3 ms·
Symbolic, Real, Imaginary
- PaulHoule 4y agoI have tried to take Lacan seriously but the longer I try the harder it gets. I am a big fan of Freud, Jung and many of the old psychoanalysts as well as the later figures such as Winnicott, Kohut, etc. Lacan is a figure somewhat between structuralism and post-structuralism in French philosophy and unfortunately in the US French philosophy has become the object of obscurantism on the part of humanities scholars. (I'd say there are a few French philosophers who are worth reading directly such as some Foucault, some Baudrillard and Alain Badiou. The royal road to the others is to read popularizations of French philosophy translated from the Japanese, as a lot has been written for that market aimed at ordinary curious people, not people who need to "master" something hard to prove their PhD had value. Much of what is written about French philosophy in English is so bad I'd say it is almost easier to read untranslated Japanese.)