Issue 42 (Autumn 2009) Pages – 57-108

This scholion accompanies Lacan’s 1962 text in which he brings together of two very unlikely accomplices, Kant and Sade, and thereby sheds light on the nature of perversion. At first blush the two thinkers appear not to be drinking from the same well, but the author’s traversing the intricacies of thought wrought by Lacan in relation to The Critique of Practical Reason and Philosophy in the Bedroom provides the insight that the perverse phantasy of Sade has its basis in the universal maxim of Kant. Jouissance is said to be on the side of perpetrator and victim, although it is experienced in different trajectories. The author concludes with Lacan that Sade was not a true pervert, despite popular views to the contrary…..