Reflections on Lacan: his origins in Descartes and Freud

Abstract

Appreciation of Descartes' importance to Lacan's reading of Freud is a point of entry into Lacan's seemingly hermetic theoretical system. Lacan's analysis of Descartes' search for ontological certainty draws him, in Freud, to the ontological implications of castration anxiety, disavowal, and splitting of the ego. Lacan's theory both derives from and develops Freud's late work on the narcissistic origins of conflict within the ego.