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I've read this, and I am currently working through Fink's _The Lacanian Subject: Between Language And Jouissance_. There are some interesting points in the wor

I've read this, and I am currently working through Fink's _The Lacanian Subject: Between Language And Jouissance_. There are some interesting points in the work (enough to keep me looking at it over the years), but I find this area of thought to be a deep and confusing set of ideas. At this point, I am not sure there's really a lot of "there" there in general. I've been trying to figure out this line of thought for more than a decade and some change. But I've never been in a position where I could afford to engage in psychoanalysis, so maybe the Lacanian practitioners I know who tell me I won't really get "it" without actually practicing as an analysand or analyst are right. I suppose they'd know. However, I've really enjoyed a lot of the cultural marginalia generated by psychoanalysis. Other than Zizek, I think that Alone's writing here was quite interesting: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/

lmt55 5y ago
I would say that the 'mirror stage' is a clear and concrete idea (not necessarily clearly and concretely elucidated by Lacan) which, while it doesn't have the same status as a scientific statement about the mind, provides a helpful illustration, with some explanatory power, of how the 'self' is formed. (Note that when I say 'a scientific statement about the mind', I would regard very little of the scientific discipline of psychology as meeting this standard. In most cases it is also far less interesting than psychoanalysis.) Of course, many people are content that they are able to live with a 'sense of self', without worrying about how it is constructed. That doesn't mean that it's not an interesting, useful or accurate idea.