Wittgenstein's Folly: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Language Games

Wittgenstein's Folly: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Language Games presents a dialogue between the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the author Françoise Davoine and Davoine's patients with extreme lived experience. This book begins with Davoine's seminar at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, which is attended by Wittgenstein. He then accompanies Davoine on visits to colleagues at the Austen Riggs Center in Massachusetts, in California, on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota and at Freud's house in Vienna. The dialogic form of the book allows a performance centered on the psychotherapy of madness and trauma, in which Wittgenstein takes the floor. Davoine introduces us to a contemporary Feast of Fools and creates new language games with madness, enlarging the scope of psychoanalytic approaches to authors like Wittgenstein. The chapters of this book closely resemble short plays in which a conversation with living human beings or with characters from philosophy, literature, science and the arts encounter one another and begin to open new ways of speaking that can render the "mad" more familiar and more manageable. Wittgenstein's Folly: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Language Games will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and to academics and students engaged in psychoanalytic studies, philosophy and trauma-related studies.

Françoise Davoine is a psychoanalyst based in France. She is a former professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Movements, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, where she and Jean-Max Gaudillière conducted a weekly seminar on Madness and the Social Link for 40 years. She presents internationally and is the author of many books and articles.

Preface to the Second French Edition Chapter 1 Who Is He? Chapter 2 The Uncanny Chapter 3 Language on Holiday Chapter 4 Transference Chapter 5 Do You Believe in Psychoanalysis? Chapter 6 An Ostensive Definition Chapter 7 Host and Visitor Chapter 8 When the Tool with the Name "N" is Broken Chapter 9 Folee-ah-deeoo Chapter 10 Excalibur Chapter 11 Give Away Chapter 12 Witchcraft Chapter 13 The Cosmos Becomes Uncertain Chapter 14 The Fly-Bottle Chapter 15 The Girl Chapter 16 The "Far Away" Look Chapter 17 19 Berggasse Chapter 18 Ready-Mades Chapter 19 The Philosopher Comes Back Chapter 20 Beetles Chapter 21 The Deaf-Mutes Chapter 22 The Private Life of Dogs Chapter 23 The Machine Chapter 24 The Window Chapter 25 The Puppets Chapter 26 The Dame Jeanne Chapter 27 The Little Boy Postfaces Notes