ABSTRACT
Lacan situates his theory in a long tradition of thought profoundly connecting human existence to desire. In particular, the rationalistic ethics of Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677), a Jew excommunicated from the synagogue due to his pantheistic vision of God, interested Lacan: a diagram of Spinoza’s Ethics covered his bedroom wall while he was a teenager. As it was for Spinoza, for Lacan desire is the essence of human existence (cf. Lacan 1998b: 275). Actually one must be more precise, for, Lacan says, in an a-theological system (that pulls man away from the centre of the world), the term ‘man’ is impossible to conserve. Then he suggests substituting Spinoza’s formula that ‘desire is the essence of man’ by ‘desire is the essence of reality’ (Lacan 1966–1967, 16 November 1966).
