ABSTRACT
The conclusion is a retracing of the arc of the narrative, gathering the various strands that bind Schelling and Freud, mutually reinforcing, and clarifying a vision of the world that can make room for the reality of the unconscious, for the foreign at the heart of the familiar. This final meditation also pushes forward, and does so by way of two “omitted” themes—the role of the imagination in Schelling’s thought and sublimation in Freud’s. Important connections between fantasy and freedom are consolidated here that the previous chapters have set the groundwork for. Attention is given to Leo Bersani’s interpretation of sublimation, which only adds greater urgency to the author’s final insight and plea: in order to confront the challenges facing contemporary philosophy and psychoanalysis, in order to revitalize these essential practices, we must remember another kind of truth—the shattering, strange, destabilizing truth of the uncanny.
