L

In the second half of the twentieth century,

Jacques Lacan was the psychoanalyst who

perhaps did most to confirm the importance

and the utterly revolutionary character of

Freud’s discovery of the unconscious. If,

despite all of the controversies surrounding its

allegedly unscientific character, psycho-

analysis is today still widely practised and if its

theory continues abundantly to influence

many academic disciplines, this is to a great

extent due to Lacan’s multi-faceted ability to

update both Freudian clinics and conceptual

models by means of the most recent elabora-

tions of structural linguistics (Saussure,

Jakobson), structural anthropology (Le´vi-

Strauss) and post-Hegelian philosophy

(Koje`ve, Heidegger).