From the Pre-Cartesian to the Contemporary Subject: The New Forms of Jouissance of the Other

Abstract

This article analyzes the relations between the subject and the big Other based on the recent cultural, political, and economic transformations. Based on Charles Melman’s current proposition about a new psychic economy organized by jouissance and the obliteration of limits, we try to connect this subjective condition to the impasses that indicate the collapse of the symbolic institution. This work is divided into three sections: the first describes the pre-Cartesian subject, representative of the psychic economy organized by the repression. The next section describes the Cartesian subject, characterized by rational thinking and the ambiguities that made possible the advance of the scientific discourse and the birth of psychoanalysis. Finally, we discuss the contemporary subject and their relation to law and jouissance. We reflect on the possible consequences related to the decline of the symbolic order and question the subject’s status of freedom in the face of the big Other.