The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious
| The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious | |
|---|---|
| French title | La subversion du sujet et la dialectique du désir dans l'inconscient freudien |
| English title | The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious |
| Year | 1960 |
| Text type | Conference paper / theoretical essay |
| Mode of delivery | Oral and written |
| First presentation | International Colloquium on Freud, Royaumont, July 1960 |
| First publication | Cahiers pour l’Analyse, vol. 3, 1966 |
| Collected in | Écrits (1966) |
| Text status | Authorial text |
| Original language | French |
| Psychoanalytic content | |
| Key concepts | Barred subject (Ⱥ) • Desire • Signifier • Metaphor • The Other • Fantasy • Graph of desire |
| Themes | Subjectivity; unconscious structure; desire and language; split subject; psychoanalytic theory of the subject |
| Freud references | The Interpretation of Dreams • Beyond the Pleasure Principle • The Ego and the Id |
| Related seminars | Seminar VI • Seminar VII • Seminar VIII |
| Theoretical context | |
| Period | Structuralist / topological period |
| Register | Symbolic • Real |
The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious (French: La subversion du sujet et la dialectique du désir dans l’inconscient freudien) is a major theoretical text by Jacques Lacan, first presented in 1960 at the International Colloquium on Freud in Royaumont and later published in his collected volume Écrits (1966). The essay represents one of Lacan’s most ambitious efforts to formally articulate his structuralist interpretation of Freud, uniting linguistics, philosophy, and psychoanalytic theory in a complex conceptual apparatus centered on the subject’s relation to language and desire.
A key milestone in Lacan’s project of a "return to Freud," the essay introduces some of his most influential formulations, including the concept of the barred subject (le sujet barré), the Graph of Desire, and the distinction between the level of enunciation and statement (énoncé). It exemplifies Lacan’s method of structural analysis and offers a theoretical framework that shaped the direction of late 20th-century psychoanalysis, poststructuralist philosophy, and critical theory.[1]
Historical and Intellectual Background
The essay was written at a pivotal moment in Lacan’s intellectual development. By 1960, Lacan had established the foundation of his "tripartite register" — the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic order — and was increasingly focused on formalizing his theory of the unconscious using tools derived from structural linguistics, topology, and Freudian metapsychology.
Lacan’s work during this period is profoundly shaped by:
- Sigmund Freud, especially on the unconscious, dream-work, repression, and sexuality;
- Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson, whose structural linguistics informed Lacan’s theory of the signifier;
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, mediated by Alexandre Kojève, whose interpretation of the master-slave dialectic and the role of desire in recognition influenced Lacan’s concept of dialectics;
- Émile Benveniste, whose work on subjectivity and pronouns helped Lacan conceptualize the "I" as a linguistic effect.
The essay consolidates insights developed in Seminar VI (Desire and Its Interpretation, 1958–59) and anticipates theoretical developments that Lacan would refine in his later seminars, particularly those concerning the subject's alienation in language and the role of the Other.
Summary of Key Arguments
The Barred Subject ($\bar{S}$)
One of Lacan’s central contributions in this essay is his formalization of the subject as split or "barred" — designated as $\bar{S}$. The barred subject is a subject divided by the effects of language: between the speaking subject (the one who enunciates) and the subject spoken of (the one represented by a signifier in discourse). This subject is not a self-transparent ego but an effect of the symbolic order. As Lacan writes, "the unconscious is structured like a language," and it is in language that the subject is constituted — as both spoken and spoken-for.
The subject emerges only as something alienated in the chain of signifiers. Rather than expressing an inner essence, the subject is a position in a system — caught between the signifiers that precede it and the desire they mediate.[2]
The Signifier and the Production of Subjectivity
Language plays a foundational role in Lacan's model. Drawing from Saussure, Lacan emphasizes that meaning arises from differential relations between signifiers, not from a fixed correspondence between signifier and signified. For the subject, this means that identity is always deferred — the subject is "represented by one signifier for another signifier."[1]
In this essay, Lacan elaborates on the function of the Master signifier, which anchors a chain of meaning but does not itself possess a determinate signified. The subject's entry into the symbolic is thus also a loss: the Real (what resists symbolization) must be foreclosed in order for the subject to appear in the symbolic as a marked absence — the subject of the unconscious.
The Dialectic of Desire
Desire is central to Lacan’s theory of subjectivity, and in this essay he outlines the structure of what he calls the "dialectic of desire." Desire is not to be confused with need or demand; it is not directed at specific objects but is rather a function of the subject’s relation to lack. Desire is "the desire of the Other" — both in the sense that it arises from the Other (the symbolic order or the social field), and in the sense that it aims at being recognized by the Other.
Desire is sustained by the metonymic slippage of signifiers; it can never be fulfilled but is kept in motion through the subject’s pursuit of the object a (objet petit a) — the cause of desire, not its goal. This makes desire structurally unending and constitutive of the subject.[3]
Enunciation and Statement
Lacan distinguishes between the act of enunciation (the act of saying) and the statement (énoncé, or what is said). This distinction allows him to theorize how the subject is split across different levels of discourse. In the unconscious, it is the enunciation — not the explicit content — that reveals the truth of the subject. For instance, a slip of the tongue may say one thing but reveal another desire at the level of enunciation.
This split also accounts for the subject’s alienation: the "I" that speaks is not the same as the "I" spoken of. This temporal and structural disjunction is fundamental to Lacan’s theory of subjectivity, where the subject is always displaced in relation to itself.
The Graph of Desire
To formalize these relations, Lacan introduces the Graph of Desire, a topological diagram that attempts to map the interplay between signifiers, subject positions, and desire. The graph visually represents how the subject is formed and sustained through the intersection of the symbolic and the imaginary.
The graph distinguishes multiple levels of discourse: the chain of signifiers (S), the signification produced (S'), the voice of the subject (the enunciation), and the demand or desire addressed to the Other. This formal apparatus is Lacan’s attempt to provide a scientific model of the subject, drawing together linguistics, topology, and Freudian metapsychology.
Theoretical Concepts and Innovations
Subject of the Unconscious
Unlike the ego of ego psychology, which posits a unified self, Lacan’s subject is fundamentally split. The subject of the unconscious is not the rational "I" but rather the effect of language and the site of desire. The unconscious speaks — but in slips, symptoms, and jokes — and always at a remove from the conscious subject.
The unconscious subject is not a hidden kernel waiting to be discovered but a structural position revealed through interpretation. It is in this sense that Lacan famously claimed, “the unconscious is structured like a language.”[4]
The Other
In Lacanian theory, the Other (l’Autre) is not another person but the place of language and the law — the symbolic order in which the subject is inscribed. The Other is the locus of speech, the place from which the subject receives its name, its desire, and its unconscious determinations.
The subject’s desire is thus always mediated by the desire of the Other. What does the Other want? This enigmatic question propels the subject's desire and gives rise to the structure of fantasy — the screen through which the subject imagines the Other's desire and locates its own position within it.[2]
Alienation and Separation
The essay also introduces Lacan’s distinction between two key operations: alienation and separation. Alienation refers to the subject’s entry into language — the moment it must choose between being and meaning, resulting in the loss of the Real. Separation, by contrast, occurs when the subject confronts the question of the Other’s desire and attempts to locate its own place within the field of the Other.
Together, alienation and separation structure the emergence of subjectivity as a process of division, loss, and ongoing negotiation with the symbolic order.
Metaphor and Metonymy
Building on Jakobson’s distinction between metaphor and metonymy, Lacan argues that these figures are not merely rhetorical but fundamental mechanisms of the unconscious. Metaphor corresponds to repression and symptom formation, while metonymy structures the endless displacement of desire. These linguistic processes govern the production of meaning in the unconscious and underscore Lacan’s insistence that the unconscious operates as a language.
Clinical and Philosophical Implications
The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire is not merely a theoretical exercise but has significant clinical relevance. Lacan’s redefinition of the subject—as divided, barred, and constituted by the signifier—calls into question the aims and techniques of classical Freudian psychoanalysis and sharply distances Lacan from the ego psychology dominant in postwar Anglo-American psychoanalysis.
Reorienting the Analytic Process
Whereas ego psychology aims at strengthening the ego and adapting the subject to reality, Lacanian psychoanalysis seeks to bring the subject into confrontation with the truth of their desire, and with the structural lack at the core of subjectivity. For Lacan, the analyst does not interpret in terms of hidden content or repressed memories, but rather intervenes at the level of the signifier, listening for slips, equivocations, and repetitions in the analysand’s speech.
The analyst’s role, then, is not to repair the ego but to situate the subject in relation to their own unconscious formations, through the structure of language. This repositions the concept of transference: not merely as a reproduction of early relationships, but as the subject’s unconscious relation to the desire of the Other—namely, the analyst.[5]
Desire, Drive, and Repetition
By emphasizing the dialectic of desire and the formal structure of the unconscious, Lacan refines Freud’s concept of the drive as distinct from instinct or biological need. The drive does not aim at satisfaction but circulates around a void—jouissance—repeating a circuit of missed encounters. In this schema, the symptom becomes a knotting of desire and language, and its interpretation involves reading the symptom as a signifier.
Lacan’s account of the subject also redefines the nature of repression and resistance. Repression is not an accidental forgetting but a structural necessity of the symbolic order. The "return of the repressed" is the reemergence of that which could not be symbolized, often in disguised or displaced forms. Resistance, from this view, is resistance to interpretation not because of ego defense, but because the structure of desire demands it.[3]
Ethical Dimensions
Lacan also introduces an ethical dimension to his theory of the subject. The analyst must remain faithful not to normative ideals or healing, but to the singular desire of the analysand. This is elaborated more fully in his Seminar VII (The Ethics of Psychoanalysis), but the groundwork is already laid in this essay: ethics in psychoanalysis concerns the subject’s relation to truth and their confrontation with lack, rather than the pursuit of happiness or integration.
Reception and Influence
The Subversion of the Subject has had a profound and lasting impact on psychoanalysis, philosophy, literary theory, and cultural studies. It is widely considered one of Lacan’s most conceptually rigorous and difficult essays, and has served as a cornerstone text for scholars interpreting Lacanian theory across disciplines.
Slavoj Žižek and the Return to the Subject
One of the most influential interpreters of Lacan in recent decades, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek draws heavily on this essay in developing his concept of the subject in relation to ideology, fantasy, and jouissance. For Žižek, Lacan’s barred subject is essential for understanding how ideology functions—not by repressing desire, but by structuring it.
Žižek repeatedly emphasizes that the subject is not an empirical agent but a void around which the symbolic order is organized. Desire, in this context, becomes the site of political struggle: ideology interpellates subjects not by concealing the truth, but by organizing the way they enjoy.[6]
Joan Copjec and the Critique of Historicism
In her landmark book Read My Desire, Joan Copjec defends Lacan’s formal theory of the subject against feminist and Foucauldian critiques that reduce subjectivity to cultural construction. She relies on The Subversion of the Subject to argue that psychoanalysis offers a model of subjectivity irreducible to discursive power: a subject that is barred, desiring, and split—not wholly constituted by external norms or language, but by the failure of language to fully determine the subject.[3]
Copjec sees Lacan’s insistence on lack and non-identity as a radical alternative to theories that emphasize performativity or fluid identity, arguing instead for a logic of discontinuity and structural impossibility.
Alenka Zupančič and Ethics of the Real
Philosopher Alenka Zupančič has also drawn upon Lacan’s account of the split subject to develop her own work on ethics, comedy, and desire. For Zupančič, Lacan’s formalism is not cold abstraction but a radical ethics of truth—one that acknowledges the subject’s constitutive inconsistency and refusal to be fully captured by meaning. The essay serves as a foundation for her efforts to rethink ethics and the subject beyond the binary of law and transgression.[7]
Critiques and Debates
Despite its influence, The Subversion of the Subject has also drawn criticism, particularly regarding its complexity and perceived formalism.
Accessibility and Style
Many readers—clinicians and scholars alike—have struggled with the density and abstraction of Lacan’s prose. His use of algebraic notation (e.g., $\bar{S}$, $S_1$, $S_2$) and graphic models such as the Graph of Desire has led to critiques that the text is impenetrable or unnecessarily obscure. Some argue that Lacan’s style constitutes a barrier to broader engagement with psychoanalysis, especially outside the French-speaking world.
However, defenders contend that this formalism is necessary to maintain the rigor and specificity of psychoanalytic theory, and that simplifying Lacan risks losing the very structures he seeks to illuminate.[8]
Debates with Feminist and Poststructuralist Theories
Some feminist theorists have criticized Lacan’s emphasis on the symbolic and his reliance on the phallic function, arguing that it reinscribes patriarchal structures. Others, however, have found in Lacan’s model of the split subject a powerful tool for rethinking gender, sexuality, and identity—not as fixed categories but as effects of language and desire.
Similarly, debates persist between Lacanian theorists and Foucauldian/poststructuralist approaches to the subject. While Foucault emphasizes the historically contingent nature of subject formation through power/knowledge regimes, Lacan posits a formal, transhistorical structure grounded in language and lack. These differing paradigms continue to generate productive tensions in contemporary theory.
Conclusion
The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious stands as one of Jacques Lacan’s most important and ambitious essays. By weaving together linguistics, Freudian metapsychology, and philosophy, Lacan reformulates the psychoanalytic subject not as an interior essence or empirical individual, but as a position within a symbolic structure—split by language, animated by desire, and caught in the dialectic between self and Other.
Its conceptual innovations—especially the barred subject, the Graph of Desire, and the dialectic of desire—have reshaped the landscape of psychoanalytic theory and continue to inform contemporary debates in philosophy, critical theory, and the clinic. While complex and often difficult, the essay remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Lacan’s legacy and the evolving discourse of psychoanalysis.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bruce Fink, The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 54.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 186–188.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Joan Copjec, Read My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), p. 36.
- ↑ Jacques Lacan, Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 671–702.
- ↑ Bruce Fink, A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 12–14.
- ↑ Slavoj Žižek, Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 3–9.
- ↑ Alenka Zupančič, Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan (London: Verso, 2000), pp. 73–75.
- ↑ Jacques-Alain Miller, “Extimity,” in: Lacan and the Subject of Language, ed. Ellie Ragland and Mark Bracher (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 74–82.