PSYCHOANALYTIC STRUCTURALISM IN THE CAHIERS POUR L'ANALYSE

Abstract

This paper examines key articles contained within the experimental journal of philosophy Cahiers pour l'Analyse, published in Paris between 1966 and 1969, with a view to assessing the different ways in which Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, along with Althusser's structural Marxism, were appropriated by the journal's authors. In particular, early writings by Jacques-Alain Miller and André Green published in the journal are interrogated for the differences they reveal in the ways that “object,” “formalization” and “subject” were conceived by the theoretical partisans of structuralism in 1960s Paris. More broadly, the article argues for a renewed attention to the formation of Lacanian-inflected structuralist thought, with a view to understanding the underlying conceptual conflicts, more than the seeming continuities, that made it such a dynamic, transdisciplinary moment in the evolution of Western philosophy.