Structuralism

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Revision as of 11:08, 11 May 2006 by Riot Hero (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search


Lacan

In the 1950s, Lacan emphasized the role of language and the symbolic order.

Lacan was not a Strcturalist in any strict sense of the term, however, for two reasons.

First, Structuralism sought to dissolve the subject completely and saw subjects as merely the 'effect' of symbolic structures.

Lacan, on the other hand, while seeking to locate the constitution of the subject in relation to the symbolic, does not see the subject as simply reducible to an effect of language or the symbolic order.


Second, for Structuralism, a structure is always complete, while for Lacan the structure - the symbolic order - is never complete.

There is always something left over; an excess or something that exceeds the symbolic.

What exceeds the symbolic is the subject and the object.