Not Thinking Speaking -- A Study of Lacan's Subject Theory

Author: Huang Zuo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: Jaques Lacan is the most important philosopher in France since Descartes and one of the most creative and influential thinkers in Europe since Nietzsche and Freud. When examining the formation of the subject, Lacan proposed the famous "mirror stage" theory. Lacan believed that children between six and eighteen months use their reflection in the mirror to confirm their own image. This gradually helps them move away from the "fragmented body" and achieve a fundamental unity of identity. Before the mirror stage, children merely see their body as a pile of fragmented objects, and they even fear this incomplete body. At this stage, children cannot recognize the completeness of their body through self-perception—such as a sense of time, space, movement, and so on—only an external mirror can provide the subject with a structural wholeness. Of course, in many cases, the mirror Lacan refers to is merely a symbol—a symbol that is external to the subject but also gives it a position. Lacan is not primarily a philosopher, but he spent his life discussing a central philosophical issue since modern philosophy, namely the subject problem. On one hand, he rejects any form of the "I think" subject; on the other hand, he proposes a different kind of subject—the unconscious subject or the speaking subject. This book primarily develops along two lines: one is the line of time, and the other is the line of topological space, ultimately converging on the truth of the subject, that is, the unconscious as the home of the subject. Regarding the line of time, the time mentioned in the book mainly refers to the developmental history of the subject. Psychoanalysis emphasizes that neither the mirror stage nor the Oedipus stage should be understood as stages in human growth or maturation—Freud's three stages of the sexual drive are typical examples of stage theories—but they should only be regarded as turning points with certain meanings. As for the self, which is undoubtedly formed later, it should be examined from the perspective of development or time. As for the subject problem, Simone, a Parisian psychoanalyst who once lectured on psychoanalysis in China, believed that Lacan primarily discusses the subject problem from a topological perspective, not from a temporal dimension. The topology theory of the Three Realms is a field Lacan focused on in his later years, which seems not to be the pseudo-science mocked by Sokal, because it is said that two French topologists later worked with him. Topology emphasizes continuity and does not allow tearing or separation. This book provides an in-depth and systematic philosophical analysis of Lacan's unconscious subject theory, with a novel perspective and thorough arguments.