That paris guy is such a reddit debate bro lol. The moderator should have intervene when he went beyond his time.

Man, the Mikey/Todd dialogue is a breath of fresh air.

Paris' points are technically correct, and are quite cogent. It's a bit unfortunate his tone was a bit rehearsed and combative, since McGowan is so good faith and willing to engage. Would love to see a conversation between them on better terms. If Paris didn't come across as quite so pedantic, it would be a great opportunity to learn from both of them !

As unlucky I feel to have listened to all of Paris, it’s nice to think, at least, the people at the wedding got a half hour that they didn’t have to listen to him

Paris is insufferable from the onset and it only gets worse

Thanks for this. So good to see Todd & Mikey on your show🎉

I hope Paris isn't giving a speech at that wedding!

What a Freudian slip. I meant to say “die on that hill” with regards to my stance on seminar 2 as the death drive seminar, but I said “die on that horse” 🐴 😂

That was awkward. But great stuff. Now going to have to spend the next five years trying to comprehend what Paris was on about.

It sounds like this might be a great way for me to start learning about Lacan, thank you! And Todd is an absolute delight!

I thoroughly enjoyed all the conversation and the contributors. Daniel, thank you for putting this on: i think it's the best reception / forum / presentation I've seen of Todds new book. I am left with a lot of thinking afterward.

Paris chewed up so much time to say what in the end? His debate school rhetoric seemed so out of place and honestly was boring and seemed to derail the whole thing.

That Paris diatribe was a bizarre waste of time. Just a false point of attack puffed up on itself. But kudos to Todd's response on it.

@ParisLavidis I think Paris might be "suffering" from what I'd call Phd-itis, where one is knee-deep in mining an original seam and feeling the necessity of defending their outpost. I think Paris unearthed some points but seems to be falling prey to getting captured by the literal text rather than seeing Lacan's thought as both constantly evolving and having connections to areas of philosophy either unavailable to or unavailed of by him. Moreover, the whole point of interpretation is we don't simply "believe" everything a theorist says about their own theorizing, much as a therapist does not take what the patient says at face value. The crux is that an introduction is by its nature short and simplified. I think Paris would have benefited from turning his diatribe into a set of stimulating questions. He seemed rather more predisposed to defending his new master than the exploration of truth. As a contribution it was a failure of understanding of the format and a failure as a means of stimulating an academic discussion in a collegial fashion. I look forward to hearing from Paris post-thesis when his "fever" has broken.

when someone presents a net of problems, it’s generally to conceal the one constitutive of the rub. i wonder what paris’ real problem was and why he might have worked himself up in such a frenzy to avoid saying it.

It's hard to follow Paris critical analysis due to (imho) how he refers to so many diff short sentences by Lacan at diff points (hard to digest when so many quote unquote is said basically ). Ide like to read this. Is there PDF ?

I understand how what Paris said could appear formidable, but I think there is much within the Lacanian-Hegelian tradition said by both Hegel and Lacan that could be brought into the picture to forcibly modify Lacan’s own points as Paris cites them in a way that really justifies their project as a real continuation of Lacan’s thought. If anything, you might want to attack this continuation to advocate for a more Deleuzo-Guattarian direction, but even this wouldn’t banish the project, only perhaps question its utility or if it’s very interesting (Which I think can also be defended against, incidentally). It seems to me that Paris’s priorities in reading a thinker don’t do much to address the meta-point being made that it’s not only about how a thinker conceived themselves, ultimately, when all is said and done.

Paris with the most pedantic and pretentious contribution to anything I’ve ever seen

Paris.  I watched and studied you previous class you did with Daniel. I thought it was brilliant and exhilarating.  Which is partly why I reacted so strongly to this presentation.  I think my analogy of the family theorist and the neuroscientist does hold.  You say that family theory and neuroscience are unrelated at first and then argue philosophy would not exist if we cannot cross over. I think that is your argument.  But family theory and neuroscience are related depending on your point of view.  My argument has more to do with scale and teaching Lacan to the masses.  What are “fields of study “ except imaginary.  Whereas in science or philosophy the scale we are examining is everything.  I admire your approach and grant you that great rigor is necessary to grasp Lacan.  At some point, philosophically at least, we reach a scale of study with Lacan where we face this issue of Hegel, say, versus Kant versus Badiou and even , God forbid Deleuze. This is not an introductory passage to Lacan I insist.  The One is not.  We agree.  Is this contradiction on an ontological level?  I think you address this carefully and I will study your lecture carefully.  When I started studying Lacan  some 40 years ago I was met with quite a lot of officious shaming wall of me not speaking French or being American or not officially an analyst.  Is there not room for scaling?

We will be seated for the Hegel interview!