On a paradoxical jouissance, or the limit of desire and fantasy : Kierkegaard through Lacan

Abstract: The aim of this study is to offer a Lacanian psychoanalytic reading of some of the Danish philosopher/theologian Søren Kierkegaard's main writings. The thesis that I advance is that Kierkegaard is a subject of the lack, and that his writings are a modality of existentially handling this fundamental and constitutive lack. This is done, first, by showing what the concept "the subject of the lack" means in Lacanian theory in relation to its other fundamental concepts; and, second, that Kierkegaard's writings on Christian dogmatics and anxiety are a modality of handling this lack. The argument for this latter thesis is that the three dimensions of the psyche constitutive for the subject according to Lacan are evident in Kierkegaard: the Imaginary, the dimension of sense-perceptions, mental images, feelings and moods are evident in Kierkegaard by him making the existence of the individual the starting point for reaching the eternal Truth (viz. eternal bliss), which is wrought with suffering; further, by him positing anxiety as a condition in which the Truth can be known as pure possibility; second, the Symbolic, i.e. the dimension of language, is evident in Kierkegaard in his dogmatics. And as with Lacan, where the Imaginary is displaced in the Symbolic, so is anxiety displaced in dogmatics in Kierkegaard; finally, the Real, which is interpreted as the dimension of the lack in and thereby the failure of the Imaginary and the Symbolic, between as well as within them. This dimension is evident in Kierkegaard by him first, claiming that in anxiety one can never actualize Spirit, but only maintain its pure possibility of actualization, and, second, by giving primacy to faith in the absolute paradox as constitutive for eternal bliss. Thus, even when anxiety (Imaginary) is displaced into dogmatics (the Symbolic) there is a fundamental lack, viz. the Truth, or eternal bliss. In terms of knowledge, reaching the Truth is impossible, there is always a lack in knowledge. Kierkegaard maintains the lack as such, and sees it as an expression of the Truth. He espouses what I have called knowledge in the Real. In other words, Kierkegaard is aware of the limit of desire and fantasy (in their Lacanian sense). It is, further, shown that although Kierkegaard does not believe in the satisfaction of desire through forming a fantasy, he nonetheless "plays along" in the construction of a communal life which is based on the logic of desire and fantasy. Finally, it is shown that Kierkegaard enjoys in anxiety, since anxiety is in its negativity a positive condition for the positive, i.e. actualization of Spirit. This makes it a paradoxical enjoyment (jouissance), or jouis-sense (enjoy-meant) in Lacan's terminology.