“Belonging: Between a Choice and an Inevitability"
the 3rd study day on 29/4/2010
Prof. Stephen Frosh- Ethical violence: debates on recognition and otherness
The study day will includ the folowing lectures:
Recognizing Others - Prof. Stephen Frosh
פרופ' נעים עריידי לחיות בשני עולמות – להיות משורר ערבי עברי ועברי ערבי בו זמנית
For or Against Ethical Violence - Prof. Stephen FroshA presentation
Between Denial and Witnessing: thoughts about psychoanalysis and culture in the Israeli context - Dr. Chana Ullman Abstract
1.Recognizing Others – Prof. StephenFrosh
The day will include two linked talks plus opportunities for plenary and group discussion
Psychotherapy’s concern with the quality of relationships makes it an important site for discussions of responsibility, mutuality and intersubjectivity. This raises many philosophical and psychosocial questions such as what it means to ‘take responsibility for’ the other; of how one acknowledges differences and similarities without either alienating others or colonizing them; and of how one develops a stance towards knowing or being in relationship with an other who can be a disturbing yet longed-for neibhour. This talk discusses these questions in the context of theories of ‘recognition’ which suggest ways of relating to others as ‘subjects’ rather than ‘objects’. The notion is introduced that the deepest levels of communication may not be direct, but rather operate through an ‘elemental’ in which human subjects are immersed, and which they share. This allows an exploration of the ‘inhuman’ aspect of human aliveness that makes contact with others, and change, feasible.
2. For or Against Ethical Violence – Prof. Stephen Frosh Psychotherapy tends to focus on the special relationship between two or more individuals who are singled out for care. Particularly with psychodynamic approaches, this can be thought of as a reflection of respect for what is being termed by some as the ‘opacity’ of the human subject –how each of us has an area of ‘invisibility’ within us, is ‘interrupted’ by something we can never fully know. Respecting the opacity of others is a way of acknowledging them: we see that others exist as subjects precisely because they remain separate and distinct, never fully knowable. Forcing others to give a full account of themselves is therefore, as Judith Butler says, a way of doing violence to them. This notion of ‘ethical violence’ has been one pivot for a debate about the primacy of relationality in human encounters, including psychotherapeutic ones. It highlights the question of love ‘versus’ justice: love singles out and makes special, and consequently is unjust; this may be the trajectory of much psychotherapy. Justice comes from a position outside intimate relationships, and does not differentiate between subjects in terms of their value; it therefore can be understood as a mode of violence.
