Demand
Although the term "demand" only begins to figure prominently in Lacan's work from 1958 on, related themes are already present in the 1956-7 seminar.
It is in this seminar that Lacan discusses the call (l'appel), the baby's cry to the mother.[1]
Lacan argues that this cry (cri) is not merely an instinctual signal but "is inserted in a synchronic world of cries organized in a symbolic system.[2]
In other words, the infant's screams become organized in a linguistic structure long before the child is capable of articulating recognizable words.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.182
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.188