ABSTRACT
In this introductory chapter, Lacan’s central theory of the subject is expounded via a detailed discussion of two of his early texts, Logical Time and Number Thirteen. The chapter argues that the Lacanian subject is ‘not without others’ and the collectivity supporting any individual identity is based on an immanently shared property. From the perspective of later phases in Lacan’s theorizing, these others are to be considered as imaginary and to be supplemented by the notion of the symbolic Other and the real objet a. In that sense, the chapter tackles the major conceptual innovations of Lacanian teaching from a point of view highlighting the sociopolitical conditioning of the subject on which psychoanalysis operates. Regarding politics, one of the crucial issues concerns the constitution of a symbolic universality, providing the meaningful framework within which politics is played out, that is whether this universality is One or rather fundamentally incomplete. The chapter argues, on the one hand, that the universality of the Other is always partial, producing significant leftovers. On the other hand, within the Other there occur moments when the signifying effect of a signifier is suspended, thus creating dilemmas for subjective positioning (identification) and political action.
