Seminar XIV

Jacques Lacan's Seminars : I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII I. Freud's technical writings II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis III. The Psychoses IV. The Object Relations V. The Formations of the Unconscious VI. Desire and its Interpretation VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis VIII. Transference IX. Identification The Names of the Father X. Anxiety XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis XII. Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis XIII. The Object of Psychoanalysis XIV. The Logic of Fantasy XV. The Psychoanalytic Act XVI. From One Other to the Other XVII. The Reverse of Psychoanalysis XVIII. On a Discourse That Would Not Be Semblance XIX. Or Worse XX. Encore XXV. The Moment of Concluding XXVII. Dissolution ← Seminar XIII Seminar XV →

La logique du fantasme
Seminar XIV
Title page of Seminar XIV manuscript
French Title	Le Séminaire, Livre XIV: La logique du fantasme
English Title	Seminar XIV: The Logic of Fantasy
Seminar Information
Seminar Date(s)	1966–1967
Location	Paris
Psychoanalytic Content
Key Concepts	fantasy • Objet petit a • signifier • subject ($) • logic of phantasy • repetition • Cartesian cogito
Notable Themes	Logic of fantasy and its role in desire; articulation of subject and object; signifier structure; the relation of fantasy to language and discourse
Chronology
Preceded by	Seminar XIII
Followed by	Seminar XV

Seminar XIV: La logique du fantasme (Le Séminaire, Livre XIV: La logique du fantasme), delivered by Jacques Lacan during the 1966–1967 academic year, is the fourteenth in his annual series of seminars. Entitled in English as The Logic of Fantasy (or The Logic of Phantasy), the seminar addresses the formal structure of fantasy in psychoanalytic theory and elaborates the relation between the divided subject, language, desire, and the minimalist “logic” that underpins fantasy in the Lacanian register. It continues Lacan’s structural engagement with Freudian metapsychology, signification, and subject formation.

Historical and institutional context

Seminar XIV was conducted after Lacan’s major contributions in the early 1960s—including his eleventh seminar, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964), which had foregrounded the unconscious as structured as a language and introduced the Real as a key register alongside the Symbolic and Imaginary.

The French edition of Seminar XIV was edited by Jacques‑Alain Miller and published in 2023 as part of the ongoing project to make Lacan’s seminars widely available in print; an English translation under the title The Logic of Fantasy is forthcoming from Polity.

Lacan delivered this seminar in Paris at a time when his seminars had become central nodes of psychoanalytic, philosophical, and theoretical discourse in the French intellectual milieu, influencing structuralist and post‑structuralist debates.

Conceptual framework and methodology

Seminar XIV focuses on clarifying the structural and logical status of fantasy (fantasme), not as an individual daydream or private narrative but as a formal apparatus in which the subject, desire, object, and signifier are interrelated.

A primary methodological feature in this seminar is Lacan’s use of **mathematical and logical formulas** to articulate relations between core psychoanalytic variables, most famously the formula **$\mathrm{\$}\overline{S}⟨⟩a$**, where:

• $\mathrm{\$}\overline{S}\mathrm{\$}$ (S barred) designates the **divided subject**, the subject split by language and unconscious signification;
• $\mathrm{\$}a\mathrm{\$}$ (small a) denotes the **objet petit a**, the object‑cause of desire that remains unattainable within the symbolic chain.

In this framing, fantasy functions as a **logical relation** between the subject and object in which desire articulates itself: it is the “logic of fantasy” that enables the subject to posit a structure of desire against the backdrop of lack and signification.

Fantasy as logical structure

Lacan distinguishes his use of “logic” from formal academic logic. Rather than adopting classical propositional or predicate logic, he seeks to **institutionalize a logic specific to psychoanalysis**—one grounded in the workings of desire, the unconscious, and signifier chains. Lacan even remarks that his aim is to define “a logic that is not a logic, an entirely new logic… for it needs to be instituted first.”

This logic emphasizes:

• the **primacy of repetition** over representation: repetition is not mere recurrence of the identical but a marker of signifying identity and differential structuration; it retroactively shapes the conditions of desire and the subject’s relation to its objects.
• the **intersubjective dimension** of fantasy: fantasy does not exist solely within an individual but as a configuration linking subject, object, and Other through shared signifiers and symbolic coordinates.

Subject, signifier, and object of desire

A central component of Seminar XIV is Lacan’s renewed exploration of the **subject ($\bar S$)** in relation to the **objet petit a**, the latter acting as the **cause of desire** but not reducible to any particular object or representation. This links back to Lacan’s earlier elaborations on objet petit a as that which emerges from the subject’s loss and lack, around which desire circulates without ever being fully satisfied.

Seminar XIV posits that fantasy is the **scene on which the subject’s desire is articulated and staged**, providing the coordinates through which the subject navigates between signifier and signified, between presence and lack. Fantasy thus operates as a **matrix of desire**—not merely as content but as structural logic binding subject and object within the symbolic field.

Key themes and sections

Articulation of fantasy and discourse

Lacan explores how fantasy relates to language and discourse, especially the **“universe of discourse”** in which subjects make sense of themselves and their desires. One of his points in the seminar is to recall and extend how fantasy connects to signifier structures and how the logic of that connection underpins psychoanalytic theory.

This involves retracing how fantasies emerge from and shape the subject’s engagement with signifiers and how such engagements produce effects that are **logical yet not reducible to classical logic**.

Relation to Cartesian cogito and subject division

Lacan engages with the **Cartesian cogito** in ways that revise traditional readings: where Descartes’ *cogito ergo sum* situates consciousness as self‑evident, Lacan’s take places the subject outside of direct self‑presence, as something constructed by language and desire. Such a move anticipates later engagements with self‑division and presence as indeterminate, influenced by the unconscious and fantasied structures.

Repetition and topological motifs

Repetition in Seminar XIV is not treated as simple recurrence but as a structural effect of signifying processes. Lacan gestures toward **topological forms** that illustrate how repetition folds back upon itself, often represented metaphorically (for instance, as loops or retroactive trajectories). While the seminar’s complexity makes these formal aspects challenging, they are crucial to underscoring that fantasy and desire do not operate linearly.

Fantasy and jouissance

Seminar XIV intersects with Lacan’s broader concern with **jouissance**, particularly how enjoyment exceeds or escapes full symbolic capture. Fantasy, in this view, is intimately bound to jouissance: it does not merely mask lack but also structures the way enjoyment is circumscribed, pursued, or deferred.

Theoretical significance and clinical implications

Seminar XIV deepens Lacan’s sustained re‑assessment of psychoanalytic foundations by insisting that fantasy is **not residual content but structural logic**. It places fantasy at the conceptual heart of desire and subject formation, challenging earlier views that privileged dream content, ego representations, or simple metaphorical readings.

Clinically, it underscores that interpretations of fantasy must attend to **how the subject situates desire and lack within signifying structures**. Fantasy is not reducible to personal narratives but is part of the logical scaffolding that conditions the subject’s engagements with self and Other.

Reception and legacy

Though one of Lacan’s more **difficult and meandering seminars**, Seminar XIV has been noted by scholars for its ambitious attempt at a new articulation of fantasy’s logic and for its formal engagements with language, repetition, and subjectivity. It has gained renewed attention subsequent to its recent publication, which makes its complex arguments more readily accessible to contemporary readers.

Commentators have highlighted that Lacan’s treatment of fantasy in this seminar **reverses earlier readings of subjectivity and the cogito**, situating fantasy as the pivot between language and desire rather than as merely the content of unconscious life.

See also

• Jacques Lacan
• Seminars of Jacques Lacan
• Fantasy (psychoanalysis)
• Objet petit a
• Signifier
• Desire (psychoanalysis)
• Cartesian cogito in Lacan

Further reading

• Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire, Livre XIV: La logique du fantasme. Text established by Jacques‑Alain Miller. Éditions de la Martinière / Champ Freudien, 2023.
• Secondary commentaries on Seminar XIV available through psychoanalytic journals and lecture series.