Resumo

MELLO, Michell Alves Ferreira de. The totem of the goddess of reason and the taboo of the categorical imperative: reflections on ethics and psychoanalysis during during modernity and postmodernity. Estud. psicanal. [online]. 2017, n.48, pp. 167-179. ISSN 0100-3437.

Through a possible interpretation of the present myth in Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913) about the origin of the law, we aim to find a psychoanalytic overview, thus moving away from an ethnic-historiographic discussion. From that perspective, we propose a construction that intends to relate the ancient totemism characteriscs to those of the myth of the goddess of reason. The same way, we make an analogy between the taboo from the toteism and Kantian categorical imperative - based on the idea of reason of the Enlightenment. If we consider the sign “reason” during the Enlightenment, this “totem” would not exist in our postmodern time anymore. Thus the law of “our categorical imperative” (FREUD, 1913) would not make any sense nowadays. Would we be in a society with no law in psychoanalytical sense? Some would believe so. But we consider that the Freudian thought was more influenced by the german Romantism than by the Enlightement and Positivism, so we understand the notion of law in Freud’s work as a historical and personal becoming. If, and only if, this may be possíble, our totem of the goddess reason would also be a historical and personal flow: an interpretative reason. Therefore, the psychoanalytical knowledge, or rather, the experience of Psychoanalysis could be seen as a possible way of life for the human being, who is befor the abyss in a society in which totems and laws are so mutable. That enabled us to create a dialogue between Ethics and Psychoanalysis, using both psychoanalytical and philosophical arguments.

Palavras-chave : Psychoanalysis; Ethics; Totem; Reason; Taboo.

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