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The [[concept ]] of [[causality]] forms an important thread that runs throughout [[Lacan]]'s entire [[work]].

It first appears in the context of the question of the [[cause]] of [[psychosis]], which is a central concern of [[Lacan]]'s doctoral [[thesis ]] <ref>{{L}} ''[[Works of Jacques Lacan|De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1975.</ref>.

[[Lacan]] returns to this question in 1946, where the [[cause]] of [[madness]] becomes the very [[essence ]] of all psychical [[causality]]. In the 1946 paper he reiterates his earlier view that a specifically [[psyche|psychical]] [[cause]] is needed to explain [[psychosis]]; however, he also questions the possibility of defining "[[psychical]]" in [[terms ]] of a simple opposition to the concept of matter, and this leads him, in 1955, to dispense with the simplistic [[notion ]] of "psychogenesis."<ref>{{S3}} p. 7</ref>.

In the 1950s [[Lacan]] begins to address the very concept of [[causality]] itself, arguing that it is to be situated on the border between the [[symbolic]] and the [[real]]; it implies "a mediation between the [[chain ]] of [[symbols ]] and [[The Real|the real]]."<ref>{{S2}} p.192</ref>.

He argues that the concept of [[causality]], which underpins all [[science]], is itself a non-[[scientific ]] concept; "the very notion of cause ... is established on the basis of an original wager."<ref>{{S2}} p. 192</ref>.

In the [[seminar]] of 1962-3, [[Lacan]] argues that the [[true ]] [[meaning]] of [[causality]] should be looked for in the phenomenon of [[anxiety]], for [[anxiety]] is the cause of [[doubt]].

He then [[links ]] this with the concept of ''[[objet petit a]]'', which is now defined as the [[cause]] of [[desire]], rather than that towards which [[desire]] tends.

In 1964, [[Lacan]] uses [[Aristotle]]'s typology of [[cause]]s to illustrate the [[difference ]] between the [[symbolic]] and the [[real]].

[[Lacan]] returns to the [[subject]] of [[causality]] in his 1965-6 [[seminar]], where he distinguishes between [[magic]], [[religion]], [[science]] and [[psychoanalysis]] on the basis to their [[relationship ]] to [[truth]] as [[cause]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 855-77</ref>

[[Lacan]] also plays on the ambiguity of the term, since besides [[being ]] "that which provokes an effect," a [[cause]] is also "that for which one fights, that which one [[defends]]."

[[Lacan]] clearly sees himself as fighting for "the [[Freudian ]] cause," although this fight can only be won when one realises that the [[cause]] of the [[unconscious]] is always "a lost cause."<ref>{{S11}} p. 128</ref>.