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Unconscious and Game Theory
Author(s) -
Flabbi Luca,
Pediconi Maria Gabriella
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of applied psychoanalytic studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.314
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1556-9187
pISSN - 1742-3341
DOI - 10.1002/aps.1381
Subject(s) - unconscious mind , freudian slip , game theory , opposition (politics) , psychology , strategic interaction , epistemology , psychoanalysis , collective unconscious , philosophy , law , mathematical economics , mathematics , political science , economics , politics , microeconomics
The paper compares psychoanalysis and non‐cooperative Game Theory and asks if the concepts used in Game Theory are compatible with and add to the knowledge about human thinking and human actions provided by psychoanalysis. We propose a common and novel ground in which this interdisciplinary comparison can be articulated: both Game Theory and the unconscious posit a Law. Our main result is that the law of satisfaction describing the Freudian unconscious and the law of strategic interaction implied by Game Theory are not simply incompatible but in frontal opposition to each other; they create a crossroad at which the imputable individual has the possibility to choose either one law or the other. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.