Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
I recently joined Jack Sezer from the Veridical podcast for a discussion that begins with Heidegger's Being & Time and then moves into a conversation around religion and some personal reflections that I typically do not share in my videos. You can check it with one of the links below:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/veridical/id16327570…
open.spotify.com/episode/5dOJu0bInRddq7oUUEC1Hd?si…
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Here is a link to a recent and stimulating conversation with Deep Noetics that ranges a variety of topics including the concept of the self, singularities, and event horizons. Thank you Seán!
https://youtu.be/LjYqM6ygBwc?si=C6PXU...
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Thank you to everyone who has supported this channel! I'm creating a special video essay in honor of this milestone titled "Philosophy in the Age of Social Media." In it, I explore some of my thoughts on the very activity of presenting philosophy on YouTube and other social media platforms, asking questions like: What are the strengths and limitations of this format? How are we to understand this mode of philosophy from a historical perspective? And, finally, what kind of future does philosophy have here on YouTube and elsewhere? That video should be up this week.
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As a scholar who resides in some "odd" intellectual space (phenomenology, psychoanalysis, psychologist-aiming-to-be-philosopher, etc.), it is easy to feel like you are constructing your own language in a manner not unlike how Lacan conceptualized the structure of psychosis (especially when addressing content that itself already gets accused of obscurantism). So, it's relieving and exciting to finally get some feedback on my first book that I published a little over a year ago. Though I prefer criticism to silence, getting a very positive review is all the more uplifting, especially when it is by one of the premier reviewers of academic books in the U.S. I thought I'd share it with you all for any who are interested. The one thing that was missed by this review, perhaps because it's very understated in the work, is how much psychoanalysis inspired the very categories by which I sought to develop this phenomenological approach.
Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon, by Brian W. Becker
MN, Hardback, 9781793651167, Lexington Books, $95.00, Qty. Avail.: 8, 2/23/2022
Choice Reviews, June 2023 Issue: Philosophers in the Platonist tradition understood evil as nonbeing. That is to say, if being and goodness are convertible, then logically evil must be understood as nonbeing. In short, evil is not a thing but the absence of something, a gap in existence that parasitically perverts the underlying good of being. The classic example here is blindness understood as the absence of sight. Phenomenology, since at least the work of Martin Heidegger, has wanted to break with this kind of metaphysics. Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology replaces the metaphysical analysis of being with an investigation of the givenness of phenomena in all forms. In this volume, Becker develops Marion's phenomenology into a phenomenology of evil. In other words, in response to the question of how evil is given, Becker answers that it is given in a parasitic mode—repeating classical metaphysics in a phenomenological register. The parasitic givenness of evil subdivides into four modes, which Becker calls "The Four Horsemen of the Thanatonic" (the second part of three of this volume). A careful, rigorous development of Marion's phenomenology, the book is unique and thought-provoking, but it is not for the faint-hearted or those unfamiliar with recent French phenomenology in general and Marion's work in particular. Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.
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Wednesday, April 19th, at 9:30am (Eastern Standard Time), I'll be live with David McKerracher over on the channel Theory Underground to discuss Husserl's notion of intentionality and its relevance to Heidegger and Lacan.
youtube.com/@theory_underground
Be Well,
Brian
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I'm currently working on the first video for Slavoj Zizek's The Parallax View, which will be available sometime next week.
Be Well,
Brian
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Hello all!
As the editor-in-chief of the Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion, I'm excited to share that we're currently on the lookout for scholarly and original essays on the topic of "psychoanalysis and religion" for our Fall 2023 issue.
We're particularly interested in essays that engage with thinkers like Lacan, Kristeva, Zizek, Badiou, and others who closely relate to these figures. Whether you approach the topic of religion from the perspective of atheism, faith, or a position that dialecticizes them, we welcome your submissions. Also, early-career scholars are particularly encouraged to submit.
If you or someone you know would be a good fit for this opportunity, please visit this link to learn more about the journal: brill.com/view/journals/jcpr/jcpr-overview.xml.
For consideration of the fall issue, submissions would need to be in by June 1st, but we will continue to welcome pieces beyond that date for future issues as well. Submissions will go through a peer-review process that informs our decisions. If you are unsure whether your essay would be a good fit, feel free to reach out to me at beckerb24@gmail.com.
I appreciate your interest.
Be well,
Brian
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Greetings all,
The start of the new academic year slowed down production last month. The slowdown is also due to a larger project I am working on - a 3-part mini-series on Anti-Oedipus, the first of which should be available today or tomorrow.
I am also planning to post a 1-video analysis of Husserl's Cartesian Meditations, which I believe will be helpful as we start up a section-by-section analysis of Sartre's Being & Nothingness - the next major text examined in the Phenomenology series.
Finally, I'm back to working on Lacan's Seminar IV and will have a video on The Phobias coming out in the next few weeks.
Thank you all for your support, and I look forward to getting back to a regular uploading schedule soon.
Be well,
Brian
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Hello all,
I'm just about finished with the script for the next video on Seminar IV, which has undergone several revisions as I needed to carefully work through Lacan's understanding of the phallus and the gift before diving into the clinical structure of perversion. Hope to film, edit, and post soon.
In other news, I recently talked with two YouTubers interested in Lacan (Channels: Que Vuoi?; Master Signified_Bodies). They invited me into a conversation with them on Seminar I, among other topics. It is my first time doing something like this, and they asked some excellent questions that I'm still mulling over. Perhaps it will be the first of more to come. Check it out if interested!
Be well,
Brian
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What is this channel, and who am I?
Online philosophy content rarely meets the learning needs of intermediate and advanced viewers. This channel aims to remedy this gap, providing in-depth analyses of primary texts by philosophers and other theorists (e.g., psychoanalytic), and gradually unpacking complex and nuanced arguments influential to the history of ideas.
There are two main series running on this channel:
1) Thought in Motion: The Seminars of Jacques Lacan
2) Back to the Texts Themselves: A Series on Phenomenology
Occasionally, I produce mini-series on specific philosophical texts not part of these two main series
Me: Brian W. Becker
Ph.D. in clinical psychology, M.A. in theology, licensed clinical neuropsychologist, editor-in-chief - Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion, a professor of psychology & associate provost of Mental Health & Well-being at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, author of Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon (2022)