Lacan and the Concept of the 'Real'

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Philosophers and political theorists have engaged Lacan's concept of the 'Real' in particular, with Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou deriving profound philosophical and political consequences from what is the most difficult of Lacan's ideas. This is the first book in English to explore in detail the genesis and consequences of Lacan's concept of the 'Real', providing readers with an invaluable key to one of the most influential ideas of modern times, combining as it does a seemingly paradoxical attention to the contingency and impossibility of human existence. Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: Approaching the Real 12 Methodological reflections 14 Lacan studies today 17 Chapter outline 21 1 The Imaginary and the Real 26 Introduction 26 The 'Mirror Stage' 29 The image of the other 30 Ego-ideal 36 From 'ideal-ego' i(a) to objet petit a 42 2 The Real and the Symbolic 47 Introduction 47 Language and psychosis 50 Schreber and the Symbolic 53 Freud's navel 56 Lacan's letter 61 Unary trait 65 3 Space and the Real 72 Introduction 72 Boundary/limit 74 A real topology? 78 Imaginary space 82 Symbolic space 84 The Real as absent cause 90 Objet petit a between boundary and limit 93 Sexuation and space 97 4 The Real and Psychopathology 105 Introduction 105 Hysteria and the Real 107 Hysteria and the signifier-in-relation 112 Perversion, the drive and the Real 114 Perversion and the signifier-in-isolation 119 Obsessional neurosis and the logic of the signifier 123 5 Lacanian Materialism? 132 Introduction 132 Materialism/materiality 134 The Real body 140 The body and the object 143 The body in fragments 146 Badiou and the Real 149 A Real writing? 155 The sinthome 158 Beckett and the sinthome 164 Conclusion: Philosophical Psychoanalysis? 170 Notes 176 Bibliography 209 Index 218 "Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Philosophers and political theorists have engaged Lacan's concept of the 'Real' in particular, with Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou deriving profound philosophical and political consequences from what is the most difficult of Lacan's ideas. This is the first book to explore in detail the genesis and consequences of Lacan's concept of the 'Real', providing readers with an invaluable key to one of the most influential ideas in contemporary critical theory"--Publisher's description, back cover Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Philosophers and political theorists have engaged Lacan's concept of the 'Real' in particular, with Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou deriving profound philosophical and political consequences from what is the most difficult of Lacan's ideas. This is the first book in English to explore in detail the genesis and consequences of Lacan's concept of the 'Real', providing readers with an invaluable key to one of the most influential ideas of modern times