Saussure's semiotic work shows us "how the sausage is made," so to speak... A key selection from Course in General Linguistics by Saussure I often find that people have heard of Saussure, and maybe even have a vague impression about him – "the semiotics guy, right?" – but haven't read him. This is a shame, because unlike many of the thinkers who fall into that category of heard-of-em-but-never-read-em, his writing is Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
Martyrs in Nagasaki Podcast: Emancipation and the (im)possibility of nationalism I've been hard at work on my book, and I managed to finish a rough draft of chapter 3 during April. Now I'm moving backwards a bit to work on chapter 2 during May. So, I'll be reading a lot of Japanese history this Matthew Stanley • Buddhism
The father is a screen - responding to Girard's critique of the Oedipal complex This piece continues our ongoing series on the philosophical problem posed by the emergence of self-destructive behaviors in human beings, and it builds on a prior essay about how Lacan draws out the under-theorized role of fantasy in Girard's theory of desire. This piece expands our understanding of Matthew Stanley • Psychoanalysis
Zen Master Jianzhen sails to Japan Desire: Push Theories and Pull Theories (Part 2) This essay serves as the second part of the work began last week in which I trace two contrasting categories of theories of desire. These two pieces play a pivotal role in our ongoing series on the question of self-destructive behavior in humans. I moved quite a bit of this Matthew Stanley • Psychoanalysis
Desire: Push Theories and Pull Theories (Part 1) This piece composes part one of a larger two part essay which continues our ongoing series on the philosophical question posed by self-destructive behaviors in humans. You can read part two by clicking here. Rene Girard’s work is instructive in a number of ways, but on this point we Matthew Stanley • Psychoanalysis
