Lacan, Foucault, and the ‘Crisis of the Subject’: Revisionist Reflections on Phenomenology and Post-structuralism

Abstract

This article offers a revisionist interpretation of the relationship between phenomenology and post-structuralism through an analysis of the post-structuralists most influential at philosophy’s intersection with the ‘psy’ professions: Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. French structuralists and post-structuralists sharply criticized subjectivity as a domain of study (the ‘primacy of consciousness’) and notions of the ‘autonomous subject,’ arguing instead for the determining role of language and other semiotic systems. I discuss Heidegger’s role as a ‘vanishing mediator,’ an influence on both phenomenology and post-structuralism whose own focus on forms of being (the ontological dimension) undermines this assumed opposition. I discuss the relevance for phenomenology of Foucault’s ‘epistemes’ (in Order of Things ) and of Lacan’s registers of Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real. Finally, I consider ways in which Foucault (in Discipline and Punish ) and Lacan (on ethics and the ‘psychoanalytic act’) seem to accept elements of the traditional notion of the subject, including forms of freedom and responsibility, and the possibility of self-reflection.