Raiding the inarticulate since 2010

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Lacan tried to save the subject from structuralism

This is fascinating from Alain Badiou in this volume pg 8-9:

Given all of this, Lacan—this is the second aspect of his singular position—does not go as far as the “hard” structuralists like Foucault or the Heideggerians such as Derrida, who consider the category of the subject to be the mere avatar of a defunct metaphysics. Instead, Lacan wants to conserve this category in order to renew it from the ground up. This is because, for him, the subject remains at the heart of clinical experience. So Lacan saves the subject in the midst of a full­ non structuralist offensive against it. “His” subject is certainly subjugated to the signifying chain; it is divided, unbeknownst to itself, split, exposed to a radical alterity (what Lacan names “the discourse of the Other”).

It certainly accords with my engagement over the last year. There’s a parallel here I can still only dimly intuit between this ‘rescue mission’ and some attempts within sociological thought to rescue the individualism from individualism (Archer and Lahire being the obvious examples). How to bridge the gap? I have a few intuitions, none of which are fully formed:

  • Recognising diachronic psychodynamic influences on the synchronic exercise of reflexivity
  • Placing a much greater stress than Archer did on the cultural resources through which the inner dialogue is enacted*
  • Reconstructing the reflexive moments involved in analysis, including the quotidian project of actually seeking, funding and sustaining analysis in the first place

*I should stress that she was always immensely supportive of my attempt to do this. This was part of the reflexivity project she recognised the need for. I think it just wasn’t something she was intellectually drawn to.

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