24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{JL}}
[[Image:Jacques-lacan-4.jpg|thumb|250px|right]]
<!--
{{Infobox_Scientist
| name = Jacques Lacan
| image = Lacan3.jpg
| image_width = 200px
| caption =
| birth_date = [[13 April]] [[1901]]
| birth_place = [[Paris]], [[France]]
| death_date = [[9 September]] [[1981]]
| death_place = [[Paris]], [[France]]
| residence =
| citizenship = France
| nationality =
| ethnicity =
| field = [[Psychology]]
| work_institution =
| alma_mater =
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for =
| author_abbreviation_bot =
| author_abbreviation_zoo =
| prizes =
| religion =
| footnotes =
}}
-->
[[Jacques Lacan|Jacques-Marie Émile Lacan]] ([[Jacques Lacan:Chronology#1901|13 April 1901]] – [[Jacques Lacan:Chronology#1981|9 September 1981]]) was a [[French]] [[psychoanalyst]] and [[psychiatrist]] who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis, [[philosophy]], and [[literary]] [[theory]]. Giving yearly [[seminars]] in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially the post-[[structuralist]] [[philosophers]]. His interdisciplinary [[work]] is [[Freudian]], featuring the [[unconscious]], the [[castration]] [[complex]], the ego, [[identification]], and [[language]] as [[subjective]] [[perception]]. His [[ideas]] have had a significant impact on [[critical theory]], [[literary theory]], twentieth-century French philosophy, [[sociology]], [[feminist]] theory and [[clinical]] psychoanalysis.
== def Biography== <blockquote>''[[Image:Lacan-Roudinesco.gifChronology|thumb|right|Cover Click here for a more complete chronology of [[Elisabeth Roudinesco]]'s biography of Lacan]] '''Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan''' ([[April 13's life]].''</blockquote>;1901:13 April, Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan is [[1901born]] – in Paris, to a [[September 9family]], of solid [[1981Catholic]]) was a [[France|Frenchtradition]] . He is educated at the collège Stanislas, a Jesuit school. After his ''baccalauréat'' he studies [[psychoanalystmedicine]] and later [[psychiatristpsychiatry]]. His work;1927: Starts clinical [[training]], like most psychoanalytic work, owes a heavy, explicit debt to works at [[Sigmund FreudSainte-Anne's hospital]], but also drew from a number of other fields, including linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics. This interdisciplinary focus A year later he works in his work has led him to be an important figure in many fields beyond psychoanalysis - particularly within the Special Infirmary Service where [[Clérambault]] had a [[critical theorypractice]]. ;1932His central idea was that the human subject is a creation of its use of language:Awarded doctorate for his [[thesis]], ''[[De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité]]''. From this understanding Lacan develops his study ;1933:The richness of psychoanalysis and his treatment strategies. His workthesis, while controversial, continues to influence especially the development [[analysis]] of psychoanalysis worldwide. In France and elsewhere various "schools" the [[case]] of Lacanian thought have emerged. Although there exist various competing emphases on Lacan[[Aimée]], makes him famous with the [[Surrealist]]s. BEtween this year and 1939 he takes [[Kojève]]'s work among these course at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes [[Etudes]], an "schools", all agree in Introduction to the fundamental importance [[reading]] of the unconscious. By structuring the options available to any speaking subject in the articulation of his or her desires, the unconscious determines the very fabric of human life as we may come to know it, according to Lacan[[Hegel]].";1934==Career==Lacan took up the study of medicine in 1920 and specialised in psychiatry from 1926. :He undertook his own analysis around this time with [[Rudolph Loewensteinmarries]] and this continued until 1938. Lacan was very active in the world of Parisian writers[[Marie-Louise]] Blondon, artists and intellectuals of the time: he was a friend [[mother]] of [[André BretonCaroline]], [[Salvador DalíThibaut]] and [[PicassoSibylle]]{{fact}}, and attended the ''mouvement Psyché'' founded by . While in analysis with Rudolph [[Maryse ChoisyLoewenstein]]. He made contributions to several Surrealist publications and was present at , Lacan becomes a member of the first public reading of [[James Joyce]]’s ''[[Ulysses (novel)[Société Psychanalytique de Paris|UlyssesSociété psychanalytique de Paris]]]]''. In his studies he had a particular interest in the philosophic work of ([[Karl JaspersSociété psychanalytique de Paris|SPP]] and [[Martin Heidegger]] and).;1940:Works at Val-de-Grâce, alongside many other Parisian intellectuals of the timemilitary hospital in Paris. During the [[German]] Occupation, he also attended the famous seminars on does not take part in any [[Hegelofficial]] given by [[Alexandre Kojèveactivity]]. ;1946Lacan presented his first analytic paper on ‘The Mirror Phase’ at :In 1946, the 1936 Congress [[SPP]] resumes its activities and Lacan, with Nacht and Lagache, takes charge of the International Psychoanalytical Association in Marienbad. He was called up to serve in the French army after the German occupation of France training [[analyses]] and supervisory [[control]] and was posted to the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. After the end of the war Lacan visited England for a five week study trip, meeting English analysts plays an important [[Wilfred Biontheoretical]] and John Rickman. He was much influenced by Bion’s analytic work with groups and this contributed to his own later emphasis on study groups (in France, cartels) as a structure with which to advance theoretical work in psychoanalysisinstitutional [[role]]. ;1951In 1951 Lacan started :The [[SPP]] begins to hold a weekly seminar at raise the St-Anne Hospital Parisissue of Lacan's [[short sessions]], urging what he described as ‘a return to Freud’ and, in particular, opposed to Freud’s concentration upon the linguistic nature of psychological symptomatology. Very influential in Parisian cultural life as well as in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, the seminars drew large crowds and continued for nearly thirty yearsstandard analytical hour. ;1953:In January Lacan was a member is elected President of the Société Parisienne de Psychanalyse ([[SPP), which was a member body of ]]. Six months later he resigns to join the ''[[International Psychoanalytical AssociationSociété Française de Psychanalyse]] '' (IPA[[SFP]])with D. In 1953Lagache, F. Dolto, after a disagreement about analytic practice methodsJ. Favez-Boutonier among [[others]]. In Rome, Lacan and many of delivers his colleagues left the SPP to form a new group the report, "''[[Société Française Fonction et champ de Psychanalysela parole et du langage]] (SFP)''". One On 17 July he marries [[Sylvia]] Maklès, mother of the consequences of this move was to deprive the new group of membership within the IPA[[Judith]]. In That autumn Lacan starts his [[seminar]]s at the following years a complex process of negotiation was to take place to determine the status of the SFP within the IPA[[Hôspital Sainte-Anne]]. Lacan’s practice, with his controversial innovation of variable-length sessions;1954:The first ten [[seminar]]s elaborate fundamental notions [[about]] [[psychoanalytic]] [[technique]], and the critical stance he took towards much essential [[concepts]] of the accepted orthodoxy [[psychoanalysis]], and its [[ethics]]. During this period Lacan writes, on the basis of psychoanalytic theory his seminars, conferences and practice led, addresses in 1963colloquia, to a condition being set by the IPA that the registration of the SFP was dependent upon Lacan being removed from the list of training analysts with the organisation. Lacan refused such a condition and left the SFP to form his own school which became know as the major [[texts]] that are found in ''[École Freudienne de Paris[Ecrits]] (EFP)'' in 1966. Leaving the St-Anne Hospital where he had delivered ;1956:Celebrities are attracted to his seminar up to this point Lacan began to give it instead at the elite higher education establishment the seminars ([[Jean Hyppolite]]'s analysis of [[École Normale SupérieureFreud]]. Lacan began to set forth his own teaching 's article 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. Many students of Lacan became important psychoanalysts and/or wrote influential contributions to philosophy and other fields. [''Dé[[Michel Foucaultnégation]]'', given during the first seminar, is a well-known example). [[Jacques DerridaAlexandre Koyré]], Claude Lévi-[[Louis AlthusserStrauss]], Maurice [[JacquesMerleau-Alain MillerPonty]], and ethnologist Marcel Griaule, Emile Benveniste among others attend his courses.;1962:[[Luce IrigaraySFP]], members [[Jean Laplanchewant]], and even to be recognized by the [[Claude LeviInternational Psycho-StraussAnalytical Association]] ([[IPA]]). The [[IPA]], for example, all attended issues an ultimatum: Lacan's seminars at some point. Lacan's first seminar in 1964 was later published in English as ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysisname]] must be crossed off the [[list]]''of didacticians. Lacan continued to deliver his public exposition ;1963:Two weeks before the expiry of the deadline set by the IPA (31 October), the committee of didacticians of the [[SFP]] gives up its courageous stand of analytic theory 1962 and practice for pronounces in favour of the next seventeen years.ban: Lacan is no longer one of the didacticians.;1964==The :Lacanians [[form]] a Study Group on Psychoanalysis organized by Jean Clavreul, until Lacan official founds the 'Return to Freud'==Following Freud[[Ecole Française de Psychanalyse]]''s death, psychoanalytic practice split into many differing schools of thought. Against which soon becomes the backdrop of these divergent currents of psychoanalytic theory, Lacan called for a 'return to Freud'[[Ecole Freudienne de Paris]]'' ([[EFP]]). Lacan accused later psychoanalysts of a superficial understanding of Freud, claiming they had so cautiously adhered to his ideas that they had served to block rather than to induce scientific investigation of the mental process. Lacan wanted to return to Freud's thought, With [[Lévi-Strauss]] and expand it in light of its own tensions and currents. In fact[[Althusser]]'s support, near the end of his life he remarked to a conference, "It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish; I am Freudianappointed lecturer at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.";1965It should also be emphasised that :In January Lacan insisted that begins his work was not, in his eyes, an interpretation but a ''translation'' new seminar on "[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Freud into structural-linguistic termsPsychoanalysis]]" at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Freud's ideas His audience is made up of 'slips of the tongue', jokes [[analysts]] and suchlike – Lacan insisted – all emphasised young students in philosophy at the agency of language in subjective constitutionENS, such that had Freud lived contemporaneously with notably [[Claude LéviJacques-Strauss|Lévi-StraussAlain Miller]], .;1966:[[Roland Barthes|BarthesEcrits]] and, principally, had Freud been aware of Paris: Seuil 1966. The book draws considerable attention to the work of [[Ferdinand de Saussure|SaussureEFP]], he would have done extending far beyond the same as himintelligentsia. In his famous essay, "Freud and ;1967:Lacan", fellow structuralist presents the ''[[Louis AlthusserActe]] makes this point particularly well: <blockquote>"In his first great work de Fondation''The Interpretation of Dreamsthe [[EFP]]; its novelty lies in the procedure of '' […[passe]], Freud studied the ‘mechanisms’ and ‘laws’ of dreams, reducing their variants to two: ''displacement. The '' and '[[passe]]'condensation''. Lacan recognized these as two essential figures consists of speechtestifying, called in linguistics [respectively] metonymy and metaphor. Hence slips, failures, jokes and symptoms, like the elements front of dreams themselves, become two ''signifierspasseurs'', inscribed in the chain of to one's [[experience]] as an unconscious discourse, doubling silently, i.e. deafeningly, in analysand and especially to the misrecognition crucial [[moment]] of ‘repression’, passage from the chain of the human subject’s verbal discourse. […[position]] Hence the most important acquisitions of de Saussure and of the linguistics that descends from him began [[analysand]] to play a justified part in the understanding of the process of the unconscious as well as that of the verbal discourse of the subject and of their inter-relationship, i[[analyst]].e. of their identical relation and non-relation in other words, of their reduplication and dislocation ( The ''décalagepasseurs''are chosen by their [[analyst]]s (generally analysts of the EFP)." (Althusser, ‘Freud and Lacan’ should be at the same [[stage]] in their [[analytic]] experience as the ''Lenin and Philosophy and other essayspassant'', trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books They listen to him and then, 1971)in turn, pp. 191 – 192. </blockquote> The 'return they testify to Freud'what they have heard in front of a committee for approval composed of the director, thereforeLacan, is primarily the realisation that the pervading agency of the unconscious is to be understood as intimately tied to the functions and dynamics of language, where, for examplesome AE, ''[[analyste]] de l'école'' (analyst of the signifier school). This committee's function is irremediably divorced from to select the analysts of the signifiedSchool and to elaborate, ultimately resulting in Lack. It is here that Lacan began his after the selecting [[process]], a 'work on "correcting" Freud from withinof [[doctrine]]'. As Malcolm Bowie puts it:;1969<blockquote>"For Lacan, Freud:The issue of the ''passe'' keeps invading the EFP's central insight was not [[life]]...] that "''Le quatrième groupe''" is formed around those who resign from the unconscious exists, but that it has structure, that this structure affects in innumerable ways what we say EFP disputing over Lacan's methods for the analysts' training and do, and that in thus betraying itself it becomes accessible to analysis"accreditation. (Malcolm Bowie, 'Jacques Lacan' takes a stand in John Sturrock (ed.), ''Structuralism and Sincethe crisis of the [[university]] that follows May [[1968]]: From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press"If psychoanalysis cannot be articulated as a [[knowledge]] and taught as such, 1979)it has no [[place]] in the university, pwhich deals only with knowledge. 118).</blockquote> (The 'return to Freud' in " The ENS director finds a pretext for telling Lacan that he is no longer welcome at the ENS at the full sense beginning of the termacademic year. Moreover, as briefly explained above, begins with his paper ‘The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud’ (journal ''ÉcritsCahiers pour l'[[Analyse]]'' has to cease publication, ppbut [[Vincennes]] appears as an alternative. 161 - 197).) Michel [[Foucault]] asks Lacan's principal challenge to Freudian theory is create and direct the privilege that it accords Department of Psychoanlaysis at Vincennes. Thanks to Lévi-Strauss, Lacan moves his seminars to the ego in self-determinationlaw school of the Panthéon. ;1974:The central pillar Vincennes Department of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory Psychoanalysis is that renamed "[[the unconscious is structured like a languageLe Champ freudien]]". The unconsciouswith Lacan its director and [[Jacques-Alain Miller]] its president.;1980:On 9 January, he argued, was not a more primitive or archetypal part Lacan announces the [[dissolution]] of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, but rather, a formation every bit as complex and linguistically sophisticated as consciousness itself. If the unconscious is structured like a language, Lacan argues, then the self is denied any point of reference EFP and asks those who [[wish]] to which continue [[working]] with him to be 'restored' following trauma or 'identity crisis'[[state]] their intentions in [[writing]]. He receives over one thousand letters within a week. In this way On 21 February, Lacan's thesis announces the founding of the structurally dynamic unconscious is also a challenge to school ''[[La Cause freudienne]]'', later renamed the ego psychology that Freud himself opposed''[[Ecole de la Cause freudienne]]''.;1981==Major concepts===== The mirror stage (''le stade du miroir'') ===:9 September, Lacan dies in Paris.<!--;1901 - 1938The :[[mirror stageLacan]] is described in Lacan's essay, "The Mirror Stage as formative in the function of the ''I'' as revealed in psychoanalytic experience", studies medicine and [[psychiatry]] and completes his [[De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité|doctoral thesis]] on [[paranoia|paranoid]] [[psychosis]]. He presents a paper on the [[mirror stage]] - his first theoretical contribution to [[psychoanalysis]] - at a conference of his ''Écrits'', which remains one of his seminal papers. Some have crudely put this as the point at which the child 'recognises' him[[International Psycho- or herself Analytical Association]] in the mirror image, but this is unfaithful to what Lacan has in mind and also confuses his terminology[[Marienbad]]. ;1938 - 1953 :[[Lacan's emphasis here ]] is on a member of the process of ''identification[[Société psychanalytique de Paris]]'' with an outside image or entity induced through, as until he puts it, "insufficiency resigns to anticipation – and which manufactures for join the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic – and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid structure the subject’s entire mental development" (Lacan, ''Écrits'' (rvd. edn., 2002), 'The mirror stage', p. 5).[[Société Française de Psychanalyse]]''.;1953 - 1963It is significant that this process of identification is the :[[Lacan]] begins his first step towards the manufacture of the subject because all that follows it - the transition into the Imaginary and the Symbolic order - is based on this misrecognition [[public]] [[seminar]] (''méconnaissance''which he will continue to give annually until his [[death]]): this is the process that Lacan detects as manifesting itself at every subsequent identification with another person. Thereafter, identity (''not'' he rises to be confused with 'identification') or suchlike throughout the subject's life. This is the start of a lifelong process of identifying the self become a renowned and controversial [[figure]] in terms of the Otherinternational psychoanalytic [[community]]. What is also occasionally overlooked is the experiential basis of ;1963 - 1980:[[Lacan's early paper. As one writer has observed: "To evidence concerning ]] leaves the role of [[SFP]] and founds his own [[school]], the other in childhood – ''[[École Freudienne de Paris]]'' . Following the publication of the situation known as "transitivism[[Écrits]]," for instance, where the child will impute his own actions to another – Lacan adds evidence from animal biology, where it has been experimentally shown that a perceptual relationship to another there is an explosion of the same species is necessary interest in his work in the normal maturing process. Without the visual presence of others, the maturing process is delayed, although it can be restored to a more nearly normal tempo by placing a mirror in the animal’s cageFrance and abroad.--><!--{| class="wikitable" ([[Anthony Wilden]], width="Lacan and the discourse of the Other100%" in Lacan, ''The Language of the Self: the Function of Language in Psychoanalysis'', trans. Anthony Wilden (London and Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 159 – 160.) cellpadding="2" align="center" bgcolor=The Other"ffffff" style="background:#ffffff;width:100%; height:200px; text-align:center; line-height:2.0em;"| width="50px" style=In contrast to the dominant Anglo-American "valign:top;" | [[ego-psychologist{{Y}}|1901]]<BR>-<BR>[[{{Y}}|1938]]s of his time, Lacan considered the self as something constituted in the <BR>| align="Other[[left]]", that is, the conception of the externalstyle="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0. 5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan argues that the psychoanalytic movement towards understanding the ego as a coherent force with dominion over a person's psyche was rooted in a misunderstanding of Freud. In Lacan's view, the self remained in eternal internal conflict ]] studies medicine and that only extensive self-deceit made the situation bearable. His developmental theory of the objectified self was inspired by [[Ferdinand de Saussurepsychiatry]]'s insights into the relationship of the signifier and the signified - the role of language and reference in thought were central to completes his formulations, particularly the Symbolic[[De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité|doctoral thesis]] on [[paranoia|paranoid]] [[psychosis]]. ===The Real, He presents a paper on the Imaginary, and the Symbolic===Lacan also formulated the concepts of [[the Realmirror stage]], -- his first theoretical contribution to [[the Imaginarypsychoanalysis]], and -- at a conference of the [[the SymbolicInternational Psycho-Analytical Association]], which he used to describe the elements of the ([[psychic structureIPA]]) in Marienbad. Lacan's notion of the Real is a very difficult concept which he, in his later years, worked to present in a structured, set-theory fashion, as |-| width="50px" | [[matheme{{Y}}|1938]]s. The Imaginary, or non<BR>-linguistic aspect of the psyche, formulates human primitive <BR>[[self-knowledge{{Y}}|1953]] while the Symbolic, his term for linguistic collaboration, generates a [[community]]-wide reflection of <BR>| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[primitiveLacan]] self-knowledge and creates the very first set is a member of rules that govern behavior. The Real is the unspeakable reality, always present but continually mediated through the imaginary and the symbolic. The Imaginary is the realm of spatial identification that begins with the mirror stage (see above([[IPA]] affiliated), and is instrumental in the development of psychic agency. As discussed, it is here that the emerging subject is able to ''identify'[[Société psychanalytique de Paris]]' his or her mirror image as 'self([[SPP]]) until he resigns to join the '', as distinguished from [[Société Française de Psychanalyse]]'other'([[SFP]]). However, this process entails a certain structural alienation in that what is designated as 'self' is ''formed through'' what is Other – namely, the mirror image. What becomes the Subject proper is made through inception into the Symbolic order, which is when the infant acquires the ability to use language – that is, to realise his or her desire through speech. |-| width===Other important concepts===* "50px" | [[The Name of the Father{{Y}}|1953]]*Oedipal drama and the Oedipal signification* <BR>-<BR>[[Objet Petit a{{Y}}|1963]]<BR>* [[Signifier]]/ [[Signified]]*Desire*The Drive*| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[JouissanceLacan]]*The begins his first public [[Phallus]]*Das Ding* the [[gazeseminar]](which he will continue to give annually until his death). * Thereafter, he rises to become a renowned and controversial figure in the international psychoanalytic community.|-| width="50px" | [[four discourses]]* the [[graph of desire{{Y}}|1963]]* the <BR>-<BR>[[Borromean clinic{{Y}}|1980]]<BR>* [[Anamorphism| Anamorphosis]] align="left" style=Writings and seminars==Although "padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan is a major figure in ]] leaves the history of [[psychoanalysisSFP]], he made (after his most significant contributions not in "[[expulsion]]" from the traditional form of books [[IPA]]) and journal articles, but through founds his own [[seminarschool]] lectures - in fact, he explicitly disclaimed publication in his later life. the ''The Seminar of Jacques Lacan[[École Freudienne de Paris]]'', conducted over a period ([[EFP]]). Following the publication of more than two decades, contains the majority of his life's work, though several of these remain unpublished. Furthermore, the accuracy of the transcriptions of the seminars is disputed, with [[Sherry Turkle]] claiming that [[Jacques-Alain Miller[Écrits]](1966), Lacan's son-there is an explosion of interest in his work in-law, made extensive changes to add clarity to the material (Turkle, ''Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan France and Freud's French Revolution'', pabroad. 254|-255). | width="50px" | [[{{Y}}|1980]]<BR>-<BR>[[{{Y}}|1981]]<BR>His only major body of writing, ''Écrits'', is notoriously difficult to read| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0. 5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan]] single-handedly dissolves the [[EFP]] and creates in its stead the ''Seminar XX'' remarks that his ''Écrits[[École de la Cause freudienne|Cause freudienne]]'' were not to be understood.However, but would produce a meaning effect in the reader similar to some mystical texts. Part of the reason for this, it should be emphasised, are the repeated [[Hegelian[Lacan]] allusions (themselves derived from soon dissolves the ''[[Alexandre KojèveÉcole de la Cause freudienne|KojèveCause freudienne]]'s lectures on Hegel, which Lacan attended) and similar unheralded theoretical divergences and not, first and foremost, Lacan's obscure prose style, as some have alleged. == Lacan and his discontents ==Although Lacan is often associated with it, he was not without his critics from within the major figures of what is broadly termed [[postmodernism]]. (Several writers, such as [[Slavoj Žižek]], have argued specifically against considering Lacan a poststructuralist theorist.) Along these lines, [[Jacques Derrida]] (though Derrida did not endorse nor associate himself with postmodernism) made a considerable critique of Lacan's analytic writings, accusing him of taking a [[structuralism|structuralist]] approach to psychoanalysis, but this is hardly surprising. In particular, Derrida criticises Lacanian theory for an inherited Freudian ''phallocentrism'', exemplified primarily in his conception of the ''phallus'' as the 'primary signifier' that determines the social order of signifiers. It could be said that much of Derrida's critique of Lacan stems from his relationship with Freud: for example, Derrida deconstructs the Freudian conception of 'penis envy', upon which female subjectivity is determined, to show that the primacy of the male phallus entails a hierarchy between phallic presence and absence that ultimately implodes upon itself. Nonetheless, Lacan can be said to enjoy an awkward relationship with feminism and post-feminism in that, while he is much criticised for adopting (or inheriting from Freud) a phallocentric stance within his psychoanalytic theories, he is also taken by many to provide an accurate portrayal of the gender biases within society. Some critics accuse Lacan of maintaining the [[sexism|sexist]] tradition in psychoanalysis. Others, such as [[Judith Butler]] and [[Jane Gallop]] have offered readings of Lacan's work that opened up new possibilities for [[feminism|feminist]] theory, making it difficult to seriously reject Lacan wholesale due to sexism - although specific parts of his work may well subject to criticism on these grounds. In either case, traditional feminism has profited from Lacan's accounts to show that society has an inherent sexual bias that denigratingly reduces womanhood to a status of deficiency. Within the world outside the humanities and critical theory, criticism of Lacan tends to dismiss him/his work in a more or less wholesale fashion. [[François Roustang]], in ''The Lacanian Delusion'', called Lacan's output "extravagant" and an "incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish". In ''[[Fashionable Nonsense]]'' (1997), [[Alan Sokal]] and [[Jean Bricmont]] accuse Lacan of abusing scientific concepts. Defenders of Lacanian theories dispute the validity of such criticism, and point out that Sokal has explicitly stated that he does not understand Lacan's texts. According to Lacanians, the dismissal by Sokal and his allies precludes any valid criticism of his theories, and is instead motivated by a desire to "police the boundaries" of what constitutes an appropriate use of scientific terminology. ==Sources==*[http://www.lacan.com/rolleyes.htm Chronology of Jacques Lacan]*[http://www.lacan.com/seminars1a.htm The Seminars of Jacques Lacan]* [http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyxx.htm Jacques Lacanand replaces it with the ''s Complete French Bibliography[[École de la Cause freudienne]*[http://www.lacan.com/kantsade.htm Jacques Lacan; Kant with Sade]''.*[http://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm Of Structure as the Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever] Johns Hopkins University - 1966*[http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm The Seminar on "The Purloined Letter"]|}* [http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html Chomsky's remarks]>
==Bibliography==
==References=Theory===*[http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm Lacan Dot Com]*[http://www.hydra.umn.edu/lacan/index.html Lacan Online]*[http://www.ubu.com/sound/lacan.html UBUweb] - radio features and interviews w<references/ Lacan on ubu.com>
<!--===Criticism=See Also=={{See}}* [[Psychoanalysis]]* [[Psychology]]||*[http://www.dylan.org.uk/lacan.pdf From Lacan [Return to Darwin (PDF)Freud]]* [[International Psycho-Analytical Association]]||* [[Ego-psychology]]* [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]]||* [[Object-relations theory]]{{Also}}-->
==External Links==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan Wikipedia Entry]
