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Younger than Lacan and a professor at the College de France since 1953, the philosopher died suddenly in May 1961. Les Temps modernes, where he pub�lished from the beginning, devoted a special issue to him. Lacan's tribute is ambiguous, to say the least. The grandiloquence of the funeral oration at the beginning and at the end contrasts with a presentation numbered in twelve points, which is, for the main part, a critique of La Phenomen%gle de /0 perception (1945). Although he had praised him in 1953-1954 (26), as early as the following year (27), he had denounced Merleau-Ponty's humanist po�sition- "one can see where it leads him." Here, "his intention (is] covered and restrained by the properly academic link, even if impatiently put to the lest, even if broadened in [[public ]] debate." One year after this [[text ]] (SO) and then again in 1964, at the rue d'Ulm (55), [[Lacan ]] started attacking again, to the great [[pleasure ]] of the novice [[philosophers ]] of the [[time]]. In any [[case]], the [[present ]] text-especially regarding the "[[body ]] as sexed [[being]]" and "the body as expression of [[speech]]" -placed [[Merleau-Ponty ]] among the backward think�ers of the [[metaphysics ]] of the [[subject ]] and of the body, as opposed to the innovators of the primacy of the [[signifier ]] and of [[structure]]. Is this text a critical [[reading ]] of Merleau-Ponty? Is its [[violence ]] poorly veiled by the mask of argu�mentation? Or is it an irreparable misunderstanding? Rather, it otTers a presentation of Lacan's [[doctrine]]. Contrary to the philo�sopher's [[concept ]] of the "sensible," improperly reduced to the traditional

pcrceptum, Lacan asserts that the body has no [[place ]] in [[psychoanalysis]]. Contrary to the [[philosopher]]'s reading of [[Sade]], Lacan gives his own, already sketched in L'Ethiqlle (43) and later to be developed in [[Kant ]] avec Sade (51). There is even disagreement concerning the [[relationship ]] between art and [[desire ]] (in painting): "The eye is meant not to see"; the [[artist ]] "gives us access to the place of that which cannot be seen: it would still remain to be named"-and this foreshadows Les QIICltre [[Concepts ]] (55). To assert an opposition between psychoanalysis and [[philosophy ]] would be simplistic. To assert an opposition between a quest for the "purity" of the signifier on the one hand, and a research grounded in the body and in a con�crete relation to the [[world ]] on the [[other ]] hand would be even more so. Further�more, Lacan refuses to bet on [[life ]] against [[death]]; rather, he bets on the greatness of "between-two-deaths" against a radically devaluated life (43, 47). The fundamental positions of the two thinkers are [[irreconcilable]].