Topology and the Re-turn to Freud

Abstract

Greenshields explores the reasons for Lacan’s confidence in the inherent utility of topology for psychoanalytic practice by examining the part topology played in the return to Freud and how it compares in value with some of the more well-known elements of the Lacanian bricolage such as linguistics, myth and the logic of sexuation. This chapter also introduces the topology of the four discourses, the relation between psychoanalysis and modern science and explores the stakes of Jacques-Alain Miller’s reading of Lacan—particularly in relation to the controversy about the matheme and the systematisation of Lacan’s thought. ‘Topology and the Re-turn to Freud’ concludes with an extensive reading of the topology of interpretation that Lacan sets out in ‘L’étourdit’.