Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Philosophy and at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is also a practicing psychoanalyst. Jonathan’s work focuses on understanding the human psyche both through philosophy—with an emphasis on Aristotle and the ancients—and psychoanalysis. In this episode, Jonathan and Robinson discuss three pinnacles of psychoanalysis: free association, the unconscious, and transference. Jonathan’s most recent book is Wisdom Won From Illness: Essays in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (Harvard, 2017).

Jonathan’s Website: https://home.uchicago.edu/~jlear/

Wisdom Won From Illness: https://a.co/d/hxkokCz

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:50 Introduction

03:28 Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

12:29 What Is The Fundamental Rule of Psychoanalysis?

20:02 On Slavoj Žižek and Free Association

25:26 Following Freud

37:55 Transference and Changing One’s Mind

49:22 How the Analyst Listens

01:09:40 Analysis and Contradiction

01:25:44 Dreams and Free-Association

01:34:42 Transference

01:55:12 Who Is Psychoanalysis For?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.