Terry Eagleton's participation in Flip 2010 was marked by controversy surrounding his views on religion. In "The Problem of Unknowns," the theorist returns to the topic by presenting an original reflection on ethics based on the theories of Jacques Lacan. In this debate, socialism and the Judeo-Christian tradition are used as counterpoints, and theology once again emerges as a source of controversy. Lacan's three psychoanalytic registers—the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real—are used as the basis for the study. The author presents well-rounded insights on topics such as tragedy, politics, literature, morality, and religion. He uses the essay "The Mirror Stage" as a starting point to discuss the first theme of the "Lacanian trinity." Eagleton highlights the dubious role played by religion in Western civilization. "It is true that religion has proven to be one of the most harmful institutions in human history, but this sordid narrative of oppression and superstition is subject to the judgment of the version of Christianity proposed in this book. It is a paradox of our time that, while it has spawned several lethal forms of religious fundamentalism, it has also given rise to a current of radical theology (...) that is often more revolutionary in its political implications than much secular leftist thought," he states. The analysis of theories on ethics forged from Aristotle to Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek lends even greater depth to the study. The chapters explore the ideas of a wide range of thinkers. By analyzing the second Lacanian register, the Symbolic, the author demonstrates the difference between "symbolic ethics" in Spinoza and Kant. Eagleton also investigates the traces of the Lacanian theme, the Real, in the thoughts of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. With solid arguments, he reveals the pros and cons of what he calls the “ethics of heroic failure.”
