On Solicitude

This essay is a study of the (black) infans in both psychoanalysis and philosophy, most notably, in Sigmund Freud’s Entwurf (1895) and Jean-François Lyotard’s essay “Emma” in Misère de la philosophie. The essay follows three main lines of argument : 1) Why does the infans seem to convey not merely a principle of error, lie, and deception (proton pseudos) but a deceit that is deeply deemed to be the origin of sexuality’s truth? 2) On one notable occasion, Freud illustrates the pseudos by suggesting that it arises from the way that what is geschwärzten is made sense of by the infans: but what is it about sexuality that blackens, and how does it convey the false, rather than the true, implantation of a proton pseudos? 3) Finally, and quite generally, the essay concludes with a reading of a recent court case in which that primal blackening, or one might say, the way in which it is written, or facilitated, has been seen to do considerable harm to the infans with regard to the questions posed to it by sexuality.