Abstract
The shift from le plaisir to la jouissance represents a significant transformation within French theory, reshaping traditional philosophy. Sigmund Freud's pleasure theory in the nineteenth century was rooted in Gustav Theodor Fechner's physiological research, which framed pleasure as a form of pleasure pedagogy involving domestication and manipulation. In the twentieth century, among the shift of thought in the cultural era, French theorists’ focus on la jouissance introduced a critical deconstruction of Freud and Fechner's frameworks. While engaging with the concept of pleasure, it turns to the unsatisfied and the lack of pleasure. La jouissance emphasizes dissatisfaction and the absence of fulfillment, advancing a theory of “anti-pleasure”. This conceptual evolution from le plaisir to la jouissance, along with its theoretical lineage, reflects the inversion and development of pleasure theory into its antithesis: “anti-pleasure.” It not only highlights the “implosion” of traditional pleasure theory and its “slippery slope” to anti-pleasure theory but also encapsulates the broader cultural-historical development from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century.
Keywords
pleasure, jouissance, “anti-pleasure”, modern subject
First Page
68
Last Page
78
Recommended Citation
Li, Bingqing. 2025. "The Spectrum of “Pleasure”: From Le Plaisir to La Jouissance." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 45, (2): pp.68-78. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol45/iss2/7
