Abstract
Lacanian psychoanalysis cannot disregard its debts to philosophy, especially continental philosophy. Lacan’s conception of language is derived from multiple philosophical sources (i.e., Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard) including Heidegger’s philosophy of language and pride of place. Heidegger’s view of language prepares the ground for reversing the relationship between language and human beings, overcoming common sense about language and the communicative model of language. Language is much more than a set of labels; it shapes the human world and structures social relations themselves. In addition, language acts as a social link. The function of language as a social link allows us to think of it in relation to the Law and the very function of this human subjectivity. In reference to the Other of the Law and language, the subject finds her recognition, and this implies that the language is not reducible to communication. The process of technical-scientific domination of Western institutions leads to a reduction of their functions to the formal aspects, which may lead to a reification of the human as well as a state of alienation.
Highlights
According to Heidegger (1959), philosophical reflection on language cannot fail to start from an initial and fundamental methodological distance from the different disciplines that deal with language
While recognizing the value of these disciplines, philosophical reflection must be able to ignore them—that is, it must be able to place brackets around the datum of common sense according to which one speaks to say something and transmit a message (Heidegger, 1959)
The conception of language as communication considers it on a level of exteriority,2 with respect to which philosophical reflection must abstract, and considers words merely as labels of ‘real’ things
Summary
According to Heidegger (1959), philosophical reflection on language cannot fail to start from an initial and fundamental methodological distance from the different disciplines (from linguistics to psychology) that deal with language. Is not merely the expression of a message between two speaking beings but founds the very being of the things of which it speaks: The word is already a thing in and of itself (Heidegger, 1959). In this perspective, as something more than a mere tool endowed to human beings to share experiences, language (Λογος) is linked to the act of laying (λέγειν) (Heidegger, 1954). What would make a difference in the philosophical conception of language is its listening point, whence it follows that it is not so much man who speaks as the language (Heidegger, 1959)
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