Abstract

The aim of this essay is to open the space for a dabate between political theory and psychoanalysis, by starting from the problematisation of some of the most fundamental concepts offered by the analytic theory of Jacques Lacan. Through the analysis of key-Lacanian categories like symbolic structure, big Other, object a, symptom, the article exposes the main misunderstandings that characterise the work of many contemporary political theorists and psychoanalysts who refer to adopt Lacanian psychoanalysis as an instrument for an hermeneutics of politics. Finally the article develops some guidelines for directing the application of Lacanian psychoanalysis toward the renewal of the conceptual apparatus of political theory.