Ethics and the Other

Abstract

As we have seen, for Lacan, the subject’s desire arises not only in the face of the lack it would experience in and as itself but, irreducibly conjoined with this, the subject’s desire is also always the desire of the Other. That is to say, the subject can only be and can only experience itself as subject in the encounter with the lack inherent to the Other. This double movement of lack and desire allows us to conceive of the subject as interminably constituted in the field of the social. That is to say, with the Lacanian subject there is no possibility of assuming a delimited private realm which would somehow subsist independently from the social or public realm. To assume to occupy a position outwith the social would be to assume the impossible position of independence from the Other without which the possibility of subjectivity would be foreclosed.