The Topology of the Psychoanalytic Subject

Abstract

Greenshields provides a novel introduction to many of Lacan’s well-known concepts—such as alienation, desire, fantasy and the object a—by showing how these concepts are best understood as a topology. Particular attention is paid to Lacan’s reliance on the Möbius strip and the cut when explaining the logic of the signifier and the constitution of the split subject of the unconscious. His use of other topologies—such as the interior eight, the torus and the cross-cap—is clarified and the differences between Kant’s transcendental aesthetic and Lacan’s topological presentation of the space and time of subjectivity are outlined. Lacan’s thoughts on mathematical formalisation, metalanguage and Euclidean geometry are also discussed.