Three Dimensions of Speaking Being
I started reading SEMINAR XXI this week. I’m only a couple of lessons in, but already hooked on this one. And for three basic reasons:
Real, Symbolic, Imaginary — all are firing at once, now as “RSI,” at the start of SEMINAR XXI. And all, much to my liking, in service to better understanding the trickiest among them: the Real.
“You have always comprehended — you have always comprehended, but wrongly — that the progress, the step was to have marked the overwhelming importance of the Symbolic with respect to this misfortunate Imaginary with which I began,” Lacan explains. But “it is by extending the mathematical process, which consists in noticing what is Real in the Symbolic, that a new passage is drawn for us.”
What, then, is Real in the Symbolic? And how, exactly, does it allow us to cut a new path through analytic theory and technique?
If you attended our autumn series on ENCORE, you might have a good guess. And if you joined our winter series on TELEVISION, you might even be willing to wager on it. But I wouldn’t place your bets yet . . . not until you give SEMINAR XXI a run!
Tap the link below to learn more about our upcoming series on this key text in Lacanian psychoanalysis!
