4 The Obstacle: Jacques Lacan’s Critique of the Formal Logical Representation of the Real

Abstract

This chapter shows that Jacques Lacan has sought to insert great Freudian discovery of unconscious to vocabulary of philosophers, anthropologists, theologians, and linguists. It argues that Lacan's psychoanalytical concept of obstacle is nothing short of a critique of formal logical representation of question fundamentally concerning ontology, namely what is. The chapter examines Lacan's elusive concept of the real, since argument provides a theoretical context within which Lacan used it. The in Lacan's theory indicates an X outside language, which resist symbolization. Drawing on this assumption, Lacan's concept of obstacle is inserted into as that which resists symbolization, and by extension, logical formalization. This ontological condition, i.e. that real cannot be symbolized and hence formalized, effectively enables a Lacanian critique of possibility of a formal logical representation of metaphysical concepts. Keywords: formal logical representation; Freudian theory; Jacques Lacan's critique; psychoanalytical concept