I agree. There is a short list with the meaning of the symbols: nosubject.com/List_of_Algebraic_Symbols However, I will try to make a more comprehensive list with some more explanation in the future.

That's a big compliment! Thanks! 😄

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 I don’t know if you watch mad men, but I’m pretty sure the show tries to deal with this subject narratively. In that they never mention it but it seems baked into the shows narrative structure

@@PeterZeeke Love that show! Nice observation 😄. I also like that it uses psychoanalysis in the creation of the ads that they make. It is precisely the show about what Edward Bernays coined in the term Public Relations.

I personally love to read the German Idealists like Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (in that order). It is more or less the precursor to the theory of Lacan. They all describe the interaction of the subject with the world and how we perceive the world, how the perception of the world is even possible even. However, these materials can be quite dense (like Lacan). Therefore I would recommend to look up the YT channel Footnote2Plato and his videos on German idealism, and read a book called "Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy: A Systematic Reconstruction". This gives an overview of all theories. After this I would recommend to start reading the writers themselves, starting with the critique of pure reason by Kant. I will be making videos on all these in the following videos. Lastly, I am a great fan of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, which is a weird combination being that Nietzsche grown to dislike Schopenhauer a lot. Schopenhauer is easier to read in my opinion than Kant for example, and there are already videos on our channel that can help. When reading Schopenhauer I would start with "The World as Will and Idea" (the summary version). Nietzsche is a different story, he can be very difficult to start with, especially since I started with Thus spoke Zarathustra 😁. I would recommend to start with a book that is easier to understand like Twilight of the Idols and the Antichrist. Here you can also see the dislike of Schopenhauer and it presents Nietzsche's later works that are summarizing a lot of his preceding work. There is a reading list on our website that might be interesting to check out. For any other questions, we are happy to help! 😄

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 Would you ever tackle Wittgenstein? Do you think it is relevant to lacanian thought?

@@Naypa11 I do have to admit that I am not that familiar with the works of Wittgenstein, but I am most sure that we will cover him at one point on this channel. 😄

Damn you are fast hahaha 😎 Now lets just hope that you like the video 😉

That is a really good question. I do not know anybody who did. However, I could speculate as to the relation of the graph to practical applications in analysis. I would say that the graph is the map, the archetype of every subject, implying that the dynamics cannot be changed only observed. So for example, if a new subject enters a session, than the goal of the analyst could be to walk through the whole graph and relate it to the subject. So what are the signifiers they use in their speech to describe themselves? What is their Other inside their head that tells them what to do? What is their ideal image of themselves? What do they desire and why? etc. The relations between these term is the graph will always be the same for all subjects, but the words or signifiers that are attached to them are dependent on the specific subject. And as Lacan emphasizes, the goal of psychoanalysis can not be to change a person, but merely to make it understand why it does the things that it does (or desires the things it desires). And maybe, just maybe, by understanding the relations that create the problem for the subject, they start to change the signifiers attached to the problem. Just as in the associations of Jung. If the subjects is scared of elevators for example, you cannot reduce the fear, but you can create new associations (signifiers) that give enough strength to overcome the fear. But the key to every change is to identify the problem, and I think that the graph of desire in this respect is the key to the problem.

I honestly think that you are well on your way with 10% hahaha. Although I am a fond reader of Lacan and his theory, he is (at least in my opinion) a really bad "scientist". This is in quotes becouse he really wasn't a scientist. The goal of his work was at least not to make a comprehensive and robust argument based on empirical data. Most of the time it is well thought out story of psychoanalysis and some philosophy mixed in, but it can change every lecture what the signifiers in the theory mean. And every writer that writes about Lacan will claim that they know best what he meant to say, but sometimes they say something entirely different. 😵 So I think that 10% is already a lot! There are also great books about Lacan like the one of Zizek and Calum Neill that will help substantially. And maybe it sounds weird, but understanding philosophy and then Freud will also help to put a lot of what Lacan tells us into perspective. Especially Kant, Schopenhauer and Fichte helped me personally. Lastly, what I find helpful is to check multiple sources and see where they agree on the theory of Lacan. There are a lot of papers and especially when Jacques-Alain Miller, Bruce Fink and Calum Neill write the same, I assume that this is what Lacan meant. Then the last thing I do is look up the paper from Lacan that they reference and read it to see if I get what it says. Usually this helps a lot. So for example when you read or hear about the graph of desire, I would recommend to read the paper "The subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious", and see if you understand it better. 😁

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 If I can't even understand Seminar XI (after failing to understand Seminar 18, which approached subjects I was more interested in) is it worth trying to finish through it or should I go back and read other authors?

@@Lastrevio Well that's hard for me to say, but I think that reading and learning should, although challenging, at least not become the reason that you stop reading. So if it is really frustrating you and you really feel that you cannot continue, than I would recommend first reading something else. Something like I mentioned: the lacanian subject by Bruce Fink or Lacanian Ethics and the Assumption of Subjectivity by Calum Neill. And after that you might have the confidence to have at it again! 😄 Also, Lacan is, just like most books and authors worth reading, not meant to only be read once. It takes scholars more then 10 times reading the critique of pure reason by Kant before they understand it, and even then it is hard to fully understand. So don't warry to much! One step at a time. 😁

That is a very good question and one that kept and keeps philosophers busy with their thought for decades and that which called religions into being. Lacan would be somewhat pessimistic here say that there is no cure for our disease, but that by learning to understand our disease that it can be easier to bear it on our shoulders. I would personally add that, as a start, it is easier to see what is not the way out of this lack. Then we could at least say that our way out is at least not to blind ourselves with ideology, or to try and find this lost jouissance in objects, or even worse, in money becouse this will not fill our lack. It will only shift to "more, more, more!", which will never fill this lack. Accourding to Schopenhauer there are 3 ways to mediate our suffering: 1) philosophy, 2) music and dance (or anything that does not belong to the principle of sufficient reason) and 3) renounciation i.e. letting go of our "desire" in the first place and accept our suffering. This however would anger Nietzsche since this renounciation of life is seen as weak and decadent. Therefore, Nietzsche would urge us to embrace this desire, to live! "Finally, a recommendation for those gentlemen the pessimists and other décadents. It is not up to us to prevent ourselves from being born, but we can make up for this mistake-for sometimes it is a mistake. When one does away with oneself, one does the most honorable thing there is: it almost earns one the right to live . . . Society-what am I saying!-life itself gains more advantage from suicide than from any “life” of renunciation, anemia and other virtues-one has freed the others from the sight of one, one has freed life from an objection . . . Pessimism pur, vert [pure and raw] is first proved by the self-refutation of the pessimist gentlemen: one must go a step farther in one’s logic, and not just negate life with “will and representation,” as Schopenhauer did-one must first negate Schopenhauer himself" - Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols -

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 thanks for the comprehensive answer! Excellent. I also think that Camus was right in there are 3 options- suicide, fantasy (ideology) or acceptance and create what you want out of life with the little time we are given. This as he would say gives us the ultimate personal freedom.

I will be sure to check it out! Thank you 😄

I feel your struggle... But I do promise you that it will get better and that it's very much worth it! Hang in there! ❤️