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Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan, Kojève and

Hyppolite on the concept of the subject

Caroline Williams

To cite this article: Caroline Williams (1997) Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan,
Kojève and Hyppolite on the concept of the subject, Parallax, 3:1, 41-53, DOI:
10.1080/13534645.1997.9522373

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.1997.9522373

Published online: 30 Sep 2011.

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 Philo sop hy and Psychoanalysi s: Lacon, Kojeve and
Hyppolite on the concept of the subject

Caroline Willia ms

...when one is made into two, there is nogoing

back on it. It can never revert to making one
again, not even a new one. The Aufhebung
fSubla tion] is one of those sweet dreamsof
phil osophy.

J acques Lacan, '}1 Love Letter"1

Int r o d u ct i o n

T hi s essa y will explore the relationship between the experience of subjectivity,

and the production, or formation of knowledge. It th us begins with the
assumption that the structure that knowledge may take isinsepara ble from the
conditions of possibility forsubjectivity. Arguably,the for m of the subject can
reflect or reveal its contents as knowledg e only when two conditions are fulfilled:
first, the re is an assumed boundedness and containment of subjective experience,
and second , there is an epistemological contract between subjectivity and the
means of representation.T he writings of Jacques Lacan have brought the terms of
this philosophical relationship into new retie( Philosophicaldiscourse cannot
reveal the subject, neither can it simply reflect the contents of consciousness. For
Lacan, subj ectivity is not only an effect of a complexformation of imaginary,
symbolic and realdimensions, it isalso enmeshed in the structure of language, both
of which delimit the possibility of knowledge.

It is the linguistic component of Lacan's conception of the subject that is usually

privileged. But the theoreticalconfigurations of Lacanian thought are more
complex. Lacan has, arguably, incorporated a first readingof the subject
influencedby Hegel, and a second reading derived through an interest in the
fundamental structuring role of language which owes much to Saussure. T he first
reading (begun in the 1930s and 1940s, but undergoing continuous repositionings
and retract ions) creates a complex pattern of interference with the laterstructuralist
reading of the subject, so much so that it is often difficult to trace the development
of Laca n's concepts to any single philosophi cal source.2 Furthermore, given that
psychoanalysis is p rimarily orienta ted towards clinical practice, to pose the
question of the inter-relation of philosophy, psyc hoanal ys is and the concept of
the subject , ma y seem misplaced. Lacan spoke of his own recourse to philosophy
to be of propaedeutic value only.3 However, as Jea n-Luc Nancy and Phillipe
Lacoue- Labarth e point out, Lacan's
41
paral!al'. 4 (februory1997): 41.54 parallal'.
psychoanalytic conception of the subject is also a philosophical project, one
which creates contradictions and inconsistencies in his position.4 The
consideration of the intersection between philosophy and psychoanalysisproposed
here, aims to produce a richer, non-reductive understanding of some aspects of
the Lacanian conception of the subject.

Lacan's use of Hegelian categories is clear throughout his work, but what is more
important is hisinterpretaii.onof Hegelianphenomenology in relation to his
conception of the subject. Lacan, it seems, finds a 'natural ally' in Hegel.' David
Archard goes as far as to say that there is a "grafting of Hegel onto Freud".6 In
Tiu Function ef Language in Psychoanalysis(1 953 ), Lacan writes:

...it is impossible for our technique to fail to realize the structuring

moments of the Hegelian phenomenology: in the first place the
master-slave dialectic... and generally everything which permits us
to understand how the constitution of the object is subordinated to
the bringing to realization of the subject.7

In his essay "The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in
Psychoanalyticexperience" (1948), Lacan makes an important distinction between
the subject as ego or 'I', that which may achieve an elusive sense of wholeness and
autonomy of self, and the subject as primordial being, which lies in a place 'beyond'
the ego-as-subject and may be approached through analysis. The experience of the
formation of the 'I' isopposed to "...any philosophy directly issuingfrom the Cogito." 8
There is no thinking subject prior to the recognition of the 'I'; this ego requires an
identification with an image before it can .fancti.on .as subject, that is, before it can
become a social animal. The event of the mirror-stage, through which the subject
perceives an image which is other than the largely mute, discordant being that it is,
offers the subject its.first apprehension ef bodily unity. Thisgestalt, which fixes the
image, engenders the subject of desire; it charges the subject with an impulse, a
libidinal
energy which translates itself into a narcissistic fantasy of wholeness, and an
aggressivity towards the other who may challenge thef(!Tm of this imago. T he
mirror thusallows the fragmented being to become an T , to be harnessed to an
ontological structure according to which the ego or Ideal-I may think, perceive and
recognise itself as a permane lt, coherent structure. Thisimaginary ego becomes
the support for a division, Spaltung, of the subject, which remains forever divided
between a seemingly coherent self and a mode of being which is always other to
the subject.

A purelydevelopment account of this event, whether biological or anthropogenetic,

cannot appreciate the "epistemological void"9 which characterises the structured
reality of the mirror-stage, or why the subject remains captivated by its alienating
Williams
42
tendencies. The mirror-stage situates the instance of the ego in a line of ficti.on, of
alienation; a function of meconnaissance, misrecognition, is thus seen to
characterize the ego in all its structures. Furthermore, such an account cannot
understand the Hegelianism underlying Lacan's mirror-stage, an event which
isexperienced as "...a temporal dialectic that decisively projects the formation of the
individual into history''.10This mode of temporality cannot be reduced to a linear
development of the individual subject (or the historical process) because this subject is
distributed within a two-dimensional structure of reality, which at this point in our
analysis we have identified as a duality: the (misrecognised) being of the self, and the
active ego who thinks and deliberates. It is the imaginary ego which attempts to
solder, to mend, the discordance created within the subject, who remains ignorant of
its alienation. As Lacan writes:

It is this moment that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge

into mediatization through the desireof the other, constitutes its
objects in an abstract equivalence by the co-operation of others and
turns the I into that apparatus for which every instinctual thrust
constitutes a danger, even though it should correspond to a natural
maturation...11

Thisdescription of the structuring 11lQ17le1lt of the mirror-stage certainly seems redolent

of Hegel's description of the master-slave dialectic. In some respects, Hegel has a
similar aim to Lacan: to re-situate the primacy of the knowing subject and to
understand the object in relation to the movement of subjectivity in time. Hegel's
depiction of the master-slave dialectic reads, in parts, like a commentary on Lacan's
mirror-stage:

Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; it has come

out of itsel( This hasa two-fold significance: first, it has lost itse!f,for it
finds itself as an other b secondly, in doing so it has superseded the
other, for it does not see tJze other as an essential being, but in tJze other
sees its own se!f.12

What is not to be found in the mirror for either Hegelor Lacan, is the subject's self
recognition; it is an imaginary wholeness that is experienced here. Both Hegel and
La.can would agree that the mirror cannot reflect the subject's desire. The life and
deathstruggle leaves the desire for recognition in the subject unsatisfied and negated.
However, as Wilfried Ver Eecke points out,for Hegel,the master-slavedialectic also
hasa positive function; this Hegelian dialectic charts the development and education
of consciousness;for Lacan, in contrast, "...the dialecticof the mirror-stage does not
assign consciousness a crucial role in bringing about the dialectic move..." 13 Rather ,
Lacan Limits the scope and meaning of desire to the dominant themes of law, language
and their relation to miconnaissance.H ere, the emphasis is taken awayfrom the
dialectic of desire as a (possible) moment of intersubjective recognition, and towards
the symbolic structure of language (the field of the O ther ), a dialectic of the
"incessant

parallax
43
sliding of the signifier under the signified",1 which appears to fix itself, through the
system of differences and inter-relations between signs, as a Symbolic Order. It is
via the gapsin signification that desire (as unconscious) is seen to emerge, and not
through the speech of the speaking subject who remains ensnared by the
synchronic law of language. It is thus important to question whether desire can
besynthesised with the subject in a dialectical movement.

In his book Lacan in Contexts, David Macey notes that oneshould refer not to
Hegel, but to the Hegel-Kojeve matrix in La.can. "To return to Kojeve after
reading Lacan," Macey writes, "is to experience the shock of recognition, a truly
uncanny sensation of d,ja vu." 15 La.can attended Kojeve's lectures on Hegel
between 1933 and 1939, and it istherefore likely that Lacan's concept of desirefor
recognition repeats Kojevean formulas.16This may also account for the
Heideggerian conceptual motifsin La.can 's writings: these too may be filtered
through Kojeve's reading.17 Nevertheless, a direct assimilation of Lacan to
Kojevemay risk producing, I willargue below, a philosophical reduction of La.can's
theoretical position and his conceptions of the subject and knowledge.

The lectures, translations and interpretations of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

by Alexandre Kojeve and Jean Hyppolite in the 1930s and l940s have had a
profound effect upon the development of contemporary French philosophy. It may
be considered a simplification to associate the former writer with a humanist
readingof Hegel, and the latter with a structuralist reading, but it is crucial to
emphasise the philosophical divergences of their respective interpretations and, in
consequence, the markedly different conceptions of subjectivity which emerge.18 In
their interpretations of Hegel, both Kojeve and Hyppolite question the totalising
implications of the dialectic, and the theological formulation of the Absolute, and
both expose the structuring moments of the dialectic which may in turn generate
the structure of the subject. Additionally, both writers share a certain recourse to
Heidegger's thoughts on time, death and the subject'sfinitude. However, I will
argue below in sections II and III for the distinctiveness of their philosophical
positions. For Kojeve, time will be understood as tied to the creative action of the
subject, who transforms history, whereas in Hyppolite's philosophy, time will
constitute human reality and be understood as a structure of all living beings.
These distinctions are important; they unravel into markedly different readings of
Hegel and , necessarily, different constructions of subjectivity. They may further
act to indicate La.can's distance from the Kojevian problematique of the subject.

II

Kojeve's central thesis is that the movement of self-consciousnessand subjectivity in

Hegel's PherUJmenology of Spirit is first and foremost an anthropology. H istory and
knowledge, historical becoming and the subject's gradual acquiring of a truth forself
and world, are giving temporal movement only by the human act of making history.
Like the early Marx in the Paris Manuscripts, Koje ve pla ces being and
becoming, negation and negativity firmly within the historical field of human action
where it becomes subsumed by the act of labour. There can be no acting self prior
to social interaction with others. In the natural state, being can only be a being-for-
itself. Natural consciousness may achieve an isolated, singular self-certainty; it
maygenerate a certain knowledge of objects and thus produce a simple unmediated
identity with itself. However, consciousness of the other is reduced to a function of
its own self consciousness: the other becomes a mere thing. In contrast, for Kojeve,
the subject whodesires recognition of the other andexternal reality has transcended
the "animal being" described above; its desire for transformation assimilates,
negates and absorbs animal or given-being19 and hence creates and reveals the I.
Thus, "Man is negating Action, which transforms given Being, and, by
transforming it, transforms itself". 20 The subject is the ground, the movement of
history; it is not the passive, contemplative behaviour of natural being which
transforms reality for Kojeve, but the active, humanising desire (as negativity) of a
subject seeking self-recognition through the recognition of the other. Kojeve
placesdesire at the centre of what it means to exist and it is the centrality of this
concept to the humanist problimatique which Lacan appears to take from Kojeve -
although not without it undergoing a significant theoretical transformation.

Kojeve's philosophical discourse utilises H egel's discussion of the master-slave

dialectic. Here, it risks for some critics, turning the duality which Hegel
emphasises as bothan interior relation between the self and itself (perhaps most
clearlyexpressed in the ' unhappy consciousness' ), and a social relation between
self and other, into a dramatic account of twodistinct, clashing subjectivities.21 For
Kojeve, it is the master who represents consciousness existing for itself, that is, a
given-being. The slave's reality, on the other hand, is constituted both by a
recognition of the dignity and superiority of the master, which imparts on the slave
a sense of contingency, loss (in short, the spectre of death), and by the objectof
itslabour, which remains a negative act. Howeve,rwhilst the master is fixed in his
pure negativity, viewing desire of the object as an end in itself, the slave is ready
for transcendence and transformation of the negative. The slave's is a non-essential
activity. Here, desire or negativity, as work, modifies the natural world and in this
process its own relation to the slave. As Michael Rothobserves, whilst "Hegelian
time isthe temporality of desire, the master's time is the rhythm of satisfaction".22

Work istime for Kojeve; it exists within time and requires time; by working, the
slave create s human temporality as human history, halting the evolution of nature
and exceedingslavish consciousness.23 Furthermore, the creative dimension of
desire as action isexpressed in speech. Knowledge isat once the expression of the
experience of the acting subject in Discourse, and a transformation and revelation
of nature as human knowledge of the Real. Following Kojeve's distinction between
the natural and the human world, knowledge is always made manifest in human
action. Ideas
appear as the productsefobjects and projects mediated by work and action -2' Truth as
Totality (read absolute knowledge) can be gleaned by the subject only with the
culmination of the dialectic, with the synthesis of action and history, and the
recognition of man as free inclividual.25 Kojeve's anthropological reading of
Hegel thus appears to have a dual significance: firstly, it allows desire to be
humanised and tied to the agency of the subject so that it may, in turn,order the
clialectical movement of history; secondly, it genera tes the conditions of
possibility for truth/absolute knowledge in the enunciating subject.

This interpretationof subjectivity and desire is grounded upon an inherent dualism

between the natural and the human which Kojeve insists he finds in tacit form in
The Phenammology of Spirit.26 The socialontology described above distinguishes
between a natural and an historical world, a distinction which is at once incompatible
with Lacan's own symbolic construction of the human world which claims, following
Levi Strauss, to transcend any nature/culture opposition. The Spaltung of the subject
described by Lacan,does notgenerate twodistvzctontologies;if itgenerates theontology
of the subject and the structure of human reality, these discursive delimitations are
not then opposed to a natural world; the former place remains unformalised,
undifferentiatedand unrealized, in short, pre-ontologicalreal.27 Neither would Lacan's
category of language allow for the collapse of the distinction of the structure of
language into the subject's speech. Language is a formal structure which is anterior
to the experience of the subject;it introduces certainsouctural limits upon the subject's
speech (ie. thesubject-as-signifierin the symbolic order). The subject is not, therefore,
the enunciator of discourse as Kojeve proposes, but the enunciated. Finally, whilst
for Lacan , "desire takes shape in the margin in which demand becomes separated
from need",28 this formulation cannot be simply subsumed into the Kojevean
conception of humanised desire in action. Certainly, desire is not, following Kojeve,
a biological instinct but it is for, Lacan , ound to the Spaltung of the subject. T hus,
desire always points to the pasteven as it instils in the subject the (impossible)
imaginary spectacle of a fulfilled future, it always reminds the subject of that which it
lacks. There is no vision of wholeness and self-realization in Lacan's conception of the
subject. It is the structure of the subject's experience which Lacan wishes to delineate.
This is a markedly different project to the one developed by Kojeve. It is a
philosophical position which, I would argue, has more in common with Jean
Hyppolite's interpretation of Hegel. Jean Hyppolite attended many of
Lacan's Seminaires and his views are often noted in the discussions which end
the sessions.29 The remaining discussion will thus seek to establish parallels
between Hyppolite and Lacan at the level of their conceptions of subjectivity.

Ill

Hyppolite's reading of Hegel's conception of the subject emphasises the tragic

component of human existence and whilst he, like Kojeve, also focuses upon
the historical dimension of the subject (ie. the subject's temporality), this
philosophical discourse of history has no humanist component, and no
interpretation of the subject
as historical actor. Hyppolite does read the condition of human experience to
be the struggle for recognition, and views this struggle as fixed on desire:
desire for the other and recognition by the other.30 However, there can be
nodialectical recognition of these experiences by the subject. As Hyppolite
writes, "... the accomplishment of the absolute is forever defer red." 31

Whilst, according to Hyppolite, Hegel privileges a retrospective point of view in the

Phenomenology of Spint, which describes the different figures of knowledge and the
journey of consciousness from sensuous certainty through perception towards
understanding,Hyppolite asks whether there is nota l.ogic of consciousness,structural
conditions of experience, which are constant for every historical situation. 32 This
structure would notbe "...the appearance of a uniquesubject but an original ensemble,
a totality of a quitedifferent type from Hegel's spiritual principle".33 lf, then, Hyppolite
maintains a focus on the existential plight of the subject in the social world, this
ontology is not to be viewed anthropologically, but rather in terms of conditions
which structure the possibility of self-consciousness and its experience of truth.
Hyppolite writes: "It is not a question of man considered as a biological species, but
of the emergence in the very hean of life of a being who becomes conscious of this
life as a condition of his existence."3

The beingof life is"the disquietof the self",3the anxiety, suffering and
alienation of a subject which will never coincide with itself "for it is always
other in order to be itself".36 For Michael Roth, this is indicative of the
centrality of the Unhappy Consciousness to Hyppolite's conception of the
subject. This experience is one of inadequacy, infinite non-correspondence
with the truth of the object; the subject always failsto reach unity with itsel(
However, because consciousness always exceeds itself in its reflection it is
doomed to oscillate forever on the brink of self-discovery: "This feeling of
disparity within the self, of the impossibility of the self coinciding with itself in
reflection (the unhappy consciousness], is indeed the basis of subjectivity." 37

Kegativity isat the centre of beingfor Hyppolite; it is immanent in all content

and is therefore the condition of possibility of any subject whatsoever.38 "T his
is why," Hyppolite notes, "the individual is the 'absolute impulse', rather than
merely the tendency of being to remain in a given state, and it is this in vinue
of an internal co nt radic tio n." 39 In his essay "The Human Situation in the
Hegelian Phenomenolog'y, 'Hyppolite considers the mode through which this
impulse of life, thatis, subjectivity, may be authenticated in human history. T he
dislocating force of negativity is the desire on the pan of the subject for unity
and recognition by the other. In the activity of work/labour , the subject
negates itself and shapes and refashions the object; labour humanises nature
and conveys a sense of coherence and universality upon human existence.-i-0In
other words, it grounds reason as a human event. Despite the implicit references
to Marx here and the evident parallels with Kojevian account above, it is
imponant not to subsume Hyppolite's conception of
the subject within this philosophical perspective. This conception of desire is not
secured by a dualist ontology, rather it is an original structure of experience. The
humanising of desire is closer to the structure of recognition as an imaginary
movement. Indeed, elsewhere Hyppolite describes the desire for recognition which
structures the master-slave dialectic as"Se!f-conscwusnessasamirrorpkif' .41 Furthermore,
Hyppolite posits time as the concept which supersedes all other categories; it is the
condition of all human reality and it places a limit upon the subject's creative
possibilities.t2 This really makes the subject's encounter with the object of labour a
missed encounter, contra Marx and Kojeve, labouring on nature offers no
resolution for the unhappy consciousness,justas desire in its infinitude, can
onlyfind an imaginary satisfaction in the object. For Kojeve, time, desire and
knowledge were all humanised; they could only gain meaning within a theory of
human action. Hyppolite's philosophicaldiscourse is markedly different: it is
timewhich gives birth to thesubject; temporality which is the basisof all existence.
Time is thecondition which structures
life. It is "...the middle term which makes it possible to conceptualize life and the
living relation and the means whereby the P,ob/,em of k.nowkdge an.d the p,ob/,em of life
are
identifiable''.43T ime , moreover, cannot be annulled by the subject by whatever means;
its destiny is not be be "vindicated by Spirit" as Hegel writes in the final chapter of
the Phmnm.enology of Spirit,* and Kojeve interprets as the end of History.
Rather, it is
the disquiet of the self (or the 'un happy consciousness') which Hyppolit e
continues to emphasise: a subjective state of temporal disjuncture with the world.
Thisprecludes an identity between beingand knowledge and ensures that the
fissure between forms of knowledge and their linguistic expression/enunciation by
the subject will be ceaselessly re-encountered and re-thought.s4

IV

Lacan's psychoanalytic theorisation of the subject attempts a difficult feat

which cannot easily be achieved. Lacan attempts a philosophical marriage
between an account of subjectivity, which must remain non-subjective in
formulation, with a structuralist account of language and the social world. Lacan 's
Hegelianism, therefore, must be tempered by hisstructuralism.Such a theoretical
synthesis, if one may call it thus, is itself complex and not without
contradiction. It does point to a more critical reading of Hegel than the one
often noted by Lacan's commentators and critics. In "The subversion of the
subject and the dialectic of desire" (1960), Lacan develops a number of critical
points regarding Hegel's phenomenology. Firstly, it is viewed as a "permanent
revisionism", where truth iscontinuously reabsorbing itsel£+6 In Lacanian
terminology, dialectic synthesis results only with the conjunction of the real and
the symbolic. According to the Lacanian theory of the real, such a convergence
is theoretic ally and practically impossible. Truth will be searc hed for forever
in the images of others, but never attained. Lacan notes that the real, for Hegel,
is "...a subject fulfilled with his identity to himself", a subj ct "...always already
perfect".41 Lacan's subject, in contrast, isalwaysdivided and thisdisjuncture is
perpetual; the conception that consciousnesshas of itself and its real content are
radically
different. the concept of the real in Lacan's work is equated with the pre-
discursive, the unrepresentable;it is the residue of thesubject's articulations,
confined, repressed in the unconscious. The 'co ntents' of the real furnish an
element of experience which can never be fully disclosed to the subject. Its
channel is the vehicle of language itself. Consciousness then, is unable to
account for discontinuity through recourse to itseif, because this discontinuity is
part of the ontological structure of the subject.

Taking intoaccount these views, I would argue that Lacan's conception of the subject
is much closer to Hyppolite's reading of Hegel than the Kojevean position often
linked with his conceptualisations. For Hyppolite, and Lacan too, "... the self never
coincides with itself, for it is always other in order to be itself".48 Moreover,
the project of attaining identity and reconciliation between the subject and the
objects of itsdesire are alwaysovershadowed and doomed to collapse. Lacan's
understanding of the petit obJet a is indicative of such a position. The object (a) of
desire will always deceive the subject; its meaning will always dissipate in the light of
the subject's experience of it. Desire may be viewed as having a two-fold significance.
Firstly,it is a relation of being to lack; the experience of desire is a reminder of the
subject's lost relation to itself which, arguable, cannot be reclaimed. Secondly, desire
isalways for the desireof the Other, it islinked therefore, to language and the law of the
symbolic order.It isarticulated within a linguistic framework which has alwaysin
effect, crossed outthe subject's significance before signification occurs. Quite clearly
then, desire, in so far as it is constructed through language, fails to express the being of
the subject. This task is reserved for the unconscious.49

This theoretical parallel, with Hyppolite's anti -human ism rather than Kojeve's
impending anthropomorphism, can be extended further with reference to
Lacan's interpretations of history, of the possible end of analysis, and his views
on the realization of the truth of the subject. Hyppolite, Lacan and Kojeveall
subscribe to a Heideggerian account of temporality50 H uman temporality, for
Heidegger,cannot be represented by a uni-linear time sequence. Dasein, the
order of Being, is caught up in past, present and future temporal modes; to be
human is to bedivided between these three dimensions. Thus Malcolm Bowie
writes, "Beingis borne foxward s on a compo site tid e that pulls i·t towards the
utmost fullness of being and, concurrently, towards death, its ultimate loss.;" 1
Time is seen to structure human existence; the discord, that which Lacan
describes as a primary characteristic of the subject, is mediated by these
different temporal modes. The subject becomesa subject-in-time as soon as it
takes up a place within language and tries to signify absence . The oft quoted
example of this temporal/linguistic moment is found in Freud's account of the
FortiDa scenario , where the small child tries to represent absence and its
desire for the mother using a cotten-reel. By throwing the object out of sight
ifort)and then reclaiming it (da), the child comes to terms with the temporal
absence of the mother through the presenceof language. According to Lacan,
these two phonemes together
parallax
49
 encapsulate the mechanism of alienation. The child learns to separate the thing
from its name, in effect producing a division between the real and the symbolic and
creating the basis forsubjective meaning. Furthermore, this setting upof signifiersin
a binary relationship, creates the rupture and consequenrialfadingof being which is
effectively excluded from the temporality of the symbolic order; . 2 Casey and
Woody attach this experience more closely to temporality when they note:

...whether through memory or through anticipation of a wished-for

object... whether I project toward a past or a future horizon,
temporality exhibits itself in its radicallydifferentiatingrole:as
allowing me to differ form my present self, to be other than myself,
to be self alien in time.;J

Lacan's psychoanalyticdiscourse can, therefore, be seen to establish three temporal

registers (symbolic, imaginary and real) which present the structure of subjectivity
in markedly different ways and can never by actualised as a singular, self-bounded
experience, or contained within a dialectical 'model'. Whilst the Kojevean account
of time(itself a reading of Heidegger with Hegel) recognises the temporality of
desire and its relation to language and speech (which certainly appear emblematic
of some of Lacan'sown terminology), bothdiscourse and time are linked to
authentic human action and realized with the end of history. However, in Lacan's
psychoanalytic account, the subject's history exists in bits and pieces, strewn across
these temporal registers, and often alienated and hidden in the form of (repressed)
memory, fantasy, and psychoses. The role of analysis is not to demystify or merely
reveal the subject to itself Such an act is radically impossible given the structure of
social existence and the ontological form that subjectivity may take. Time cannot
be annulled by the subject. Psychoanalysis then , can only forge links between the
different temporal registers. The closest the subject may come to
'authenticity',according to Heidegger and Lacan, occurs with being-towards-death
where authenticity is itself foreclosed. It is here that the finitude and historically
contingent form of the subjectivity is most dramatically exposed. Thus Lacan
writes: "...when we wish to attain in the subject what was before the serial
articulation of the word, and what is primordial in the birth of symbols, we find it in
death, from which his experience takes on all the meaning it has." 4

The philosophical problems of the relation of time and desire to a psychoanalytic

conception of subjectivity have important consequences for the interpretation of
Lacan offered in this essay. There is no end of analysis, if by which we mean the
realization of the subject, because the end-point can only be reached with the
obliteration of the human subject. If death is experienced as a ' tending towards' as
implied in both Heidegger'sand Lacan's readings, as wellas Freud 's clear presentation
of the pleasure-principle, then the t,e,-minati.onof analysis becomes impossible. As one
com mentary on this predicament puts it, "T here is no redemption or reconciliation
to be had through history because the subject of desire can never be absorbed in

Williams
so
history, but only subverted or repressed there" .55 In spite of this claim, it is often
argued nonetheless that Lacan seeks the truth of the subject. It is the notion of full
as opposed to emptyspeech which is the cause of such views. Certainl y,speech
imparts presence within language, but this does not align the subject's speech with
truth. The unconscious after all, as Lacan points out, cannot be made continuous
with language. Discourse has no criteria of truthfulness unless it is tha t of
conjoining the subject with its desires and introducing an awareness of this limit to
the subject's speech. A distinction must therefore be made between a cor
respondence theory of truth which appeals to a substantial definition of reality, and
a view of truth which is always partial and contingent, what Lacan has called a
"limping truth".56 What must be emphasised hereisthat there can be no end-state
which may restore plenitude to the subject, or mend its division. Psychoanal
ysis,whilst orientated towards the future, can have no hold upon the direction that
its path may take. Psychoanalysis has in other words, no metaphysical warrant to
totalise experience, or limit and contain knowledge or subjectivity.

Notes
1
Jacques Lacan, ''..\Love Letter" , Paul, 1977): 80, emphasis added.
FtminimSauali!)!: 8
JacquesLacan, 'To e MirrorStage", ibid., Ecrils, I .
]acqULS Lacan ar,,l the ico/e j,euditnnL, eds.J. 9
T h e term is Malcolm Bowie's, see his Lacan
Mitchell (London: Fontana Press, 1991): 23.
andj.Rose (London: W.W. Nortonand
Company, 1975): 156.
'David Macey notes that Lacan's "...relationship
with, and useof, philosophy cannot be
satisfactorily interpreted in any unilateral
fashion".See his Lacan in Contexts(London:
Verso Books, 1988 ): I03.
3
Noted by W.J. Rjchardson in "Psychoanalysis
and the Being-question", lnterpreling Lacan, eds.J.
H. Smith and W. K. Kerrigan (New Haven: Ya.le
University Press, 1983): 156.
'Jean-Luc Nancy and Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe
emphasise an ambiguity in the diverse
conceptual resources imported into Lacan's
discourse (Saussurean, Freudian, Cartesian,
Hegelian, Hcideggerian) which enter the
constitution of the subject-as-signifierin
conflicting and irreconcilable
ways. For their discussion sec, Th Tttk of
/Juutter:
Areadingof Lacan, trans. F.Raffoul and D.
Pettigrew
(New York: SUNY Press, 1992 ).
; E.S. Caseyandj. M. Woody, "Hegel, Heidegge,r
Lacan: The Dialectic of Desire", op. cit., Smith
and Kerrigan, lnUrpreting Lacan, 77.
• D. Archa rd, Consciousness and the
Unconscious
(London: Hutchinson, 1984): 80.
1 Lacan, "The function and field of speech and

language in psychoanalysis", E:mts:A Stk ctwn,

trans.
.-\Ian Sheridan (London: Routledge and Kegan

parallax
51
•• Op . cit., Lacan, "The mirror stage", 4.
11
Ibid. , Lacan, "Themirror stage", 5.
'' G. W. F. Hegel , The Phmommoiogy of Spiri1(New
York: Oxford University Press, 1977):
111, emphasis added.
13
See W. Ver Eccke, "Hegel as Lacan's Source of
necessity in PsychoanalyticTheory",op.
ciL,Smith and Kerrigan, 125.
" Lacan,'TheAgencyof the letterin the
unconscious or reason since Freud", op. ciL,
EcriJs, 154.
• Op. cit. , Macey, Lacan in Con1txts, 98. It
1

must be pointed out that Macey does not then

proceed to reduce Lacan's conceptual apparatus
to that of Kojevc. His admirable study pursues
no such compartmentalising of influences,
rather it generatesan account of Lacan as a kind
of bricokur. "SecA.Wilden's
interpretativeessay,"Lacan and the Discourse of
the O ther" , Lacan, Speech and
LanguageinPsychoanalysis(Bal timorc:John
Hopkins University Press, 1968): 192-3.
" M.ikkel Bor ch -:Jacobscn 's readjng of La
can 's philosophical debts in Lacan: Tiu:
Absolute MasUT, trans. D. Brick (CaJjfornia :
Stanford University Press, 1991 ), outlines the
theoretical itinerary which takes Lacan from
Hegel and Heidegger to Kojeve. " Two recent
studies which have considered Kojevc's and
Hyppolite's positions and their rdation
tocontemporary French thought arcJudith
Butler, Subjectsof Desire: Hegelian Reflections
in Twentieth Century France (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1987) and M.
S.Roth, Knowingand
HisllJry: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentuth Ctnlllry
France (Itha ca : Cornell UniversityPress, 1988).
 19"Given-being" is the term Kojcve uses
10
32
Ibid., Hyppolite, Gtntru and Structurt, 21 and
describe the subject in the simple world of Studies on ,vfarx and Hege 154.
immediate satisfaction where it is submerged in " Ibid., Hyppolite, Studitson Mane and Hegel,
animal life. ix. "Ibid., Hyppoli,teStudus on Marx and
w Alexandre Kojcvc, ln/TOductumto //u&adingef H,g,l, 156. 35 Op. cit., Hyppolite , Genesis and
Htgtl Structure, 149.
(Ithaca: Basic Books 1969): 38. '.16 Ib id., Hyppolite , Gtntsisand Structure, 150
" This is the view of Shadia Drury in Altxandrt . " Ibid. , Hyppolite , Gtntsis and Structure,
Kojiv:t Tkt Roots ef PoJtmodern PolitiJc(London: 191.
MacMillan Press, 1994). · "' Op. cit., Hyppolite, Studieson Marxand Htgtl,
""O p. cit.,Roth, Knowing and History, 110. 14. "' Ibid., Hyppolite, StudiLJ onMane and
"' Op.cit., Kojeve, lnlroductiun totk Rtadingef H,grl,53 Htgtl, 160.
. " Ibid., Koji;ve, lntroductwn to //u Reading of '° Ibid., Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Htgtl, 165-6.
Htge,l 229-230. " See Hyppolite 's essay" Hegd 's Phenomenology
1l It mu st benoted that Kojcve significantly revised and Psychoanalysis", trans. .-\. R icher, New Studies
this interpretation of dialectical synthesis. In an in Htgtl'sPhilt,JDf!hy, ed . W.E.
added comment to the second edition of his Stcinkraus(US.-\:Holt,
lectures, Koji:ve offersa more pessimistic Reinhan and \.Vinsto,nInc . , 1976).
reflection on the na ture of the end of History. He " O p. cit., Butler, Suly«IJ of Desir<,
argues for the perpetualoppositionof subjectand 82.
object, "To remain human, Man must remain a "Op. cit., Hyppolite, StuduJ on Mane and Htgtl,9,
'Subject opposed my emphasis.
"Op.cit., Hegel, Phmommowgy, S. 80 I , 487 .
10 the Object,' even if '..\ction negating the
given and Error disappears." See ibid., ,; Hyppolite's later essay, "The Structure of
Philosophical Language According to the
Kojcve,
lntroductwn tothe Readingof Hege,ln. 5, 158-162. 'Preface' to Hegel's Phenomenology of the
Mind" , The
'° Ibid., Kojcve, Introduction to the Reading ef Sb-uctura/ist : Tiu ef Criticism and tk
Hegtl,
Scimu of Man, eds. R. Macksey and E. Donato
212 and n.15. Koji:ve states that it is Kant and
(Baltimorc:johnHopkinsUniversity Press,197 2):157-
Heidegger whoexplorethe dualist ontology in the
185,also drawsparallelsbetween the formal sttuaure
mostdevelopedform.Someof theproblemsgenerated
oflanguage and theprojectof psychoanalysis.
by Kojcvc's ontological dualism arc discussed in V
"'Op.cit., Lacan, J;,crits, 296 .
Descombes, Modern French Philosophy (Cambridge:
" Ibid. , Lacan , J;,crits, 296.
Cambridge UM-ttSity Press, 1980):chapter 2. 13
Op. cit., Hyppolite, Genesisand Structurt, 250.
" SeeJacques Lacan, Tiu FourFundammlai ConctplJ
"' For Lacan , desire is alienated in the signifier.
of PJJKkoanalyJis, trans . Alan Sheridan
It can be retraced only by foUowing the network
(London: Pcrigrine Books, 1986): 28-30. When
of displacements activated byparticular signifiers
Lacan does draw a parallel with non-human
with symbolic connection to the unconscious. Sec,
organisms, he refers to the ethological findings of
op. cit.,"TheAgency of the letter", 146-178.
Henri Wallon which emphasise the formative and
fixating tendenciesof theimage.
'°It could beargued that Koji:ve's anthropological
reading underm ines, in turn, his development
""J acques Lacan , "Subversion of the subject and
of the structure of temporality.
the dialectic of desire", 3I I .
" Malcolm Bowie, P ckoanalyJis and the Futurt of
'?!l See particularly the discussions following the
Tluory(O xford ; Blackw c!J, 1993 ): 24.
semina rs Ill, rv, V, VI and VII, Tht Seminar
" Op. cit., Lacan, Four Fund=t.o.l Concepts, 62;
ef on the fading of the subject seePanIV of this text.
JacqULS Lacan Book II, eds.Jacques-Alain Millerand " Op. c it., Casey and Woody, "Hegd,
S. Tomassc!Ji (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Heidegge,r Lacan", 105.
Press, 1988). " Op. cir., Lacan, Emts,85.
,oJean Hyppoli,teGnu.sis and St,ucwre in Hegel's
" Op. cit., Casey and Woody, " Hegel, Heidegger,
Phl'rwmenowgy (E vanston: Northwestern University
Lacan", 105.
Press, I974): 170, 160. 16
See Juliet Flower MacCanneU' s co mments in
" Ibid., Hyppolite, Gt7!tru andStructurt, 145andJean
Figuring I.Aton: Cri1icisrn and the Cultural Uncoruci.ous
Hyppolite, StudieJ on Marx and Hegtl (H arper (London: Croom Helm, 1986):21.
Torchboo ks, I973): 159.
W
i
l
l
i
a
m
s
5
2
Caroline Williain.s is lecturer in Political Theory at Queen Mary and Westfield
College , University of London. She has published "Feminism, Subjectivity and
Psychoanalysis: Towards a (Corpo)real knowledge", in K. Lennon and M. Whitford
(eds) Knowing and Difference: Feminist Perspecti.ves in Epistemology (Lo ndon: Ro utledge,
I994), and has an essay on Lacan fonhcoming in The Edinburgh E ncyclopedia of
Continental Philosophy. She is presently completing a manuscript on the prob/.ematique
of the subject in contemporary criti.cal thought.

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53