Changes

[[Jacques Lacan]] posits a distinction between [[human]]s and other [[animal]]s, that is, between 'human society' and 'animal society'.<ref>S1 p.223</ref> The basis of this distinction is [[language]]; [[humanHuman]]s have [[language]], whereas [[animal]]s merely have [[code]]s.

==Nature and Culture==[[Lacan]] adopts the traditional [[anthropology|anthropological]] opposition between [[naturenauture]] and [[culture]] ([[culture]] being, in [[Lacan]]ian terms, the [[symbolic]] [[order]]).

<blockquote>"The primordial Law is therefore that which in regulating marriage superimposes the kingdom of culture on that of a nature abandoned to the law of mating."<ref>{{E. }} p.66</ref></blockquote>

The regulation of kinship by In other words, what is unique about [[human]] beings is not that in human beings the [[incestimaginary]] [[tabooorder]] points to the fact that the paternal function is at distorted by the heart added dimension of the rift between [[human]]s and [[animalsymbolic]]s.

By inscribing ==Nature==There is not even a line of descent from [[male]] to [[male]] and thus ordering a series of generations, pure natural state at the [[father]] marks the difference between beginning in which the [[symbolic]] and the [[imaginary]]. In other words, what is unique about [[human]] beings is not that they lack the [[imaginarysubject]] dimension of might [[animalexist]] [[psychology]], but that before being caught up in human beings this [[imaginary]] [[order]] is distorted by the added dimension of the [[symbolic]]. The imaginary is what aniamls and human beings have in common, except that in human beings it is no longer a natural imaginary. Hence Lacan repudiates "the doctrine of a discontinuity between animal psychology and human psychology which is far away from our thoughts."<ref>{{Ec}} p.484</ref> -- On the other hand, [[Lacan]] also uses the term '[[nature]]' to denote the idea that there is a 'natural order' in [[human]] [[existence]].

This great [[fantasyLacan]] of uses the term '[[nature]] underlies modern [[psychology]], which attempts ' to explain denote the idea that there is a 'natural order' in [[human]] [[behavior]] by reference to ethological categories such as [[instinct]] and [[adaptationexistence]].

He argues that they are based on a failure to recognize the importance of the [[symbolic order]], which radically [[alienation|alienates]] human beings from the [[natural givens]] [[order]].

<blockquote>In the [[human ]] world, even "those significations [[signification]]s that are closest to [[need]], significations [[signification]]s that are relative to the most purely [[biological ]] insertion into a nutrittive and captivating environment, primordial significations[[signification]]s, are, in theri their sequence and in their very foundation, subject to the laws [[law]]s of the [[signifier]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 198</ref></blockquote>

Such a '[[mythical]]' pre--[[linguistic]] [[need]] can only be hypothesized after it has been articulated in [[demand]].

==Human Sexuality==The [[Lacanabsence]] thus argues that "the Freudian discovery teaches us that all natural harmony in man is profoundly disconcerted."<ref>S3. 83</ref> There is not even of a pure natural state at the beginning in which the [[human]] [[subject]] might [[exist]] before being caught up in the [[symbolicnatural]] [[order]]. [[Need]] is never present in a pure pre-[[linguistichuman]] state in the human being: such a 'mythical' pre-linguistic [[needexistence]] can only be hypothesized after it has been articulated seen most clearly in human [[demandsexuality]].

The [[absence]] of a [[natural]] [[order]] in [[human]] [[existence]] can be seen most clearly in human [[sexuality]]. [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] both argue that even [[sexuality]], which might seem to be the [[signification]] closest to nature in the human being, is completely caught up in the [[cultural]] [[order]]; there is no such thing, for the human being, as a natural [[sexual relationship]]. One consequence of this is that [[perversionPerversion]] cannot be defined by reference to a supposed [[natural]] or [[biological]] [[norm]] governing [[sexuality]].