| Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy |
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|---|---|
| Name |
Jacques Lacan
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| Birth | April 13, 1901 |
| Death | September 9, 1981 |
| School/tradition | Psychoanalysis, Structuralism |
| Main interests | Psychoanalysis |
| Notable ideas | The Mirror Stage, The Real, The Symbolic, The Imaginary |
| Influenced by | Hegel, Saussure, Heidegger, Freud, Lévi-Strauss, Kojève |
| Influenced | Guattari, Miller, Althusser, Žižek, Kristeva, Ettinger, Laclau, Irigaray, Badiou, Butler |
| Part of a series of articles on Psychoanalysis |
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Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French pronounced [ʒak lakɑ̃]) (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor, who made prominent contributions to the psychoanalytic movement. Western philosophy is a term that refers to philosophical thinking in the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies See also [[Analytic philosophy]] and [[Continental philosophy]] The 20th century brought with it upheavals that produced a series of conflicting developments within Philosophy Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1901 ( MCMI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 1000 - Battle of Svolder, Viking Age. 1379 - Treaty of Neuberg, splitting the Austrian Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior For the use of structuralism in biology see Structuralism (biology Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior The Mirror stage was the subject of Jacques Lacan 's first official contribution to Psychoanalytic theory (Fourteenth International Psychoanalytical Congress at The Real refers to that which is authentic the unchangeable truth in reference both to Being /the Self and the external dimension of experience also referred to as The Symbolic order is a part of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. The Imaginary order is one of a triptych of terms in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, along with the symbolic and the real. Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Sigmund Freud (ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt born Sigismund Shlomo Freud (May 6 1856 &ndash September 23 1939 was an Austrian Psychiatrist who founded Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Alexandre Kojève (Russian Александр Владимирович Кожевников Aleksandr Vladimirovič Koževnikov; April 28 1902 &ndash Pierre-Félix Guattari ( April 30, 1930 – August 29, 1992) was a French Militant, institutional Psychotherapist Jacques-Alain Miller is a prominent French Lacanian Psychoanalyst. Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. Slavoj Žižek (ˈslavoj ˈʒiʒɛk (born 21 March 1949) is a Post-Marxist Sociologist, Philosopher, and Cultural critic Julia Kristeva (Юлия Кръстева (born 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian - French Philosopher, Literary critic, Bracha L Ettinger (born 1951 also known as Bracha Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Hebrew ברכה אטינגר, ברכה ליכטנברג-אטינגר Ernesto Laclau (b1935 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist. Luce Irigaray (born 1932 Belgium) is a French feminist, Philosopher, Linguist, psychoanalytic and cultural theorist Alain Badiou (born January 17, 1937 in Rabat, Morocco) is a prominent French Marxist Philosopher, formerly chair Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American Post-structuralist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of Feminism Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior The concept of psychosexual development, as envisioned by Sigmund Freud at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century is a central element in his sexual Psychosocial development as articulated by Erik Erikson explains Eight Stages through which a healthily developing Human should pass from Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the See also Consciousness Jacques Lacan Philosophy of mind Rapid eye movement sleep Many observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on Consciousness from other parts of the Mind. The term psychic apparatus (sometimes translated as psychical apparatus or mental apparatus) is a central concept of Freudian Metapsychology. Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the " Psychic apparatus " defined in Sigmund Freud 's structural model of Libido in its common usage means Sexual desire however more technical definitions such as those found in the work of Carl Jung, are more general referring to libido Motivation is the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior especially Human behavior as studied in Philosophy, Conflict, Economics Transference is a phenomenon in Psychoanalysis characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings for one person to another In Psychology, sublimation is a coping mechanism It has its roots in the Nietzschean & psychoanalytical approach and is often also referred to as a type Psychological resistance is the phenomenon often encountered in clinical practice in which patients either directly or indirectly oppose changing their behavior or refuse to discuss Sigmund Freud (ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt born Sigismund Shlomo Freud (May 6 1856 &ndash September 23 1939 was an Austrian Psychiatrist who founded Alfred Adler ( February 7 1870 &ndash May 28 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychologist and founder of Otto Rank ( April 22, 1884 – October 31, 1939) was an Austrian Psychoanalyst, writer teacher and therapist Anna Freud ( December 3, 1895 – October 9, 1982) was the sixth and last child of Sigmund and Martha Freud Margaret Schönberger Mahler ( May 10 1897 – October 2 1985) was a Hungarian physician who later became interested in psychiatry Karen Horney (pronounced "horn-eye" /hɔrnaɪ/ born Danielsen ( September 16, 1885 – December 4, 1952) was a German William Ronald Dodds Fairbairn ( 11 August 1889 - 31 December 1964) was a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Melanie Klein ( March 30 1882 – September 22 1960) was an Austrian born Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan ( February 21, 1892, Norwich New York – January 14, 1949, Paris, France Erik Homburger Erikson ( June 15, 1902 – May 12, 1994) was born in Frankfurt to Danish parents but later obtained Nancy Julia Chodorow is a feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst born 20 January 1944 in New York City. Susan Sutherland Isaacs (née Fairhurst (1885–1948 was an English educational Psychologist and Psychoanalyst. Alfred Ernest Jones ( January 1, 1879 – February 11, 1958) Welsh Neurologist, Psychoanalyst and Sigmund Heinz Kohut May 3 1913 &ndash October 8 1981 is best known for his development of Self Psychology, a school of thought John Bowlby ( February 26, 1907 – September 2, 1990) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst notable for his interest in child The Interpretation of Dreams is a book by Sigmund Freud. The first edition was first published in German in November 1899 as Die Traumdeutung The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Les quatres concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse is the English translation of one of the pivotal works of Jacques " Beyond the Pleasure Principle " (first published in German in 1920 as Jenseits des Lustprinzips) is an essay by Sigmund Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents is a book by Sigmund Freud. Written in 1929 and first published in German in 1930 as Das Unbehagen in der Kultur Self psychology is a school of Psychoanalytic theory and therapy created by Heinz Kohut and developed in the United States. Analytical psychology (or Jungian psychology) refers to the school of Psychology originating from the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, and then advanced Object relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within Psychoanalytic psychology. Interpersonal psychoanalysis is based on the theories of Harry Stack Sullivan, an American Psychiatrist who believed that the details of patient's interpersonal interactions Relational psychoanalysis is a school of Psychoanalysis in the United States that emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in Mental disorder Attachment theory, originating in the work of John Bowlby, is a Psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory that provides a descriptive Ego psychology is a school of Psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud 's structural -- id-ego-superego -- model of the mind Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1901 ( MCMI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 1000 - Battle of Svolder, Viking Age. 1379 - Treaty of Neuberg, splitting the Austrian Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior A psychiatrist (also archaically called an alienist) is a Physician who specializes in Psychiatry and is certified in treating Mental disorders A physician, medical practitioner or medical doctor who practices Medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human Health His yearly seminars, conducted in Paris from 1953 until his death in 1981, were a major influence in the French intellectual milieu of the 1960s and '70s, particularly among post-structuralist thinkers. Sources The Seminars of Jacques Lacan An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis - Dylan Evans Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century
Lacan's ideas centered on Freudian concepts such as the unconscious, the castration complex, the ego, focusing on identifications, and the centrality of language to subjectivity. Many observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on Consciousness from other parts of the Mind. Castration anxiety is an idea put forth by Sigmund Freud in his writings on the Oedipus complex; it posits a deep-seated fear or Anxiety in boys and men Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the " Psychic apparatus " defined in Sigmund Freud 's structural model of A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them His work was interdisciplinary, drawing on linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, amongst others. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Although a controversial and divisive figure, Lacan is widely read in critical theory, literary studies, and twentieth-century French philosophy, as well as in the living practice of clinical psychoanalysis. In the Humanities and Social sciences, critical theory is the examination and critique of Society and Literature, drawing from knowledge across Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. Twentieth-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary Philosophy generally associated with post- World War II French thinkers although it is directly influenced Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior
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Because Lacan, like Freud, destroyed most of his records, it is difficult to untangle the myths, anecdotes, and rumors that have surrounded him.
Jacques Lacan was born in Paris, the eldest child of three born to Emilie and Alfred Lacan. Alfred was a successful, middle-class salesman dealing in soap and oils. Emilie was an ardent Catholic, and Lacan's younger brother eventually entered monastic life in 1929. Lacan attended the Collège Stanislas, a well-known Jesuit high school. In the early 1920s, Lacan attended some meetings of right-wing group Action Française and met its founder Charles Maurras. The Action Française is a French Monarchist ( Orléanist) Counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and __FORCETOC__ Charles Maurras ( 20 April 1868 Martigues Bouches-du-Rhône France – 16 November 1952) was By the mid-1920s, Lacan's growing anti-religious sentiment led to tensions with his Catholic family. [1][2]
Too thin to be accepted into military service, Lacan went directly into medical school in 1920, specializing in psychiatry from 1926. He took his clinical training at Sainte-Anne, the major psychiatric hospital in central Paris. In his studies he had a particular interest in the philosophic work of Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger and, alongside many other Parisian intellectuals of the time, he attended the famous seminars on Hegel given by Alexandre Kojève. Karl Theodor Jaspers ( February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969) was a German Psychiatrist and Philosopher who Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Alexandre Kojève (Russian Александр Владимирович Кожевников Aleksandr Vladimirovič Koževnikov; April 28 1902 &ndash
Beginning in the 1920s, Lacan undertook analysis with Rudolph Loewenstein, which continued until 1938. ---- Rudolph Maurice Loewenstein (January 17 1898 in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire - April 14 1976 in New York City) was a
In 1931 Lacan received his license as a forensic psychiatrist, and in 1932 was awarded the Doctorat d'état for his thesis, De la Psychose paranoiaque dans les rapports avec la personnalité. While this thesis drew considerable acclaim outside psychoanalytic circles, particularly among the surrealist artists, it was largely ignored by psychoanalysts. Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members In 1934 Lacan became a candidate for the Société Psychoanalytique de Paris. In January of that year, he married Marie-Louise Blondin, who gave birth to their first child, Caroline, the same month. Another child, Thibaut, was born in August of 1939.
He presented his first analytic paper on the "Mirror Phase" at the 1936 Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association in Marienbad. The Mirror stage was the subject of Jacques Lacan 's first official contribution to Psychoanalytic theory (Fourteenth International Psychoanalytical Congress at According to Roudinesco, Lacan's reading was interrupted by chairman of the congress, Ernest Jones, who was unwilling to offer more than the alloted time. Alfred Ernest Jones ( January 1, 1879 – February 11, 1958) Welsh Neurologist, Psychoanalyst and Sigmund Frustrated with what he considered an insult, Lacan left the congress to witness first hand a mass event manipulated by Nazis, in the form of the Olympic Games in Berlin. No copy of Lacan's original lecture remains extant. [3]
Lacan was very active in the world of Parisian writers, artists and intellectuals during the inter-war period. In addition to André Breton and Georges Bataille, he was also associated with Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso. André Breton (in French ɑ̃dʀe bʀəˈtɔ̃ ( February 19, 1896 &ndash September 28, 1966) was a French Writer, Georges Bataille (ʒɔʀʒ baˈtaj ( September 10, 1897 &ndash July 8, 1962) was a French Writer. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11 1904 &ndash January 23 1989 was a Spanish Catalan Surrealist Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 He attended the mouvement Psyché founded by Maryse Choisy. WikipediaPersondata --> Maryse Choisy (1903–1979 was a French philosophical writer Several of his early articles were published in the Surrealist journal Minotaure and he was present at the first public reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Minotaure (1933 to 1939 was a primarily Surrealist -oriented publication founded by Albert Skira in Paris James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920 Dylan Evans has speculated that Lacan was a surrealist at heart, "his interest in surrealism predates his interest in psychoanalysis. Perhaps Lacan never really abandoned his early surrealist sympathies, its neo-Romantic view of madness as ‘convulsive beauty’, its celebration of irrationality, and its hostility to the scientist who murders nature by dissecting it. The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music and painting "[4] As such company would suggest, during this period Lacan was better known in literary circles than psychoanalytic ones.
The Société Psychoanalytique de Paris (SPP) was disbanded due to Nazi Germany's occupation of France in 1940 and Lacan was subsequently called up to serve in the French army at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris, where he spent the duration of the war. His third child, Sibylle, was born in 1940.
The following year, Lacan fathered a child, Judith (who kept the name Bataille) with Sylvia Bataille (née Maklès), estranged wife of his friend Georges. There are contradictory stories about his romantic life with Sylvia Bataille in southern France during World War II. Sylvia Bataille, born Sylvia Maklès (1 November 1908 - 23 December 1993 was a French actress born in Paris (where she also died to a Jewish family The official record shows only that Marie-Louise requested divorce after Judith's birth, and Lacan married Sylvia in 1953.
Following the war, the SPP recommenced their meetings, and Lacan visited England for a five-week study trip, meeting English analysts Wilfred Bion and John Rickman. Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO (8 September 1897-8 November 1979 was a British psychoanalyst. John Rickman ( 22 August 1771 &ndash 11 August 1840) was an English government official and Statistician of the early nineteenth He was influenced by Bion’s analytic work with groups and this contributed to his own later emphasis on study groups as a structure with which to advance theoretical work in psychoanalysis.
In 1949, Lacan presented a new paper on the mirror stage to the sixteenth IPA congress in Zurich.
In 1951 Lacan started to hold a private weekly seminar in Paris, urging what he described as "a return to Freud" concentrating upon the linguistic nature of psychological symptomatology. Becoming public in 1953, Lacan's twenty-seven year long seminar was very influential in Parisian cultural life as well as in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice.
In 1953, after a disagreement about analytic practice methods, Lacan and many of his colleagues left the Société Parisienne de Psychoanalyse to form a new group the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP). The Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP was a French psychoanalytic professional body formed in 1953 of which Jacques Lacan was a founding member One of the consequences of this was to deprive the new group of membership within the International Psychoanalytical Association. The International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA is an association including 11800 psychoanalysts as members and works with 70 constituent organizations
Encouraged by the reception of "the return to Freud" and of his report - "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis" (Écrits) - Lacan again returned to Freud, re-reading the canon in relation with contemporary philosophy, linguistics, ethnology, biology and topology. From 1953 to 1964 at Sainte-Anne Hospital, he held his Seminars and presented case histories of patients. During this period he wrote the texts that are found in Écrits, a selection of which was first published in 1966. In his seventh Seminar of 1959-60, 'The Ethics of Psychoanalysis', Lacan defined his ethical foundations of psychoanalysis and constructs his "ethics for our time"; according to Freud, an ethics that would prove to be equal to the tragedy of modern man and to the "discontent of civilization". At the roots of the ethics is desire: analysis' only promise is austere, it is the entrance-into-the-I (in French a play of words between 'l'entrée en je' and 'l'entrée en jeu'). 'I must come to the place where the id was', where the analysand discovers, in its absolute nakedness, the truth of his desire. The end of psychoanalysis entails 'the purification of desire'. This text functions throughout the years as the background of Lacan's work. He defends three assertions: that psychoanalysis must have a scientific status; that Freudian ideas have radically changed the concepts of subject, of knowledge, and of desire; that the analytic field is the only place from where it is possible to question the insufficiencies of science and philosophy.
Starting in 1962 a complex negotiation took place to determine the status of the SFP within the IPA. Lacan’s practice—with his controversial indeterminate-length sessions in which he charged a full fee for truncated sessions, had his hair cut during sessions,[5] and Lacan's critical stance towards psychoanalytic orthodoxy—led, in 1963, to a condition being set by the IPA that registration of the SFP was dependent upon removing Lacan from the list of SFP training analysts. Lacan left the SFP to form his own school which became known as the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP)
With Lévi-Strauss and Althusser's support, he was appointed lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes. The École Freudienne de Paris (EFP was a French psychoanalytic professional body formed in 1963 of which Jacques Lacan was a founding member Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He started with a seminar on The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis in January 1964 in the Dussane room at the École Normale Supérieure (in his first session he thanks the generosity of Fernand Braudel and Claude Lévi-Strauss). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Les quatres concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse is the English translation of one of the pivotal works of Jacques Fernand Braudel ( August 24 1902 &ndash November 27 1985) was the foremost French historian of the postwar era Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Lacan began to set forth his own teaching on psychoanalysis to an audience of colleagues who had joined him from the SFP. His lectures also attracted many of the École Normale’s students. He divided the École de la Cause freudienne into three sections: the section of pure psychoanalysis (training and elaboration of the theory, where members who have been analyzed but haven't become analysts can participate); the section for applied psychoanalysis (therapeutic and clinical, physicians who have neither completed nor started analysis are welcome); the section for taking inventory of the Freudian field (it concerned the critique of psychoanalytic literature and the analysis of the theoretical relations with related or affiliated sciences (Proposition du 9 octobre 1967 sur le psychanalyste à l'Ecole).
By the 1960s, Lacan was associated—at least in the public mind—with the far left in France. [6] In May 1968 Lacan voiced his sympathy for the student protests and as a corollary a Department of Psychology was set up by his followers at the University of Vincennes (Paris VIII). Echoing this sentiment, "Shortly after the tumultuous events of May 1968, Lacan was accused by the authorities of being a subversive, and directly influencing the events that transpired. For other events in May 1968 see 1968. "[7]
In 1969 Lacan moved his public seminars to the Faculté de Droit (Panthéon) where he continued to deliver his expositions of analytic theory and practice till the dissolution of his School in 1980.
Throughout the final decade of his life, Lacan continued his widely followed seminars. During this period, he focuses on the development of his concepts of masculine and feminine jouissance, and puts special emphasis on his concept of "The Real" as a point of impossible contradiction in the "Symbolic Order". The French word jouissance means enjoyment particularly in an over-the-top or sexual (i This late work had the greatest influence on feminist thought, as well as upon the informal movement that arose in the 1970s or 1980s called post-modernism. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism
Lacan's "return to Freud" emphasizes a renewed attention to the original texts of Freud and a radical critique of Ego psychology, Melanie Klein and Object relations theory. Ego psychology is a school of Psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud 's structural -- id-ego-superego -- model of the mind Melanie Klein ( March 30 1882 – September 22 1960) was an Austrian born Object relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within Psychoanalytic psychology. Lacan thought that Freud's ideas of "slips of the tongue", jokes, etcetera, all emphasized the agency of language in subjective constitution. "Correcting" Freud from within the light of Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, and Barthes, Lacan's "return to Freud" could be read as the realization that the pervading agency of the unconscious is intimately tied to the functions and dynamics of language, where the signifier is irremediably divorced from the signified in a chronic but generative tension of lack. Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Roland Barthes ( November 12, 1915 &ndash March 25, 1980) (ʀɔlɑ̃ baʀt was a French Literary critic, literary In "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud" (Écrits, pp. 161 - 197). ) he argued that "the unconscious is structured like a language"; it was not a primitive or archetypal part of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, but a formation as complex and structurally sophisticated as consciousness itself. If the unconscious is structured like a language, he claimed, then the self is denied any point of reference to which to be 'restored' following trauma or 'identity crisis'.
Lacan's first official contribution to psychoanalysis was the mirror stage which he described ". The Mirror stage was the subject of Jacques Lacan 's first official contribution to Psychoanalytic theory (Fourteenth International Psychoanalytical Congress at . . as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience". By the early fifties, he no longer considers the mirror stage as only a moment in the life of the infant, but as the permanent structure of subjectivity. In the paradigm of The Imaginary order, the subject is permanently caught and captivated by his own image. Lacan writes, "[T]he mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image". [8]
As he further develops the concept, the stress falls less on its historical value and ever more on its structural value. [4] In his fourth Seminar, La relation d'objet, Lacan states that "the mirror stage is far from a mere phenomenon which occurs in the development of the child. It illustrates the conflictual nature of the dual relationship".
The mirror stage describes the formation of the Ego via the process of objectification, the Ego being the result of feeling dissention between one's perceived visual appearance and one's perceived emotional reality. Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the " Psychic apparatus " defined in Sigmund Freud 's structural model of This identification is what Lacan called alienation. At six months the baby still lacks coordination, however, he can recognize himself in the mirror before attaining control over his bodily movements. He sees his image as a whole, and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the uncoordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. This contrast is first felt by the infant as a rivalry with his own image, because the wholeness of the image threatens him with fragmentation, and thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the subject identifies with the image: this primary identification with the counterpart is what forms the Ego. [4] The moment of identification is to Lacan a moment of jubilation since it leads to an imaginary sense of mastery, yet the jubilation may also be accompanied by a depressive reaction, when the infant compares his own precarious sense of mastery with the omnipotence of the mother. [9] This identification also involves the ideal ego which functions as a promise of future wholeness sustaining the Ego in anticipation.
In the Mirror stage a misunderstanding - "méconnaissance" - constitutes the Ego—the 'moi' becomes alienated from himself through the introduction of the Imaginary order subject. It must be said that the mirror stage has also a significant symbolic dimension. The Symbolic order is present in the figure of the adult who is carrying the infant: the moment after the subject has jubilantly assumed his image as his own, he turns his head towards this adult who represents the big Other, as if to call on him to ratify this image. The Symbolic order is a part of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. The Other or constitutive other (also referred to as othering) is a key concept in Continental philosophy, opposed to the Same [10]
While Freud uses the term "other", referring to der Andere (the other person) and "das Andere" (otherness), Lacan's use is more like Hegel's, through Alexandre Kojève.
Lacan often used an algebraic symbology for his concepts:[11] the big Other is designated A (for French Autre) and the little other is designated a (italicized French autre). He asserts that an awareness of this distinction is fundamental to analytic practice: 'the analyst must be imbued with the difference between An and a,[12] so he can situate himself in the place of Other, and not the other'. [13]
'The Other must first of all be considered a locus, the locus in which speech is constituted'. [14] We can speak of the Other as a subject in a secondary sense, only when a subject may occupy this position and thereby embody the Other for another subject. [15]
When he argues that speech originates not in the Ego nor in the subject, but in the Other, Lacan stresses that speech and language are beyond one's conscious control; they come from another place, outside consciousness, and then 'the unconscious is the discourse of the Other'. [16] When conceiving the Other as a place, Lacan refers to Freud's concept of physical locality, in which the unconscious is described as "the other scene".
"It is the mother who first occupies the position of the big Other for the child, it is she who receives the child's primitive cries and retroactively sanctions them as a particular message". [4] The castration complex is formed when the child discovers that this Other is not complete, that there is a Lack (manque) in the Other. This means that there is always a signifier missing from the trove of signifiers constituted by the Other. Lacan illustrates this incomplete Other graphically by striking a bar through the symbol A; hence another name for the castrated, incomplete Other is the 'barred Other'. [17][18]
Lacan thought the relationship between the Ego and the reflected image means that the Ego and the Imaginary order itself are places of radical alienation: "alienation is constitutive of the Imaginary order". In Sociology and Critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general [14] This relationship is also narcissistic. Narcissism describes the trait of excessive Self-love, based on Self-image or Ego. So the Imaginary is the field of images and imagination, and deception: the main illusions of this order are synthesis, autonomy, duality, similarity.
The Imaginary is structured by the Symbolic order: in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis Lacan argues how the visual field is structured by symbolic laws. Thus the Imaginary involves a linguistic dimension. If the signifier is the foundation of the Symbolic, the signified and signification are part of the Imaginary order. Language has Symbolic and Imaginary connotations; in its Imaginary aspect, language is the "wall of language" which inverts and distorts the discourse of the Other. On the other hand, the Imaginary is rooted in the subject's relationship with its own body (the image of the body). In Fetishism: the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real Lacan argues that in the sexual plane the Imaginary appears as sexual display and courtship love.
Lacan accused major psychoanalytic schools of reducing the practice of psychoanalysis to the Imaginary order by making identification with the analyst the objective of analysis (see Écrits, "The Directions of the Treatment"). He proposes the use of the Symbolic as the way to dislodge the disabling fixations of the Imaginary: the analyst transforms the images into words. "The use of the Symbolic is the only way for the analytic process to cross the plane of identification. "[19]
In his Seminar IV "La relation d'objet" Lacan asserts that the concepts of Law and Structure are unthinkable without language: thus the Symbolic is a linguistic dimension. Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society Structure is a fundamental and sometimes Intangible notion covering the Recognition, Observation, nature, and Stability of Yet, he does not simply equate this order with language since language involves the Imaginary and the Real as well. The dimension proper of language in the Symbolic is that of the signifier, that is a dimension in which elements have no positive existence but which are constituted by virtue of their mutual differences. In Semiotics, a sign is "something that stands for something else to someone in some capacity"
The Symbolic is also the field of radical alterity, that is the Other: the unconscious is the discourse of this Other. Besides it is the realm of the Law which regulates desire in the Oedipus complex. We may add that the Symbolic is the domain of culture as opposed to the Imaginary order of nature. As important elements in the Symbolic, the concepts of death and lack (manque) connive to make of the pleasure principle the regulator of the distance from the Thing (das ding an sich) and the death drive which goes "beyond the pleasure principle by means of repetition"—"the death drive is only a mask of the Symbolic order. Death is the termination of the biological functions that define living Organisms It refers both to a specific Lack (in French manque) is in Lacan 's Psychoanalytic Philosophy, always related to desire "Noumena" redirects here For the band see Noumena (band. In classical Freudian Psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death destruction and non-existence "[11]
It is by working in the Symbolic order that the analyst can produce changes in the subjective position of the analysand; these changes will produce imaginary effects since the Imaginary is structured by the Symbolic. [4] Thus, it is the Symbolic which is determinant of subjectivity, and the Imaginary, made of images and appearances, is the effect of the Symbolic.
Not only opposed to the Imaginary, the Real is also located outside the Symbolic. Unlike the latter which is constituted in terms of oppositions, i. e. presence/absence, "there is no absence in the Real. "[11] Whereas the Symbolic opposition presence/absence implies the possibility that something may be missing from the Symbolic, "the Real is always in its place. "[19] If the Symbolic is a set of differentiated elements, signifiers, the Real in itself is undifferentiated, it bears no fissure. The Symbolic introduces "a cut in the real", in the process of signification: "it is the world of words that creates the world of things - things originally confused in the "here and now" of the all in the process of coming into being. [20]
Thus the Real is that which is outside language, resisting symbolization absolutely. In Seminar XI Lacan defines the Real as "the impossible" because it is impossible to imagine and impossible to integrate into the Symbolic, being impossibly attainable. It is this resistance to symbolization that lends the Real its traumatic quality. In his Seminar "La relation d'objet", Lacan reads Freud's case on "Little Hans. " He distinguishes two real elements which intrude and disrupt the child's imaginary pre-oedipical harmony: the real penis which is felt in infantile masturbation and the newly born sister.
Finally, the Real is the object of anxiety in that it lacks any possible mediation, and is "the essential object which is not an object any longer, but this something faced with which all words cease and all categories fail, the object of anxiety par excellence. Anxiety is a physiological and psychological state characterized by Cognitive, Somatic, Emotional and Behavioral components "[11]
Lacan's désir follows Freud's concept of Wunsch and it is central to Lacanian theories. For the aim of the talking cure - psychoanalysis - is precisely to lead the analysand to uncover the truth about their desire, but this is only possible if that desire is articulated, or spoken. [21] Lacan said that "it is only once it is formulated, named in the presence of the other, that desire appears in the full sense of the term. "[22] "That the subject should come to recognize and to name his/her desire, that is the efficacious action of analysis. But it is not a question of recognizing something which would be entirely given. In naming it, the subject creates, brings forth, a new presence in the world. "[11] "[W]hat is important is to teach the subject to name, to articulate, to bring desire into existence. " Now, although the truth about desire is somehow present in discourse, discourse can never articulate the whole truth about desire: whenever discourse attempts to articulate desire, there is always a leftover, a surplus. [21]
In The Signification of the Phallus Lacan distinguishes desire from need and demand. Need is a biological instinct that is articulated in demand, yet demand has a double function, on one hand it articulates need and on the other acts as a demand for love. So, even after the need articulated in demand is satisfied, the demand for love remains unsatisfied and this leftover is desire. [23] For Lacan "desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second" (article cited). Desire then is the surplus produced by the articulation of need in demand (Dylan Evans). Lacan adds that "desire begins to take shape in the margin in which demand becomes separated from need" (article cited). Hence desire can never be satisfied, or as Slavoj Žižek puts it "desire's raison d'être is not to realize its goal, to find full satisfaction, but to reproduce itself as desire. Slavoj Žižek (ˈslavoj ˈʒiʒɛk (born 21 March 1949) is a Post-Marxist Sociologist, Philosopher, and Cultural critic "
It is also important to distinguish between desire and the drives. If they belong to the field of the Other (as opposed to love), desire is one, whereas the drives are many. The drives are the partial manifestations of a single force called desire (see "The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis"). If one can surmise that objet petit a is the object of desire, it is not the object towards which desire tends, but the cause of desire. In the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, objet petit a (object little-a stands for the unattainable object of desire. For desire is not a relation to an object but a relation to a lack (manque). Then desire appears as a social construct since it is always constituted in a dialectical relationship.
Lacan maintains Freud's distinction between Trieb (drive) and Instinkt (instinct) in that drives differ from biological needs because they can never be satisfied and do not aim at an object but rather circle perpetually round it, so the real source of jouissance is to repeat the movement of this closed circuit. The French word jouissance means enjoyment particularly in an over-the-top or sexual (i In the same Seminar Lacan posits the drives as both cultural and symbolic (discourse) constructs, to him "the drive is not a given, something archaic, primordial". Yet he incorporates the four elements of the drives as defined by Freud (the pressure, the end, the object and the source) to his theory of the drive's circuit: the drive originates in the erogenous zone, circles round the object, and then returns to the erogenous zone. The circuit is structured by the three grammatical voices:
The active and reflexive voices are autoerotic, they lack a subject. It is only when the drive completes its circuit with the passive voice that a new subject appears. So although it is the "passive" voice, the drive is essentially active, "to make oneself be seen" instead of "to be seen. " The circuit of the drive is the only way for the subject to transgress the pleasure principle.
Lacan identifies four partial drives: the oral drive (the erogenous zones are the lips, the partial object the breast), the anal drive (the anus and the faeces), the scopic drive (the eyes and the gaze) and the invocatory drive (the ears and the voice). The first two relate to demand and the last two to desire. If the drives are closely related to desire, they are the partial aspects in which desire is realized: again, desire in one and undivided whereas the drives are partial manifestations of desire.
Jacques-Alain Miller is the sole editor of Lacan's seminar lectures, which contain the majority of his life's work. The Name-of-the-Father ( French Nom du père) is a concept that Jacques Lacan fully developed starting in his Seminar The Psychoses (1955-1956 In the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, objet petit a (object little-a stands for the unattainable object of desire. Sources The Seminars of Jacques Lacan An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis - Dylan Evans In Semiotics, a sign is "something that stands for something else to someone in some capacity" In Semiotics, a sign is "something that stands for something else to someone in some capacity" The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason Since Freud is an Essay by the psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan, originally delivered Foreclusion (also known as Foreclosure) refers to a process seen by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan as being central in the development of Psychosis. The French word jouissance means enjoyment particularly in an over-the-top or sexual (i Lack (in French manque) is in Lacan 's Psychoanalytic Philosophy, always related to desire The word phallus can refer to an erect Penis, or to an object shaped like a penis In analysing Visual culture, the concept of The Gaze (also gaze and Le regard in French describes how the viewer gazes upon The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan argued that there were four fundamental types of discourse. The graph of desire is a conceptual tool from the Psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. The sinthome is a concept introduced by Jacques Lacan in his seminar Le sinthome (1975-76 Jacques-Alain Miller is a prominent French Lacanian Psychoanalyst. Although Lacan is a major figure in the history of psychoanalysis, some of these seminars still remain unpublished. Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior Since 1984, Miller has been regularly conducting a series of lectures, "L'orientation lacanienne", within the structure of ParisVIII. Miller's teachings have been published in the US by the journal Lacanian Ink. Lacanian Ink is a cultural journal based in New York City and founded in the Autumn of 1990 by Josefina Ayerza to provide the American intellectual scene with the theoretical
Lacan claimed that his Écrits were not to be understood, but would produce a meaning effect in the reader similar to some mystical texts. Lacan's writing is notoriously difficult due to the repeated Hegelian/Kojèvean allusions, wide theoretical divergences from other psychoanalytic and philosophical thinking, as well as his obscure prose style.
Although Lacan is associated with it, he was criticized by major figures associated with post-structuralism (and the related postmodernism school). Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Jacques Derrida characterized Lacan as taking a structuralist approach to psychoanalysis. For the use of structuralism in biology see Structuralism (biology Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze Derrida claimed this led Lacan to inherit a Freudian "phallocentrism," exemplified by Lacan's conception of the phallus as the "primary signifier" that determines the social order of signifiers. Derrida deconstructs the Freudian conception of "penis envy", upon which female subjectivity is determined "as an absence," to show that the primacy of the male phallus entails a hierarchy between phallic presence and absence that ultimately collapses.
While he has been criticized for adopting a Freudian phallocentric stance in his psychoanalytic theories, many feminists believe Lacan provides a useful analysis of gender biases and imposed roles. Some feminist critics, such as Luce Irigaray,[24] accuse Lacan of maintaining the sexist tradition in psychoanalysis. Luce Irigaray (born 1932 Belgium) is a French feminist, Philosopher, Linguist, psychoanalytic and cultural theorist Sexism is the belief or attitude that one Gender or Sex is inferior to or less valuable than the other and can also refer to a Hatred or distrust towards Others feminists, such as Judith Butler,[25] Jane Gallop,[26] Bracha Ettinger,[27] and Elizabeth Grosz,[7] have each interpreted Lacan's work as opening up new possibilities for feminist theory. Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American Post-structuralist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of Feminism Jane (Anne Gallop (born 1952 is a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bracha L Ettinger (born 1951 also known as Bracha Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Hebrew ברכה אטינגר, ברכה ליכטנברג-אטינגר Elizabeth A Grosz is an Australian Feminist academic living and working in the USA Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate
Other critics have often dismissed Lacan and his work in a more-or-less wholesale fashion. François Roustang[28] called Lacan's output "extravagant" and an "incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish. " Noam Chomsky described Lacan as "an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan". Avram Noam Chomsky (noʊm ˈtʃɑmski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political [29] In Fashionable Nonsense, Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont accuse Lacan of "superficial erudition" and of abusing scientific concepts he does not understand. Fashionable Nonsense Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (ISBN 0-312-20407-8 French: Impostures Intellectuelles; published in the UK Alan David Sokal (born 1955) is a professor of Physics and faculty member of the physics department at New York University. Jean Bricmont is a Belgian theoretical physicist, Philosopher of Science and a Professor at the Université catholique de Louvain. Defenders of Lacanian thinking claim that these critics misunderstand, or often simply have not read, Lacan's texts. [30][31]
Selected works published in English listed below. More complete listings can be found at Lacan Dot Com.
*referenced above
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lacan, Jacques |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | French psychologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 13 April 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris, France |
| DATE OF DEATH | 9 September 1981 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Paris, France |