Madness and Theory: The Lesson of Althusser

When we consider today the work of Louis Althusser, we already have some difficulties remembering its political context. The situation has changed so much that we scarcely perceive the explosive potential of his writings, which now no longer present any interest except for thinkers and historians, the revolutionary being aware of them only as something for the distant future. This would not have been the case even in 1980, when the colonized countries had just obtained independence and a number of them had affiliated themselves with Marxism. In the countries that remained under the control of imperialism, the political situation was so precarious that military dictators were cracking down almost everywhere. In France finally the left came to power, at the price of a costly compromise. No one could have foretold the future, and in this context one understands the importance of Althusser's theses (which brought Marxism back to the forefront of revolutionary thought). Similarly, he had an enormous influence on a number of intellectuals and revolutionary clergy in South America (for example, the Brazilian bishop Leonardo Boff).

However, many of his theses were intimately connected to his madness, and, to the extent that Althusser himself underlined this origin, it is appropriate to examine not these theses themselves, but this articulation. For not only are the philosopher's points of view not invalidated by their source, their efficacy is also interrogated by this source. How does psychosis go about its business such that its ideas illuminate the obscurities of an epoch and, moreover, serve as a point of reference for action?

In the first place, neurosis weaves social connections according to the necessities of religious belief (i.e., repression). Secondarily, psychosis bases its “theories” on these (religious or secularized) fictions which furnish the primary material for its constructions. A paranoi