Inganni della psiche: Alcune riflessioni sul seminario dell'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici

The school of Rome’s Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici has held a series of seminars and lectures during 2015. They were devoted to the themes of individual and collective deception and illusions. What you are about to review took place in April. It was entitled “Illusions of the psyche”. The intent was to understand and define what is the status of illusion and self-deception within the mental and anthropogenic processes. In a tight and fascinating race among theorists of psychoanalysis and philosophers of the modern and contemporary age (including Descartes, Hegel and Nietzsche), the seminar has in particular looked into the most interesting positions of S. Freud and J. Lacan. Having focused at great length on these contributions, the question which comes to mind is: “can philosophy ever be accepted, unlike what psychoanalysis does, the idea that there is a sphere of repression and a sphere of illusion, which are completely separated from conscience and reason?”