Clarification Sade
Maximum Enjoyment: The Marquis de Sade
📅 Chronology of a Life (1740-1768)
- 1740 – Donatien-Alphonse-François, the Marquis de Sade, is born on June 2 in Paris.
- 1755 – Appointed ensign of infantry in the king’s household.
- 1756 – The Seven Years’ War begins. The young officer Sade receives several promotions and begins his first libertine actions.
- 1768 – The Arcueil Scandal: On April 3, he flogged a young beggar, Rose Keller, on Easter Sunday. She escaped and denounced him. He was imprisoned in Saumur on April 8, later transferred to Pierre-Enclise. On June 10, he was tried in Paris, sentenced to pay a fine, and released on November 16 by order of the king.
⚰️ Legacy & Posthumous Influence (1814-2017)
- 1814 – December 2: Sade dies of pulmonary edema. He was buried in a religious ceremony against his will, but his request for an anonymous grave was respected; the tomb has since been lost.
- 1904 – The 120 Days of Sodom is published in Berlin by psychiatrist Iwan Bloch (under the pseudonym Eugen Dührer) in an edition containing many transcription errors.
- 1929 – Maurice Heine purchases the manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom in Berlin on behalf of the Viscount de Noailles.
- 1931-1935 – Maurice Heine publishes The 120 Days of Sodom in France in three volumes.
- 1947 – Jean-Jacques Pauvert begins publishing the Complete Works of Sade; a decade later, he is sentenced to the confiscation and destruction of several of these works.
- 2014 – The bicentenary of Sade’s death is listed as a national celebration in France. The Musée d’Orsey holds a major exhibition on his influence.
- 2017 – The French government declares the manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom a “national treasure.”
📚 Major Works
- The 120 Days of Sodom
- Philosophy in the Bedroom
- Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man
- Juliette, or the Prosperity of Vice
- The Crimes of Love
- The Misfortunes of Virtue
Summary of Key Periods
| Period | Focus | Key Events |
|---|---|---|
| 1740-1768 | Life & Scandal | Birth, military career, the Rose Keller affair and first imprisonment. |
| 1814-2017 | Legacy & Publication | Death, the long struggle to publish his work, and eventual recognition as a national treasure. |
| N/A | Major Works | A selection of his most famous and influential philosophical and literary texts. |
Kant with Sade
Kant with Sade - Sade’s teaching, what to do with the Law? - Epistemology, the use of reason for? - …
Kant with Sade - Sade’s teaching, what to do with the Law? - Epistemology, the use of reason for? - Sade’s teaching, what to do with the Law?
On the difference between pure and empirical knowledge
We possess certain a priori knowledge, and even common understanding never lacks it.
Philosophy needs a science that determines the possibility, principles and scope of all a priori knowledge.
On the difference between analytical and synthetic judgments
Synthetic a priori judgments are contained as principles in all theoretical sciences of reason
General problem of pure reason
Idea of transcendental philosophy
THE ANALYTICS OF PRINCIPLES
Of the transcendental faculty of judging in general
On the schematism of the pure concepts of understanding
System of all principles of pure understanding
Of the supreme principle of all analytical judgments
Of the supreme principle of all synthetic judgments
Systematic representationof all synthetic principles of the same
Refutation of idealism
General observation on the system of principles
On the basis of the distinction of all objects in general into phaenomena and noumena
Observation on the amphiboly of the concepts of reflection
On pure reason as the seat of transcendental illusion
On reason in general
On the logical use of reason
On the pure use of reason
THE DISCIPLINE OF PURE REASON IN DOGMATIC USE
THE DISCIPLINE OF PURE REASON IN RELATION TO ITS CONTROVERSIAL USE
On the impossibility of a skeptical appeasement of reason that finds itself in disunion with itself
THE DISCIPLINE OF REASON IN RELATION TO HYPOTHESES
THE DISCIPLINE OF PURE REASON IN RELATION TO ITS PROOFS
ON THE ULTIMATE END OF THE PURE USE OF OUR REASON
OF THE IDEAL OF GOOD SUPREME AS A FOUNDATION FOR DETERMINING THE ULTIMATE END OF PURE REASON
OPINION, KNOWLEDGE AND FAITH
Narratives: destinies of virtue and vice
Justine, The Misfortunes of Virtue
Juliette and Justine are two young, helpless French girls. Their father fled to England and their mo…
Juliette and Justine are two young, helpless French girls. Their father fled to England and their mother died some time later due to the enormous sadness caused by her partner’s abandonment. Fate was the master who raised the girls. With little money to support themselves, the convent soon closed its doors to them. With 100 escudos (coin), each one went their separate ways.
Justine, The Misfortunes of Virtue
Juliette met a prostitute who taught her how to use her body to obtain easy money and offered her an…
Juliette met a prostitute who taught her how to use her body to obtain easy money and offered her an opportunity to survive life. Soon, she married the Count of Lorsange and tried to kill him so she could enjoy his money. She committed three infanticides throughout her life and other crimes.
As for Justine, preferring to live honestly without selling her virtue, she decides to ask for help from a priest, who tries to molest her.
Destiny, the hands of God
If Providence makes my passage through life difficult, it is to reward me more amply in a better wor…
If Providence makes my passage through life difficult, it is to reward me more amply in a better world; this hope consoles me, soothes all my sadness, calms my complaints, strengthens me in adversity and helps me overcome all the evils it may offer me.
“As for the misfortune that torments virtue, the unfortunate person whom fortune pursues has the consolation of his conscience, and the secret pleasures he reaps from his purity soon compensate him for the injustice of man”
“It was already written on the page of my destiny that each of my honest actions, wherever my character took me, would be paid with a misfortune” (Justine). Economic of pleasure.
Court
“Here, it is believed that virtue is incompatible with misery, and in court, misfortune is complete …
“Here, it is believed that virtue is incompatible with misery, and in court, misfortune is complete proof against the accused” (Justine).
“For me, religion is the effect of feeling, and everything that offends or outrages it makes my heart bleed” (Justine).
“And you, wretched creature, suffer alone, suffer without complaining, for it is written that tribulations and sufferings must be the terrible share of virtue”
Justine’s structural scheme
Saint, do not complain, do not accuse, pray. Ask God for strength to endure the passage through life…
Saint, do not complain, do not accuse, pray. Ask God for strength to endure the passage through life.
Repetition until death:
Helplessness - Reunion
Confession, Narrative of her Journey. Someone good in this world, Hero
Reveals Justina’s subjective position. Hero becomes executioner.
Scene support: Carries the cross that God sent him.
God closes this cycle
Executioner
Who can save me, protect me?
Priest, Church, God
Businessman, Landowner, Rich Man, Heir
Law, Judge, Legislator
Criminal
Father, mother, family, son of a good mother
Doctor
Convent of Priests
A poor, injured man, in need of help
A random stranger
Juliette, The prosperity of addiction
Enrichment, prestige. - “She gave elegant dinners at her residence, to which the city and the court …
Enrichment, prestige. - “She gave elegant dinners at her residence, to which the city and the court felt very happy to be invited. But even so, she would go to bed for a hundred louis and indulge herself for five hundred a month. Until she was twenty-six, she had made brilliant conquests, ruined three ambassadors, four farmers, two bishops and three knights of the king’s orders.” - - It is true that prosperity can accompany crime and that even in the midst of disorder and the most reflected corruption, everything that men call happiness can gild the thread of life
Religion
Perverted by bad books and bad advice, desirous of enjoying life alone, of having a name and nothing…
Perverted by bad books and bad advice, desirous of enjoying life alone, of having a name and nothing to tie her down.
Learn, little novice, that heaven is the thing in the world that interests us least; whether what we do on earth pleases it or not is something that practically does not concern us; very sure of its little power over men, we challenge it every day without trembling and our passions are only truly enchanting when they most transgress its intentions, or at least what fools assure us it is, but which, deep down, is nothing more than the illusory shackle whose imposture seeks to captivate the strongest.
Fulfillment, not giving up what is good
— Come, my friend, come, said one of them, we will be very well here; the cruel and fatal presence o…
— Come, my friend, come, said one of them, we will be very well here; the cruel and fatal presence of my mother will not prevent me from enjoying at least a moment with you the pleasures that are so dear to me.
The body
The body as an object of elaboration
What use should we give to the body? - Medicine, Nutrition, Academia, Pharmacy, Sexology. - Foucault…
What use should we give to the body? - Medicine, Nutrition, Academia, Pharmacy, Sexology. - Foucault’s Dietetics: The Will to Know, The Use of Pleasures, The Care of the Self, The Confessions of the Flesh
Sade’s 150 Passions
What use should we give to the body? - What unfolds between life and death - Anatomy and death - Foo…
What use should we give to the body? - What unfolds between life and death - Anatomy and death - Food, time, hunger, etc. - The machine and its parts, a functioning unit.
He liked to have fun with a poor woman who hadn’t eaten for three days; and his second passion is to let a woman die of hunger in the depths of a dungeon, without giving her the slightest help; he watches her and masturbates while examining her, but only enjoys herself on the day she dies.
Metrics, Calculations, Variables: Gender, Use of the body, Body dimensions, Age, Hygiene, Pain, Spec…
Metrics, Calculations, Variables: Gender, Use of the body, Body dimensions, Age, Hygiene, Pain, Species, Kinship, Social bond, Number, Exchanges, Consciousness
The calculation of Enjoyment, of love, of the partner and of oneself…
The calculation of Enjoyment, of love, of the partner and of oneself
I like everything x I like only oneco Object-Scene-Position…
I like everything x I like only oneco Object-Scene-Position
Any x One
Clean x Dirty
Virtue x Vice
Nature (Ethology) x Law (Culture)
Quantifiers, Qualifiers, Dualities
Father, mother, penis, children
Kant x Sade
Education: Ego, superego
Substance: Enjoyment, pleasure, anxiety, guilt, love, hate, law and reason
Position of virtue, Position of vice Oedipus, good and bad partial objects Maximization of satisfaction
Concepts
Freud
Erogenization of the body
Perverse polyform sexuality of children
Castration anxiety
The absence of a penis in women
Freud
Two persistent events of childhood - the threat of punishing masturbation with castration and the str…
Two persistent events of childhood (the threat of punishing masturbation with castration and the strange perception of the absence of a penis in women) influence the development of the subject after the facts (‘nachträglich’) and are instrumental in theformation of the subject. If the strange perception is subject to denial (‘Verleugnung’), the result will be fetishism, characterized by the formation of a screen memory and the splitting of the ego.
Why some people become homosexual as a consequence of this impression [of the absent phallus], while others defend themselves by creating a fetish, and the great majority overcome it, we are frankly unable to explain […] We must be content if we can explain what happened and leave aside, for the moment, the task of explaining why something did not happen. Screen memory and the splitting of the ego
The differentiation of three types of conflicts - between the ego and the id – between the ego and re…
The differentiation of three types of conflicts (between the ego and the id – between the ego and reality – internal to the ego), is, however, a fundamental advance. It is the basis not only for distinguishing neurosis from psychosis, but also for distinguishing perversion – typified by fetishism – as a third broad psychopathological category in its own right – something Lacan will do later with his ideas on perversion as a structure.
A split in the ego, a language-based regulatory mechanism of sexual pleasure, and a denial of sexual differentiation.
Lacan
Lacan
Subjective Division, the Other - Anxiety - Completion and lack…
Subjective Division, the Other - Anxiety - Completion and lack
Schemes of the Sadian fantasy. There are four terms at play: a, the object of desire in fantasy; S, …
Schemes of the Sadian fantasy. There are four terms at play: a, the object of desire in fantasy; S, its correlate (according to $*a), the fading of the subject; S, the so-called “raw subject of pleasure”, of which it can be said that it connotes in the imaginary the organism from which the subject barred from the chain must be born; and finally, V, the will as the will to enjoyment, which rises above pleasure as the subject is barred from the real. It will be noted that the division of the subject “does not require being gathered into a single body”, since there is no homology between the symbolic space and the space of intuition. The transformation of the first into the second scheme, which “is not translated (…) by any symmetrical inversion”rich in any axis or center”, expresses only the displacement of the function of the cause, according to the time of the Sadian fantasy.
$ ◊ a = phallus/castration = lack and the object that makes One with the missing subject…
$ ◊ a = phallus/castration = lack and the object that makes One with the missing subject
(There is some object, some person, some work, some S1)
a ◊ $ = The other is the object of extracting enjoyment
(I lost something and I will recover a portion of it from the body of the other)
(I lost something and I will recover a portion of it only in heaven, after death, after the decomposition of my body, when I lose, I gain)
Repetition of the extraction of enjoyment, void of enjoyment = death
There is no progress
There is no progress. What is gained on one side, is lost on the other. Since one does not know what was lost, one believes that one gained. LacanLogic Precarious, Underdeveloped, not total
Enjoyment: Production, sustenance, failure/crisis, replacement - Calculations - Quantifiers: more, l…
Enjoyment: Production, sustenance, failure/crisis, replacement - Calculations - Quantifiers: more, less, lack, excess
Phantom and trace of enjoyment
- Sacrifice, restitution and remainder - Linguistics, ethical-legal, economic-political, logical-formal
Theory of Knowledge
Sacrifice
But, as Freud states in the text in question: “only death is free”. By pairing the less enjoyment, of the symptom, with the more enjoyment, of the absence of prohibition, pleasure and satisfaction, as forms of deviation towards enjoyment, lose their value. By making sacrifice a way of accessing enjoyment and not a way of refusing it, sacrifice becomes useless. The absence of limits, the transgression and the virtual embarrassment with social rules thus arise as an effect of the uselessness of sacrifice. A sacrifice that seeks its conclusion, that seeks its closure at some point of return. But at this point of return, at this master signifier .S1., narcissistic neurosis, on the contrary, only finds room for a relaunch. Therefore, it can be said that if in the fantasy, enjoyment assumes the temporal form of the instant and if in the sphere of the ego, this corresponds to the temporal form of understanding, we see how in narcissistic neuroses, as in current neuroses, the temporal form of enjoyment is the conclusion, the anticipated conclusion.
Rules, Exchanges, Judge, others, Substance
Crisis of Enjoyment - Change - Field of Language
Object of use, calculation, extraction, restitution…
Object of use, calculation, extraction, restitution
The other
Transgression, exception or exceeding of the limit - Subtract, Steal, Compensate Maximize, Tear from…
Transgression, exception or exceeding of the limit - Subtract, Steal, Compensate Maximize, Tear from the body Extract so much that it produces death Hero, Villain, Murder evil, Eliminate evil and kill - Extract the enjoyment of death and virtue
Restitution
Cell DBZ, Doctor Black Mirror Gadgets of suffering, always suffering, always extracting - Harry reco…
Cell DBZ, Doctor Black Mirror Gadgets of suffering, always suffering, always extracting - Harry recovering something by murdering Voldemort - Revenge Horrors that the other committed Eliminate evil - Extract Endure extraction
Characters
Body, enjoyment, death
Govern, Manage, Monitor, Count, Hire, Fire
Place, Path
Art, useless, schizophrenia, autism
It works, Valor, Capital