The Psychoanalytic Act, Book XV

The Seminar of Jacques Lacan
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5095-6767-6
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 270 Seiten

This Seminar is a turning point. It deals with a single question, to which hitherto Lacan had never responded unless obliquely: 'what is an analyst?' His reply is that an analyst is an analysand (a word which Lacan introduces to replace the term 'being analysed') who has seen the analytic experience through to its end. What is this ideal end? To find out, one needs to articulate the logic of the pathway though an analysis. At its beginning, there is an unprecedented desire, which presupposes a breach, that is to say an act, in the manner of Caesar crossing the Rubicon. This act is the analysand's act, but the psychoanalytic act in the strict sense is performed by the psychoanalyst by opening up the field of 'subject supposed to know' to the analysand, in which the unconscious is deciphered. At the end, the s.s.k dissolves, while the analyst, its support, is evacuated as the discard of the operation, like Oedipus ending his life with his eyes gouged out. The analysand, now analysed, takes over as analyst. But why, when he now knows what lies in store for him?

A few lessons are devoted to the logic of quantification, which Lacan starts to explore and which will later develop into his theory of sexuation.

The unforeseen conclusion sees Lacan commenting in the heat of the moment on the events of May '68, which were coeval with the end of the Seminar.

Jacques-Alain Miller

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lacan, Jacques

Miller, Jacques-Alain

Weitere Mitwirkende

Price, Adrian

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Kulturphilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

INTRODUCTION
I. Act and action
II. The connerie of truth
III. Not being analysed, but analysand
THE END OF AN ANALYSIS
IV. Discards of the analytic output
V. The path of an analysis
VI. Becoming discard
VII. Act and doing
VIII. From psychoanalysand to psychoanalyst

EXPLORATIONS IN LOGIC
IX. Putting the subject supposed to know in question
X. The unconscious and logic
XI. Some insights into quantification
XII. From all to object a
XIII. The status of the psychoanalyst

REMARKS
XIV. Thissafare
XV. The events of May
XVI. The year ends

APPENDICES
Some references and edutainment from Jacques-Alain Miller
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) was one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. His many works include Écrits, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis and the many volumes of the Seminar.