Metaphysics, Ontology, & Ethics: In Psychoanalysis & Secular Buddhism
In this episode of Speaking Body, I read a Substack piece reflecting on thinking publicly, revising ideas, and appreciating listener feedback.
I situate the essay in summertime observations and my immersion in Stephen Batchelor, then revisit my claim that Batchelor reframes Buddhism as ethical practice rather than a metaphysical or ontological system.
Drawing on Lacanian aphorisms about the impossibility of a “metalanguage,” I argue both psychoanalysis and secular Buddhism prioritize changing one’s response to subjectively experienced reality over fidelity to ultimate truth claims. I critique endless ontological theorizing using Batchelor’s “poisoned arrow” parable and examples of theory as defense in Lacanian analysis, then highlight Batchelor’s focus on removing reactivity through practice.
I close by linking Batchelor with Freud’s aim of transforming misery into common unhappiness, emphasizing that practice can alter our relation to unavoidable human suffering.
00:00 Welcome and Format
00:30 Why Think Publicly
02:11 Zucchini and Setup
03:46 Key Questions Ahead
04:59 Metaphysics Lacan Meets Batchelor
08:57 Ontology Endless Questions
10:33 Poisoned Arrow and Theory Defense
13:54 Ethics Practice Over Answers
16:07 Freud and No Cure
14 Jul 2026
The Intersection of Psychoanalysis & Secular Buddhism
For the first time, Neil reads a written piece aloud to promote the Speaking Body Substack (speakingbody.substack.com) and to improve his writing by hearing it spoken.
The piece, titled “The Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Secular Buddhism” with the subtitle “An Ethics That Resists the Seductive Feeling of Being Certain,” describes his long academic life shaped by school calendars and his current summer-like mode of slower research and reflection. He discusses discovering secular Buddhist Stephen Batchelor via the Ezra Klein Show and reading After Buddhism, focusing on Batchelor’s ethics of uncertainty, curiosity, and resisting the tyrannical pull of certainty.
Neil connects these ideas to Lacanian psychoanalytic formation, plans a new cartel exploring Lacanian praxis and theology, and intends to share biweekly dispatches.
00:00 Welcome and Setup
01:09 Why Read It Aloud
02:14 Piece Title and Structure
02:30 Summer Mode Reflection
04:40 Discovering Secular Buddhism
05:32 Ethics of Uncertainty
06:29 Three Key Bullet Points
06:59 Lacanian Connection and Plans
07:48 Dispatch Format and Footnotes
08:20 Closing Thanks and Goodbye
19 May 2026
Interview with Samuel McCormick, Ph.D (The host of Lectures on Lacan)
Show Notes:
In this episode of The Speaking Body, Neil speaks with Sam McCormick (https://lecturesonlacan.substack.com/about), professor of communication studies at San Francisco State University and host of Lectures on Lacan (https://lecturesonlacan.substack.com). What begins as an interview quickly becomes a wide-ranging conversation about Lacan, teaching, fatherhood, clinical practice, and psychoanalysis as a lived experience.
Neil and Sam discuss what it means to read Lacan seriously without turning Lacanian language into empty jargon; the difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to deal with what cannot be mastered; the place of the real, the end of analysis, the role of the analyst, and the importance of uncertainty in clinical work. They also touch on the question of making psychoanalysis more accessible, the meaning of payment and the body in analytic treatment, and the possibility of bringing Lacanian work into broader conversations beyond the clinic and the classroom.
Table of Contents:
00:00 Welcome and Setup
01:02 Why Sam McCormick
01:57 Scheduling and Ditching the Plan
04:25 Neil Leaves Academia
07:42 Live vs Asynchronous Teaching
10:51 Fatherhood Leads to Lacan
16:25 Knowing How to Deal
18:57 Sam Introduces Lectures
21:37 Building a Global Community
28:13 Seeing Suffering Everywhere
31:45 Psychoanalysis as Experience
33:39 Certainty and Repetition Loops
36:19 Discourse Theory and Mastery
42:45 Neurosis Psychosis and Not Knowing
46:33 Analyst as Little a
48:13 Trash and Sainthood
49:52 When Analysis Ends
50:45 Draining Jouissance
52:57 From Knowing to Desire
55:43 Hysteric Trap of Insight
57:50 Threshold of the Real
01:03:20 Why Teach Lacan
01:05:19 Access and Affordability
01:07:17 Psychoanalysis in Streets
01:09:00 Why the Fee Matters
01:14:56 Teleanalysis and the Body
01:19:37 Being Versus Having
01:22:31 Miller on Existence
01:29:22 Littoral Zone and Borders
01:32:20 Closing and Next Steps
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