ABSTRACT
The Borromean knot is developed at different moments of Lacan's teaching, and invested with quite different theoretical stakes. The Borromean knot is an instance of writing for Jacques Lacan, a form of algebre litterale which adopts and adapts the signs of mathematics to open new theoretical possibilities and produce new styles of thinking. The place of the Borromean knot in Lacan's thought is aptly illustrated by a moment during his 1974 television broadcast, where what could be termed the opening of a gap between speech and writing occurs. In the topology of the Borromean knot, Lacanian theory no longer offered an account centred on an insubstantial subject, whose coherence derived from its position as speaking being. The Borromean knot is a demonstration of the radical continuity between Lacanian theory and its object, formulated by Lacan as the lack of a metalanguage.
