Choragraphies for a new age : On deconstrucion, on Heidegger, on the new psychoanalysis

Abstract: The dissertation treats the three subjects named in the title in separate sections, each of which can be read independently of the others, though all three of which are also strongly interrelated. Parts one and two offer original interpretations of the works of Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger, showing the fundamental logic of both philosophers' overall production to be strikingly similar. The major texts and themes of both thinkers are demonstrated to be structured according to a profoundly systematically followed anti-dialectical logic, and to a far greater extent than is overtly acknowledged by either philosopher, and with far more significant consequences. This structuring logic is implied to carry a psychoanalytic meaning, though this meaning isnot fully eaborated until section three. The psychoanalytic portion of the text aspires to introduce to a non-clinical audience the basic concepts of the newer psychoanalysis, which builds on insights from the socalled preoedipal years of development, during which the mind is taking fundamental form. The point is to show how these insights can inform projects of cultural criticism, and even potentially support a general theory of culture. The dissertation proposes, in the interest of this last, the thesis/hypothesis that human cultural history is interpretable in terms of an evolution of consciousness towards increasing individuation and consolidation of subjective mind, the determining aspects of which are illuminated by the evidence derived from developmental psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, and the study and treatment of personality disorders. It argues the need for, on the cultural as on the individual level, working to overcome the disposition of symbiotic identifications, which prevent adequate (dialectical) registration of self and other and corrupt psychic functioning in a number of other regards as well. Finally, the dissertation suggests the potential importance of this kind of change for unleashing a deeper existential appreciation for, and broader cultural expression of, our human creative essence.