The Dialectic of Blasphemy: Transgressive Speech from Luther to Freud and Beyond

Drawing on a table talk by Martin Luther, this essay first presents new taxonomy of blasphemy, in which instances injurious speech are distributed along four fundamental axes, designated as ‘quality’, ‘source’, ‘judgement’ and ‘response’. This elementary is then refined via re-reading the way blasphemy occurs Freud’s case-study Rat Man, generates an additional axis, notably that ‘object’. It argued various components axes do not stand one-to-one relationship to one another, but follow subjective pathway. idiosyncratic, dialectic further substantiated with reference logic obsessional fantasy. Finally, it concluded psychoanalytic approach question needs start from critique between subject language, observation words have power heal much they ability injure.