Dialectics, Structure, Language – Lacanian “Return to Freud” in the First Half of the 1950s

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the influence of Claude Levi-Strauss’structural anthropology and kojévian Hegelianism on Jacques Lacan’s early teaching. However, this is not just about showing the similarities between these theories, but
also about how these influences defined the shape of Lacan’s theory. It  turns out that the influence that kojévian Hegelianism had on Lacan is not just a theoretical curiosity, but it constitutes the essence and the aim of Lacan’s clinical practice. The final conclusion of the article is the thesis that the essence of the early period of Lacan’s teaching can be defined as more Hegelian than structuralist. The essence
of this theory is not so much focus on Symbolic understood anthropologically, but reflection on the tension between the Universal and the Particular. In the article, I first describe the problem of the unconscious and Universality in Lèvi-Strauss’s
teaching. Subsequently, I explain how Lèvi-Strauss’ concept of the unconscious influenced Lacan’s theory. Finally, I present Hegelian aspects of Lacan’s clinical theory and ontology.