10 years of age) were presented with Piaget’s conservation-of-number task and monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The cognitive change allowing children to access conservation was shown to be related to the neural contribution of a bilateral parietofrontal network involved in numerical and executive functions. These fMRI results highlight how the behavioral and cognitive stages Piaget formulated during the 20th century manifest in the brain with age.     

'Dancing cannot start too soon': Spiritual education in the thought of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter

Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825) adopted the pen-name 'Jean Paul' in honour of Jean Jaques Rousseau. His Levana or the doctrine of education (Levana oder Erziehlehre) was once a standard text and required reading in teacher education. Outside Germany the name of Jean Paul is now little known and the seminal educational text for which he was famous is rarely read. This neglect of Jean Paul is undeserved. What Jean Paul owed to Rousseau is apparent, but his work is rich in insight of his own. Three principles undergird Jean Paul's understanding of spiritual education (geistige Erziehung). Jean Paul insisted that spiritual education is essentially counter-cultural, that it is promoted by play and that it is grounded in love. Such education can never be at home in a curriculum which, however lofty are its stated objectives, is ultimately politically controlled. Jean Paul's insistence that play is constitutive of education needs to be heeded in an educational culture in which the playful is always at risk of displacement by what the government of the day deems to be of greater consequence. The heart of Jean Paul's understanding of education can be expressed succinctly, 'We love to teach and we teach to love'.     

The Correspondence between Human Intelligibility and Physical Intelligibility: The View of Jean Ladrière

This article seeks to explain the correspondence between human intelligibility and that of the physical world by synthesizing the contributions of Jean Ladrière. Ladrière shows that the objectification function of formal symbolism in mathematics as an artificial language has operative power acquired through algorithm to represent physical reality. In physical theories, mathematics relates to observations through theoretic and empirical languages mutually interacting in a methodological circle, and nonmathematical anticipatory intention guides mathematical algorithmic exploration. Ladrière reasons that mathematics can make the physical world comprehensible because of the presence of a rational principle in both kinds of intelligibility.