Introduction 1
1
An Outline of the Human Condition 6
1.1
Three Levels of the Human Condition: From Intentionality to Structure 9
1.2
Three Types of Hermeneutics: From Signification to Signifier 13
1.3
Three Levels of the Human Condition Revisited 21
1.4
Application in Psychopathology 29
1.5
An Inquiry into Possibility: The Capacity to Symbolise 34
2
Cassirer 37
2.1
A Return to Kant 41
2.2
Cassirer’s Ambition 45
2.3
Cassirer and Heidegger 50
2.4
The Mind and Critical Idealism 54
2.5
The Concept of a Symbolic Form 62
2.6
Myth and Religion, Language, Science 70
2.7
Symbolisation: Three Sources and Three Modes 80
2.8
A Symbolic Form in the Making? 89
3
Lacan 97
3.1
A Return to Freud 98
3.2
The Autonomy of the Symbolic Order 105
3.3
The Dialectics of Desire 111
3.4
Differential Character of the Signifier 130
3.5
Symbolic Identification 138
3.6
The Real: Three Domains, Three Forms 145
3.7
The Later Lacan 149
3.8
Joyce and Lacan 155
3.9
Substance or Function 161
3.10
Lacan and Cassirer Juxtaposed 166
3.11
Lacan and Cassirer Put into a Mutual Relationship 171
4
Variations on the Theme of Symbolisation 176
4.1
The Human Condition and the Symbolic Function 177
4.2
The Medial Turn in Philosophy 180
4.3
Symbolisation in Perception 185
4.4
4.5
The Symbolic Order from A Normative Perspective: Politics, Law, Ethics 199
4.6
Shades of Symbolisation: The Psychic Disorder 211
4.7
One and the Same Theme? 223
Bibliography 229
Annex: Diagram of the Process of Symbolisation 244
Index of Names 245
Index of Subjects 248