Lacan’s writings were for many decades the primary mode of access that the public had to his work. This was unfortunate because Lacan disdained writing and strove to write in a way that could not be readily understood. His oral seminars, which are now available, provide an enlightening contrast. This introduction concentrates on Lacan’s seminars to present a philosopher preoccupied with the problem of subjectivity and how the insights gleaned from psychoanalysis might be able to contribute to thinking through this problem. Many critics have wrongly associated Lacan with other French thinkers of his time, such as Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault. This book will draw a significant contrast between them and highlight their irreconcilable differences.

This section provides detailed and clear explanations of all Lacan’s major concepts. It arranges them as they appear chronologically in Lacan’s seminars. The book proposes understanding Lacan’s philosophy as it develops through three distinct periods – an early period in the 1950s, a middle period in the 1960s, and a later period in the 1970s. The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to understand why certain concepts appear at one time and then drop out in another or why certain concepts don’t appear until near the end of Lacan’s life. The argument of this section is that the objet a represents Lacan’s most far-reaching discovery, the discovery with the most philosophical importance. It occurs during the second period, which is the most radical period in his development.

Chapter 2 delves into the constitution of humanity as a collective subject. Drawing on the debate between ICL scholars about the we-talk in relation to the ICC and their engagement with the work of Durkheim, I develop the thesis that humanity should be understood as a collective subject that is brought about as a symbolic order through a process of representation. Moreover, as with any order, the order of humanity emerges through a process of self-inclusion of a first-person plural. Finally, I turn to the case of Ongwen to show how this order is questioned by the inhuman.