Why Theory Lacan's Seminar 11: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
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Apr 13, 2024 Unpacking Lacan's Seminar 11, focusing on exclusion as a starting point and delving into subjectivity and objet a. Exploring student protests, authority in psychoanalysis, self-realization, the complexities of the gaze, satisfaction in a song, desire vs. drive, reflections in the mirror, sacrifice in historical narratives, and film recommendations.
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Campus Protest And Exclusion
- Ryan describes supporting students during a campus pro-Palestine protest that led to arrests and faculty concern. He worries about administrative pre-planning and feels partially responsible for preventing more arrests.
- The story frames the episode's theme of exclusion and sets up Lacan's opening focus on excommunication.
Authority Through Exclusion
- Lacan begins Seminar XI with his own excommunication to claim authority from outside institutions rather than empirical credentials. Exclusion gives him vantage to theorize subjectivity as located in a gap or non-belonging.
- This starting point reframes psychoanalytic authority as derived from marginality, not institutional validation.
Subjectivity As Structural Gap
- Lacan centers subjectivity by linking it to Cartesian doubt and Freud's clinical method, claiming analysis reveals structural subjectivity. He treats recollection as structural, born from language and signifiers, not Platonic forms.
- This connects philosophical subjectivity to psychoanalytic practice via gaps in signification.