The Deconstructive Owl of Minerva: An Examination of Schizophrenia through Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism takes as its project the articulation of the language of schizophrenia as it inscribes itself between the self and other.a It takes into account Georg W. F. Hegelas account of self-consciousness as a master-slave relation. A reading of Jacques Lacan provides access to the narrative self in terms of the mirror stageA as the recognition of the self as othera. By a further reading of postmodern theorists, this book shows that what has been named schizophrenia calls for a deconstructive strategy that operates with the divergence between pharmacological treatment and the understanding of the language of the schizophrenic condition. This difference will emphasize language as plural, plurivalent, polyphonic and polylogical. This book, essentially, seeks to circumvent the label of schizophreniaA and to provide alternative ways to understand schizophrenic language in order to culturally rearticulate its effects in society. Postmodern and deconstructive modes of access to the languages of desire, dispersal, and plurivalence that are associated with schizophrenic conditions can help to open up spaces of understanding that are rendered impossible through symptomatic treatment models. - |