149 - Jonathan Lear: Free Association and the Fundamental Rule of Psychoanalysis

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.