If
you’ve ever stared at a Lacanian text and wondered when the jargon would start
to make sense, you will understand the need for an accessible primer to clarify
the key concepts in advance. This slimline volume from the Routledge Critical
Thinkers series admirably fits the bill. Sean Homer manages to pin down the
notoriously evasive writings of Jacques Lacan and make them comprehensible,
helpfully signposting the journey into deeper philosophical waters. While the
book is too sketchy to serve as an authoritative reference or a quotable
exposition, it comfortably achieves its stated aim of introducing novice readers
to Lacan’s central concepts.

There is
no doubt that Lacan was enormously influential. He is widely hailed as the most
important psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud. He also had a significant impact
on literary criticism, feminist philosophy, film studies and social theory, and
his influence can be detected in the work of many important and controversial Continental
thinkers: Althusser, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida and most obviously, ´i¸ek.
Unfortunately, his notoriously obscure writing could confound all but his most
ardent disciples. He twisted words, changed their connotations, and toyed with
apparent absurdities and contradictions. Some commentators revel in this obfuscatory
melange, exemplifying the Lacanian spirit of fluid signification, and as a
result the novice scholar is often confronted with an impenetrable swirl of
ungrounded technical jargon that never seems to condense on a stable
interpretation. Homer’s approach is much more helpful and accessible. He
situates Lacan’s basic innovations in their proper hermeneutical context, starting
from the locus of Lacan’s departure from Freud: semiotics.

Lacan’s
most famous dictum is "the unconscious is structured like a
language". Analytic philosophers may misread this simple statement as a
suggestion that the unconscious is highly structured and rule-governed, with a
formal semantics and a generative grammar. But Lacan would have none of it: he
strongly repelled such objectivist notions. Instead, he embraced Saussure’s
semiotic model of a fluid system of signs, in which meaning is assigned subjectively
to empty signifiers by an unconscious process of signification. The Lacanian
unconscious resides in this gap between symbol and significance, constituting
the associative link. The key point is that meanings are not fixed; mental representations
may acquire new connotations for the individual or be used to signify something
else entirely. As the unconscious system of signification develops during
childhood, the ideas of self, other, society and gender
are constructed in accordance with, or opposition to, the basic psychosexual
notions of the phallus, the mother and the ‘names-of-the-father’. This has an
important consequence for psychoanalysis: the meanings of a patient’s conscious
representations, including their most fundamental ideas, can vary between
individuals, change with context, and evolve over time. Interpretation is not a
matter of consulting a look-up table of fixed symbolic meanings. Instead one
must understand the individual’s history and context in order to grasp the true
significance of their ideation. Symbols can become confused, or disconnected
from their conventional meanings, and the underlying thoughts and desires may
be expressed in cryptic ways. Most notably, the psychiatric ‘symptom’ may be
the patient’s solution to a deeper crisis—their ultimate source of jouissance,
a kind of ironic pleasure derived from playing the aggrieved or dysfunctional role.

Unfortunately,
Lacan’s writing often exemplifies his own theory of fluid signification. His
complex mythology of the mind often twists familiar concepts in idiosyncratic
ways. For example, by "phallus", Lacan does not refer to the
male genitals, or an image or symbol of them, or even essential masculinity,
but to the primary signifier that anchors the chain of signification in the unconscious,
representing an essential lack, or a drive for completion, or the unattainable
desires of the other. By rolling these alternative meanings around the same
word, Lacan demonstrates the flexibility of signifiers and the need for careful
interpretation. In order to read him properly, you must already understand what
he is expressing, which of course requires some prior acquaintance with his
theory. Accordingly, appreciating Lacan is normally a slow process of
bootstrapping oneself into a position of greater understanding. This is where Homer’s
introduction amply serves its purpose. He provides a pedagogical ladder planted
firmly on  Freudian and Saussurian foundations.

Homer
does not shy away from highlighting serious controversies and flaws in Lacan’s
approach. Lacan aspired to a science of psychoanalysis, yet his own methods
were anything but scientific. Homer’s aim is not to urge agreement with Lacan,
but merely to introduce his innovative ideas, allowing his readers ample space
to reach their own conclusions. He even cites a staunch critic who lambasts
Lacan’s theories as products of tendentious and subjective ‘theorhoea’. Readers
may concur, but at least they will do so from a platform of greater
understanding.

Homer’s
mastery of the topic is evident in his confident, direct and authoritative
style. Though this book does not cover all the nuances or applications of
Lacan’s ideas, it maps out the expansive domain into regions of fact, opinion
and controversy. For those who wish to delve deeper, Homer offers detailed
recommendations for further reading, each constituting a mini-review in its own
right.

Homer’s
book brings sense and order to the confusing Lacanian jargon and avoids the
vague and circular allusions found in other introductory texts. All in all, it is
a very level-headed primer for an influential school of thought.

© 2006 Sam Brown

Dr Sam
Brown is a philosophical counsellor interested in the science and psychology of
reflective wisdom, emotions and intuition, and their application in reasoning
and creativity.

Categories: Psychoanalysis, Philosophical