Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism

León Rozitchner (1924-2011) was a major philosopher and militant intellectual in Argentina. After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris with Maurice Merleau-Ponty he returned home only to confront the terror of military coups and dictatorships, which for several years forced him into exile in Venezuela. After the so-called transition to democracy in 1983, he taught for many years at the University of Buenos Aires.Bruno Bosteels is Professor of Latin American Cultures and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of several books on Latin American politics and culture as well as on European philosophy and political theory. He is one of the main translators of Alain Badiou's works in English.

• Translator’s IntroductionIntroductionPart One: The Internal DistanceChapter 1 The Articulation and the BreachPart Two: The External DistanceChapter 2 Civilisation and Its DiscontentsI. The Historical Categories, Foundation of the Psychic ApparatusII. Techniques to Elude the Reality of the External WorldIII. Analysis of the Real ObstacleIV. The Historical Foundation of the Lack of DiscernmentV. The Negation of AggressivenessVI. Out of Hunger Not Being Capable of LoveVII. The Halting of Aggressiveness Due to GuiltVIII. Ideology, the Concealment of Guilt's True ContentIX. Transformation of the Fundamental Bourgeois CategoriesChapter 3 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the EgoI. IntroductionII. Critique of the Bourgeois Conceptions of the Group (continuation)III. The Amplification of the Body Beyond DependencyIV. The Official Institutions are Groups Congruent with the SystemV. The Discernment RepressedVI. The Human Form as Index of the Coherence of the Social SystemVII. Being in Love and Hypnosis: From Individual Dependency to Social DependencyVIII. The Return to the Historical OriginIX. Dialectic of Collective Forms: From the Primal Horde to the Fraternal AllianceX. The Mass, Stage or BattlefieldIndex

“Léon Rozitchner’s Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism is a stunning achievement, a work that should be considered next to Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization and Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus in the pantheon of Freudo-Marxist interventions.”—Daniel Tutt, European Journal of Psychoanalysis