Issue 65 (Summer 2017) Pages 27-32

As a tribute to the memory of Bill Richardson, this paper deals with the ongoing discussion between psychoanalysis and philosophy. It begins with Lacan’s poem, Panta Rhei  – with Heraclitus in mind, and goes on to consider the significance of Lacan’s translation of Heidegger’s Logos.

Keywords: Richardson, Lacan, Heraclitus, Heidegger, psychoanalysis, philosophy, Schreber, psychosis, language.

Martin Heidegger was no friend of psychoanalysis. His first serious exposure to it came through the ministrations of Medard Boss, who, in effect, introduced him to Freud. Mediated through Boss’s own attempt to rethink Freud’s insights into what he called Daseinsanalysis, Heidegger’s relation to Freud remained cool to say the least. Several attempts in the 1950’s to entice him into dialogue with the so called ‘French Freud’, Jacques Lacan, whose self-proclaimed return to Freud some found deeply consonant with certain themes of Heidegger, proved fruitless. Given this record, any new attempt to find philosophical relevance for psychoanalysis in the thought of Martin Heidegger seems ill starred, indeed. And yet… 

It is with this ‘and yet’ that I begin my effort to render homage to my friend Bill Richardson S.J. who died on December 10 th 2016. I met Bill in Paris in the late 80’s and for many reasons we quickly became friends. It is through this friendship that I began to understand something more of the Logos which binds and unleashes and also in whose company I had great fun. When Life got a bit difficult Bill’s favourite injunction was ‘you do the best you can’. This gentle imperative, in that beautiful Boston accent continues to serve me greatly.

Lacan paid Heidegger a visit in Freiburg during Easter 1955 and invited him to his country house the following summer on the occasion of a colloquium at…