Changes

On the one hand, he insisted on the importance of the physical substratum of all mental events, in keeping with the materialist axioms of the [[science|scientists]] whom he had most respected during his studies (principally Hermann Helmholtz and Ernst Brücke). On th eother the other hand, he opposed Charcot's attempts to explain all [[hysterical]] [[symptoms]] by reference to lesions in the brain, distinguished psychical reality from material reality, and constantly emphasized the role of experience rather than hereditary in the aetiology of nervous illness.

However, as with [[Freud]], [[Lacan]]'s declaratiosn declarations of [[materialism]] are highly complex. THus it It is clear even in [[Lacan]]'s earliest statements on the subject that he conceives of [[materialism]] in a very particular way. In 1936, for example, he argues that [[materialism]] does not imply a rejection of the categories of intentionality and meaning,<ref>{{Ec}} p.76-8</ref>, and he rejects the simplistic idea of 'matter' as "a naive form which has been left behind by authentic materialism."<ref>{{Ec}} p.90</ref> In 1946 he repeatedly criticizes the crude form of [[materialism]] which regards thought as a mere "epiphenomenon."<ref>{{Ec}} p.159</ref>

In 1946 he repeatedly criticizes the crude form of [[materialism]] which regards thought as a mere "epiphenomenon."<ref>{{Ec}} p.159</ref> And in 1956 he distinguishes between a "naturalist materialism" and a "Freudian materialism".<ref>{{Ec}} p.465-6</ref>

It is clear, then, that [[Lacan]] does not subscribe to that a kind of [[materialism]] which reduces all [[cause|causation]] to a crude economic determinism, and which regards all cultural phenomena (including [[language]]) as a mere superstructure,"<ref>{{E}} p.125</ref> and argues that [[language]] "is something material."<ref>{{S2}} p.82</ref>