Abstract

Lacan's conceptual surrealism. Many scholars working in the field of cultural studies, continental philosophy of language and psychoanalysis still believe that Jacques Lacan had something interesting to say about 'the science of the subject'. After Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont exposed Lacan's 'mathematical' excursions as utter nonsence, it was often argued that one could indeed reject these phantastic excursions and still retain an interesting theory about the subject, language, metaphors, et cetera. In this paper, I show that Lacan's conceptual surrealism goes a lot deeper as it affects the core of his thinking. His theory of metaphors (the exemple this paper focuses on) is founded on a series of surrealistic moves, which makes him immune for criticism and the result of which does not even capture the core idea of what a metaphor is. The paper ends with a sketch of some of the dilemma's readers of Lacan must confront of they want to understand Lacan.