Notes
Introduction
J. Lacan, Le séminaire livre XVII. L’envers de la psychanalyse, 1969–1970(Paris: Seuil, 1991 ), p. 174.
A. Badiou, Theoretical Writings(London: Continuum, 2004 ), p. 119.
Quoted in E. Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997 ),
p. 211.
N. Chomsky, “An Interview,” Radical Philosophy 53 (Autumn 1989 ), p. 32.
S. Zˇizˇek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology(London and New York: Verso,
1999 ), p. 2.
See, for example, Le séminaire livre XVII,p.13 9.
B. Burgoyne, “From the Letter to the Matheme,” in The Cambridge Companion to Lacan,ed.
J.-M. Rabaté (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 ), p. 72.
In order better to distinguish their use as nouns from their common adjectival use, I shall
henceforth always capitalize “Imaginary,” “Symbolic,” and “Real,” with the noticeable
exception of quotations from Lacan which do not capitalize them.
J. Lacan, Le séminaire livre V. Les formations de l’inconscient, 1957–1958(Paris: Seuil, 1998 ),
pp.47‒48.
J. Derrida, “Le facteur de la vérité,” in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987 ), p. 462. J.-L. Nancy and P. Lacoue-Labarthe adopt a
very similar stance: in introducing their book on Lacan, they state that “there is nothing
here which presupposes... the idea or the horizon of an exhaustive and systematic ‘in-
terpretation’ of Lacan’s work” (The Title of the Letter[Albany: State University of New York
Press, 199 2], pp.1‒2).
For a reading which deems Lacan’s notion of subjectivity to be largely compatible with
Derridean deconstruction, see the work of P.-A. Rovatti, especially Abitare la distanza(Milan:
Feltrinelli, 199 4).