1

Abstract

In L’Immanence des vérités, Alain Badiou re-writes the Platonic allegory of the cave. As the
book’s structure reveals, Badiou’s central claim is that truths are absolute, for they are
constituted by the dialectic between finitude and infinity, the consequence of which lies in the
creation of the œuvre. Although love is often affected by individual difference, family,
money, and social norms, philosophy calls for a rupture with these instances of finitude,
awakening us to the truth that love is open to the possibility of infinity embodied by
contingent encounter, amorous declaration, and the faithful construction of the Two. Badiou
calls for subjectivization of this possibility, in the form of the amorous œuvre, through and
beyond the Lacanian impasse of the sexual non-relationship. This article supplements
Badiouian love with Lacanian psychoanalysis by developing five points. First, the binary
framework “Lacanian finitude vs Badiouian infinity” can be misleading. Second, Badiou
himself regards the unconscious and the analytic discourse as inscribed by the dialectic
between finitude and infinity. Third, Lacan allows us to recognize that the œuvre and the
waste are not opposed, but rather supplementary to each other. Fourth, for both Lacan and
Badiou, love constitutes the interlacing of the non-relationship and the Two. Fifth, the
Badiouian amorous absolute must sustain a moderate attitude toward the real of the absolute
as the fusional One and thus, is intertwined with the Lacanian absolute as the sexual
relationship. Based on these points, this article elaborates such concepts as the amorous labor,
the dialectic between œuvre and waste, and the artisan of love.

1 Introduction: L’Immanence des vérités and Love

In L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou rewrites Plato’s allegory of the cave. He starts with an

analysis and critique of finitude, moves onto an exploration of the kingdom of infinity, and

concludes by elaborating on the theory of the œuvre, the finite form of truth that is open to

infinity. The book’s itinerary can thus be summed up as “finitude – infinity – œuvre.” If

Being and Event focused on the universality of truths (the generic multiplicity that is

indiscernible to the knowledge of the situation) and Logics of Worlds supplements Being and

Event by articulating the particularity of truths (the incorporation of the consequences of the

inexistent in a specific world), L’Immanence des vérités clarifies the absoluteness of truths.

Truths are absolute, in that the dialectic between finitude and infinity leads to the creation of

the œuvre endowed with an index of absoluteness. It is possible to address love as truth in

terms of this itinerary. Human animal’s love is often constituted by the apparatuses of
 2

finitude, such as sexuality, capital, convention, identity, and death. Philosophy, however, calls

for a rupture with finitude and encourages us to turn to infinity. More specifically, philosophy

affirms the contingent encounter outside of the pre-existing law, the declaration

accompanying existential commitment, the rigorous fidelity coordinating individual

difference, and the metaphysical happiness originating from the amorous process itself. To

support this affirmation, Badiou appropriates mathematical theory of large cardinals to show

the immanent possibility of infinity against the power of finitude. A key point here is the

distinction between the constructible (finitude) and the generic (infinity). If the former refers

to what is definable by the dominant language, the latter refers to what is elusive to and

subtracted from the defining power of the dominant language. Transposing this distinction

onto the domain of love, we can state that if family, ideology, social norms constitute finitude

(l’amour à la Gödel), evental encounter, amorous declaration, and the construction of the

Two constitute infinity (l’amour à la Cohen).1 Although it is easy to be affected by the

constituents of finitude, it is always possible to support and subjectivize the amorous infinity.

However, there is a point of the impossible, regarding which the amorous infinity should be

moderate and temperate. It is the mortal passion of becoming the One, which constitutes a

deviant approach to the amorous absoluteness. Love can persist only insofar as it does not

yield to the temptation of the fusional One. After exploring the amorous infinity and its limit

point, one descends to the territory of finitude. One is no longer faced with love as the waste

(déchet) that is passively stuck onto finitude, but with love as the œuvre (œuvre) that is

actively interlocked with infinity, despite its finite form, and dynamically expandable based

on its subjective elaboration. For Badiou, who supplements Lacan, the amorous œuvre

consists of faithfully constructing the Two, while coming to terms with the impasse of the

sexual non-relationship. The amorous œuvre shows that love is not merely universal

1
Badiou (2018a, p. 264).
 3

(transmissible beyond worldly boundaries) or singular (connected to a specific world), but

absolute; this is to say that it creates the amorous Two like a complete cardinal, which means

that the amorous world subjectively constructed by lovers is as powerful as or more powerful

than the existing objective world. Here, love reveals itself not as a transient feeling, but as an

absolute index, inscribing the figure of humanity within the trans-human truth.

2 From Critique to Supplementation

Certainly, this vision of love often provokes a strong backlash. Let us introduce one line of

critique. Badiou presents the principle of maximality as a core axiom of the approach to

infinity.2 This principle stipulates that any intelligible entity exists, insofar as its existence can

be inferred without any contradiction from the axioms concerning the entity in question.

Here, some may argue that Badiouian love is derived from the philosophico-mathematical

thesis that presupposes equivalence between being and thinking. For such an opponent, love

as truth is nothing but a construct of thought, belonging to a theoretical fiction suturing love

to mathematics. Other detractors, however, may argue that love as truth is a consequence of a

decision suturing love to politics. For instance, Badiou notes that there is a political

implication of the axiom of choice, in that this axiom allows for a representation beyond the

pre-established law.3 It is akin to an anonymous participant in a revolutionary movement

suddenly offering an improvised speech. Although parliamentary democratic regimes

emphasize reliable entitlement, the axiom of choice presents illegal and supra-legal

entitlement. In fact, the axiom of choice fits into Badiou’s critique of online dating systems

and family systems, both of which demand that love be based on a calculable property and a

predetermined guarantee. For this opponent, however, Badiou is transforming the communist

political subject into the amorous subject, radically emancipated from the contemporary

capitalist, technocratic, familial regime. In sum, these two critiques regard Badiouian love as
2
Badiou (2014, p. 11).
3
Badiou (2014, p. 20).
 4

a consequence of applying an over-arching philosophical truth to particular mathematical

axioms and political decisions.

These are external critiques of Badiou’s system, but there can be an internal critique as well.

According to such a critique, Badiou treats finitude too lightly. After all, to use the Spinozian

terms, finite modes exist alongside infinite modes. To use the set theoretical terms, there are

not only infinite sets, but also finite sets; Badiou, on this view, never takes finite modes and

finite sets seriously. Badiou’s likely retort is that his vision is hardly lopsided toward infinity

and that the œuvre actually embodies a dialectical relation between infinity and finitude. In

fact, Badiou points out that the total rupture with finitude amounts to an ultra-leftist chimera. 4

The œuvre does not require a global separation from finitude, but rather a local rupture with

finitude. This viewpoint is already present in the Theory of the Subject where Badiou notes

that while an exclusive focus on force (e.g., Deleuze’s chaos) belongs to the ultra-leftist

deviation, an exclusive focus on place (e.g., Lévi-Strauss’s structure) belongs to the ultra-

rightist deviation.5 This opponent nevertheless insists that Badiou’s approach may be

conceived of as infinity-centrism, calling our attention to the facticity of finitude with which

one should cope, and not the ideology of finitude by which one is enslaved. Given that the

œuvre of love, “apart from the familial state, seem doomed to sporadic moments of ecstasy,” 6

the opponent may also affirm, like Blanchot, that ecstasy as an instance of disaster is “not

absolute but disorients the absolute.”7 Love constitutes our existential drama not only with

happiness but with disaster, and disaster does not simply subordinate us to nihilism, but rather

disorients the absolute. While love evokes the possibility of participating in infinity despite

our finite existence, love also testifies ruthlessly to the impossibility of ignoring finitude. In

L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou argues that, while the size of the world amounts to an

4
Badiou (2018a, p. 266).
5
Badiou (2009b, p. 207).
6
Badiou (2018a, p. 560).
7
Vinciguerra (2014, p. 164).
 5

inaccessible cardinal, the size of the amorous œuvre amounts to a complete cardinal that is

superior to an inaccessible cardinal and subsumes it from above. According to this opponent,

however, we cannot state that love overwhelmed by the world, which fails to create a

complete cardinal, is not genuine love, implying that love as truth addresses only a partial and

narrow spectrum of love. In sum, this critique asserts that Badiou too easily dismisses the

significance of the amorous finitude.

For our part, leaving aside the conditions in which these critiques are justifiable, let us briefly

recall Badiou’s response to Peter Hallward, who criticized Badiou’s presentation of abstract

thinking that reduces empirical multiplicities to formal multiplicities. 8 One may consider a

similar kind of critique of love that can be found in L’Immanence des vérités: “What does

love have anything to do with the theory of large cardinal?” Here, we may expect Badiou to

repeat his answer to Hallward: “I believe it is more important to axiomatize my intentions

(sic); I am perfectly aware of the paradoxical violence of the statements I uphold.” 9 Here, it is

notable that, at the end of this response is a full presentation of the core thesis of

L’Immanence des vérités. As Plato’s Cave suggests, philosophy operates as an awakening

from ordinary and mundane life, and it is only through awakening that we live as Immortals

(Aristotle) or, consider the absolute with us all along (Hegel). Moreover, an awakening is

possible only by emancipating ourselves from “an anthropology of finitude.”10 Badiou is

absolutely convinced that the duty of philosophy is to break with the dogma of finitude and

awaken from the slumber of finitude. In this respect, no external critique can dampen the

philosopher’s determination to uphold his paradoxically violent theses, and no internal

critique can discourage the philosopher’s courage to fight against the mastery of finitude.

This article argues that a more reasonable engagement with Badiou consists neither of

8
Badiou (2004, p. 232).
9
Badiou (2004, p. 237).
10
Badiou (2004, p. 237).
 6

external nor internal critiques, but rather of a subtle supplementation to Badiou. To produce

this supplementation, this article uses the same material used by Badiou to present love as

truth, that is, Lacanian psychoanalysis.11

2.1 Lacanian Finitude vs Badiouian Infinity ?

Let us construct this supplementation in five points. The first point concerns finitude and

infinity. In Conditions, Badiou points out the essential finitude of the Lacanian subject, for

Lacan restricts the concept of infinity to inaccessibility, as if the number 2 is inaccessible

through the conjunction of the preceding numbers of 0 and 1. 12 Here, a Lacanian may argue

that the Lacanian feminine subject is not essentially finite. While the phallic function, which

affects all speaking beings, corresponds to finitude, feminine jouissance, which goes beyond

the phallus, corresponds to infinity. However, Badiou identifies an equivalence between

finitude and the sexual non-relationship, even between finitude and feminine jouissance,

based on Lacan’s following remark: “Its finitude [the finitude of the drives] is related to the

impossibility which is demonstrated in a genuine questioning of the sexual relation as

such.”13 Although it is unclear how the equivalence between finitude and feminine jouissance

can be derived from this passage, the connection between finitude and the impossibility of the

sexual non-relationship is made clearly here. But things change, as Lacan develops the

feminine “not-all” in Seminar XX. A woman is not-all because of “a jouissance that, with

respect to everything that can be used in the function of Φx, is in the realm of the infinite.” 14

Here, the infinity of feminine jouissance, which goes beyond the phallic finitude or the

finitude of the drives, is affirmed. For Badiou, however, this is unsatisfactory, for the infinity

of feminine jouissance is, at best, the infinity of inaccessibility. Feminine infinity is not

positively infinite. It is negatively infinite in the form of the unrepresentable experience, in

11
Regarding the necessity and significance of this supplementary approach, see e.g. Bryant (2007).
12
Badiou (2004, p. 225).
13
Badiou (2004, p. 226).
14
Lacan (1998, p. 103).
 7

the same sense that we do not know how God transcends human imperfection, even as we do

know that God transcends human imperfection. Meanwhile, Lacan, in Seminar XVI, states

that the hysteric poses the infinite point of jouissance as absolute. 15 However, the hysterical

infinity comes even closer to finitude, for the hysteric aims not at satisfaction, but at

dissatisfaction. Her jouissance is constituted by the absence of jouissance. The hysterical

infinity is a negative infinity. Because of this negative aspect of the Lacanian infinity, Badiou

would confirm that the Lacanian infinity is pre-Cantorian. Meanwhile, Lacan, in Seminar

XXI, connects the not-all with the Cantorian Aleph-naught. 16 However, whether Lacan is pre-

Cantorian or Cantorian, Aleph-naught (e.g., the cardinality of the set of the natural numbers)

is not sufficiently infinite for Badiou. For Badiou, in L’Immanence des vérités, describes the

kingdom of infinity as a hierarchical structure in which there are four types of infinity:

infinity as inaccessibility, infinity as resistance to division, infinity as immanence of large

parts, and infinity as proximity to the absolute. These correspond roughly to inaccessible

cardinal, compact cardinal, Ramsey cardinal, and complete cardinal. All of these are absent

from Lacan’s engagement with infinity. Moreover, Badiou points out a correlation between

Lacan’s insufficient engagement with infinity, his political skepticism, and his rational

pessimism.

“It is moreover a regrettable error of Lacan in Seminar ... or Worse to let people

believe that the infinities higher than ω are only fictions. By doing so, he paid in

pure theory the price of his political skepticism, and more generally of rational

pessimism which is the ordinary attitude of psychoanalysts, who are quotidianly

confronted with the subjects’ banal miseries instructed by death drive.”17

It is indeed true that the analytic work attempts to transform neurotic miseries into common

15
Lacan (2006, p. 335).
16
Lacan (1973, the lesson of 19 February 1974).
17
Badiou (2018a, p. 323).
 8

unhappiness through the activation of the unconscious. However, this article argues that the

schema “Lacanian finitude (or inaccessible infinity) vs Badiouian infinity” can be misleading,

especially when we consider Badiou’s discussion of the unconscious and the analytic

discourse in terms of finitude and infinity.18

2.2 The Unconscious and Analytic Work

In L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou assumes an ambivalent and contradictory perspective on

the unconscious. On the one hand, he argues that the unconscious is subject to finitude.

Consider the following remark: “The fundamental ontological hypothesis of any oppressive

system, whatever it is (including, for example, the unconscious of an individual), asserts the

unlimited sovereignty of finitude, which amounts to affirming that all that is, all multiplicity,

is constructible.”19 On the other hand, he supports the infinity of the unconscious when he

suggests that we immanentize the Cartesian idea of God. Twisting the Lacanian formula a bit,

Badiou states that “God is the unconscious itself.” 20 That is to say, the conscious

representation does not know the divine infinity, and yet, the unconscious knows it very well.

God as the unconscious is “the latent, immanent infinite resource, of which we have only

signs at the conscious level.”21 Moreover, Badiou maps his notion of the event onto the

unconscious inscription. The event as an aleatory interruption of necessary norms is “always

subjectively inscribed, first, in the unconscious,” 22 and the operation of the subject of truth

lies in elaborating the unknown consequences of this inscription. Badiou also accepts that, if

repression corresponds to the apparatus of finitude in psychoanalysis, the analytic work lies

in stripping away repression, through the activation of the unconscious as the immanent

infinity. In this respect, the unconscious is not merely finitude-based, but actually touches on

18
For a detailed explanation of this framework and its discursive context, see Price (2015, pp. 162–164).
19
Badiou (2018a, p. 268).
20
Badiou (2018a, p. 188).
21
Badiou (2018a, p. 188).
22
Badiou (2018a, p. 188).
 9

infinity. In fact, Badiou’s ambivalent and contradictory remarks on the unconscious hardly

owe to coincidence or error, insofar as the unconscious is constituted by ambivalence and

contradiction as such. On the one hand, if an analysand’s unconscious does not oppressively

push him/her to the deadlock of finitude, we cannot ever make sense of why the analysand

uses the analytic work to explore an outside chance. On the other hand, however, if the

unconscious does not contain an immanent infinity, we cannot ever make sense of how the

analytic work can lead to the practical effect of subjective change. Here, let us recall Lacan’s

formulation: “Desire merely subjugates what analysis subjectivizes.” 23 Psychoanalysis aims

to emancipate the subject whose pathological symptom is reinforced by the pre-existing

desire as the restrictive law.

In a 2018 conference after the publication of L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou actually

adopts a similar attitude towards psychoanalysis. 24 He first states that, for Lacan, infinity is a

figure of feminine desire, and that this feminine infinity belongs to a classical discourse

originating from the Greek tragedy. Then, he states that the relation between finitude and

infinity is analogous to the relation between the symptom and the unconscious. The analytic

work mobilizes and redeploys the unconscious as infinity to destabilize and reconstruct the

symptom as finitude. Insofar as the unconscious is the reservoir of the subjective infinity, the

analytic work moves from the symptom as the finite unconscious formation to the underlying

structure causing the symptom, supporting the potential plasticity of the unconscious. During

this process, analysis encounters the real gap that resists any causal explanation or structural

logic, which Lacan calls the object a. Through this encounter, the subject experiences his/her

constitutive division and explores an occasion for a new subjectivization. In this respect,

rejecting the misplaced framework of “Lacanian Finitude vs Badiouian Infinity,” we can

draw a more nuanced conclusion. Despite their theoretical and practical differences, Lacan
23
Lacan (2006b, p. 520).
24
Badiou (2018b, n. p.).
 10

and Badiou agree on the following point: The unconscious is an interlacing of finitude and

infinity, and the analytic work aims at subjectivization based on the infinity of the

unconscious beyond the finitude of the symptom.

2.3 Between Œuvre and Waste

This leads us to the third point. How then is the analytic “work” similar to and different from

the Badiouian “œuvre”? This requires attention, for one possible translation of “œuvre” is

“work.” Let us first consider how Lacan addresses work (travail) and waste (déchet). For

Lacan, work is a product of the master discourse. Work is something that the master as the

agent commands the slave as the other to accomplish. After all, is it not a master who

declares “time to work”? Work is also a product of the capitalist discourse focusing on social

utility and calculable performance. Thus, the subject is haunted by the following superegoic

voice: “Only those who work are allowed to enjoy,” or “work hard, then you will be able to

enjoy someday.” However, work does not belong exclusively to the master discourse. Work is

concerned with the analytic discourse as well. In Seminar XVI, Lacan states that

psychoanalytic experience allows us to introduce the analogy between truth and work. “In the

analytic discourse, the work of the truth is rather obvious, because it is painful.” 25 The

analytic discourse is not only about the articulated knowledge of the unconscious that the

subject does not know yet repeats, but about the not-all sayable truth, namely, gaps in

knowledge, such as sexuality, trauma, and death.

Moving onto waste, Lacanian waste is very different from Badiouian waste. In Seminar XV,

Lacan states that waste is compatible with the analytic act. 26 This is because the analyst serves

as the abject object that captures the analysand’s uninterpretable jouissance, thereby

mirroring the subjective real of the analysand. The waste implies that the analyst is not really

an analyst, except for his physical presence, but rather a semblant, namely, an instrument
25
Lacan (2006a, pp. 199–200).
26
Lacan (1967, the lesson of 6th December 1967).
 11

supporting the analysand’s singular subjectivization. Certainly, at the beginning of analysis,

the analyst is positioned at the point of idealization (I) or the subject-supposed to know about

the analysand’s unconscious. As analysis progresses, however, the analyst’s status falls into

the waste-object a, whose functional necessity consists only of encouraging the analysand to

face his/her subjective real and find a way to live with his/her opaque jouissance through a

proper symbolization. Here, let us map the idea of civilization as sewer (égout) in Seminar

XXI onto obsessional neurosis.27 The obsessional neurotic loves consciously, but hates

unconsciously. That is to say, he is too civilized and is therefore obliged to love his neighbor

and repress hate. Such ambivalence generates a variety of ritual symptoms for the

obsessional, such as washing, checking, counting, and ruminating. He is the incarnation of

discontent in civilization, with his symptom being the stupidity of truth or the truth of

stupidity. As Denise Lachaud writes, “Who better than the obsessional could state loudly

what every speaking being repressed: in the beginning was hatred?” 28 The analyst as the

sewer of civilization can help him articulate his hatred, and this function of the sewer can

lead the obsessional to love in a new way. Here, let us refer to Lacan’s remark in Seminar

XX, frequently quoted by Badiou. “It is love that approaches being as such in the

encounter.”29 But Lacan immediately adds that, in love, at stake are beings who do not meet

each other, beings who are affected by the sexual non-relationship; he finally concludes that

love gives way to hatred. Love as the approach to being and hatred as the missed encounter

with being are interlocked. Therefore, the axiom that love is hainamoration (the nexus of hate

and love) constitutes the first truth of psychoanalysis.30

Finally, let us refer to the text “The pleasure and the fundamental rule (Le plaisir et la règle

27
Lacan (1973, the lesson of 9th April 1974).
28
Lachaud (1995, p. 320).
29
Lacan (1998, p. 145).
30
Lacan (1974, the lesson of 15th April 1975).
 12

fondamentale)” in which Lacan relates the analytic work to the work of art (œuvre d’art).31

Lacan first specifies that the function of the pleasure principle lies in regulating the stimulus

as minimally as possible. In fact, insofar as the pleasure principle is interlocked with the

reality principle, it is no more than a conservative apparatus that distinguishes between the

normal and the abnormal, the average and the exceptional. However, the pleasure principle is

ultimately dislocated and disoriented by a paradoxical pleasure. In other words, it falls into

the trap of jouissance. Furthermore, psychoanalysis addresses the symptom as the particular

mode of jouissance, identifying it with a particularity. In some fortunate cases that

successfully disentangle the knots of symptom-particularity, analysis allows the analysand to

reach his/her singularity, name, and destiny. Lacan compares this singularity to a work of art.

Here, the analytic work leads the analysand to reconcile with his/her singular destiny after

working through his/her particular symptoms. However, Lacan concludes that this is not the

analyst’s intention. “It [our intention] is not at all to lead someone to make a name for

him/herself or to make a work of art. It is something which consists in inciting him to go

through the good hole of what is offered to him as singular.” 32 Sometimes, analysis has a

chance of turning the analysand’s singularity into a work of art. But the fundamental goal is

to incite him/her to go through the hole of such a work of art, no matter how painstakingly

the work has been created.

Having considered all of this, the Lacanian work-waste-work of art has an interesting impact

on the conceptual configuration of the Badiouian œuvre-waste. For Lacan, the work can

signify both the product of the master’s commandment and the analytic work of the truth, and

waste has a clinically significant value. Moreover, although the work of art is regarded as a

singular destiny beyond particular symptoms, the core of the analytic work consists of

passing through the hole of the work. For Badiou, while the œuvre is the finite form of the
31
Lacan (1978).
32
Lacan (1978, p. 24).
 13

active effect of infinity, the waste is the finite remainder of the passive consequence of

infinity. But the Lacanian triad “work-waste-work of art” is not simply incomplete or

imperfect, in light of the Badiouian œuvre. Still less do they belong to Badiouian waste.

Rather, the Lacanian triad blurs the philosophical distinction between œuvre and waste,

although for Badiou this distinction is as absolute as the Platonic distinction between truth

and opinion. Lacan points to the ambivalence of work, clarifies the positive and indispensable

value that waste contains, and articulates the importance of the hole of the work. Put simply,

it suggests the possibility of the interlacing of the œuvre and the waste. In fact, in

L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou writes,

“Making work with regard to finitude, ontological here, political for Marx,

exposes us to the stirring-up of so much waste that there is always a risk of

interrupting the work and being satisfied with a few possible acts. But acts are

nothing if they are not works too. We must therefore continue to clear in order to

make, and this is why any work takes with it, like a building site does, the

obscure and indistinguishable pile of waste that it must have stirred up.”33

The categorical distinction between œuvre and waste can be mitigated. After all, creating the

œuvre and clearing the waste are coexistent. To make a satisfactory œuvre, one should

process the waste skillfully. One may note that, sometimes, the pile of waste turns into the

œuvre through artistic elaboration. Refer to the project Plastikophobia, made by Benjamin

Von Wong, Joshua Goh, Laura François, and hundreds of volunteers. Constructing a large-

scale installation piece made of 18,000 plastic cups collected from restaurants in Singapore,

the project evokes the extent to which disposable items affect the environment. Although the

title of the project contains the pathological symptom, its visible effect is so powerful that it

offers the following politico-environmental message to the contemporary world: It is time to

33
Badiou (2018, p. 462).
 14

promote awareness of the truth that humanity is not the master of the globe. Let us also note

that, as this project transforms piles of plastic cups into a crystal cave, it fits well into

Badiou’s critical message to the contemporary art world, which is that art is not a blatant

exposure of death, violence, sex, and body, but rather a creation of a new form. In sum, the

œuvre and waste do not stand in a relationship of binary opposition, but one of mutual

supplementation.

2.4 Sexual Non-Relationship and Two

How then does the supplementary relationship between the œuvre and waste actually appear

in the domain of love? This questions leads us to the fourth point about the Lacanian sexual

non-relationship and the Badiouian Two. For Badiou, love that does not transform the sexual

or work through the impasse of the sexual non-relationship remains a waste. Only love that

comes to terms with the sexual impasse and constructs the faithful Two can become an

œuvre. More specifically, Badiou brings up two kinds of elements in love. On the one hand,

at the stage of contingent encounter, love is affected by the object-cause of desire μ, which

reduces the beloved’s total being to a partial object. While this object clearly explains the

evental aspect of love, it is not sufficient for Badiouian love. Badiou argues for “a concept of

love that is less miraculous and more hard work, namely, a construction of eternity within

time, of the experience of the Two, point by point.”34 When the charm of μ is no longer

operative, what remains is mutual misunderstanding as an instance of the sexual non-

relationship. Badiou therefore brings up another kind of element t, which is gradually

constructed during the amorous process and subtracted from the sexual positions of both Man

and Woman. This implies that lovers, in their engagement with t, appeal to neither Man nor

Woman, but to Humanity, which can be summoned from the perspective of the Two. Love is

an index of the absolute, because it attests to Humanity as touched upon by the Two. In sum,

34
Badiou (2012, p. 80).
 15

if μ is on the side of the sexual impasse, despite its evental power, then t illustrates the

properly amorous aspect, which is the construction of the Two beyond the sexual.

Interestingly, we can observe that Lacan, in his own way, also considers both the non-

relationship and the Two in different places. On the one hand, Lacan sticks to his axiom that

there is no such thing as the sexual relationship. Even the analytic discourse cannot overcome

the impasse of the sexual non-relationship. On the contrary, the analytic discourse prefers to

support and preserve the impasse. “Not that one could ever expect from it [the new discourse

that is analysis] the relation that I’m referring to, namely that it is the absence [of the relation]

that gives the speaker access to the real.”35 While the absence of the sexual relationship

amounts to the real of the speaking being, one cannot expect that the analytic discourse

authorizes the sexual relationship. But Lacan states in “The Third” that the singularity of the

analytic discourse consists of making a bond of two. “Socially speaking, psychoanalysis has a

consistency different from that of other discourses: it is a bond of two [un lien à deux]. It is in

this respect that it occupies the place of the lack of the sexual relation.” 36 Therefore, although

Lacan does not authorize the relation [rapport] of two, he affirms the bond [lien] of two. And

this bond, between the analyst and the analysand, does not amount to an overcoming of the

sexual non-relationship. Rather, the bond of two and the non-relationship are superimposed.

To use the Badiouian term, the bond of two arrives as an event in a supernumerary and

supplementary way, where the sexual non-relationship is lacking. Moreover, just as the

Badiouian scene of the Two does not pre-exist, but is constructed through the gradual

exploration of properly amorous and a-sexual fragments, the Lacanian bond of two does not

pre-exist, but is slowly established by the enduring symbolization of the subjective real. In

this respect, the framework in which Lacan focuses on the real of the non-relationship, while

Badiou focuses on the truth of the two is misleading. Rather, both Lacan and Badiou, albeit in
35
Lacan (2001, p. 506).
36
Lacan (2019, p. 87).
 16

different terms, recognize the troublesome situation that love confronts with the sexual

impasse, and both point out the necessity of devising a consistent endeavor to find a way in

that troublesome situation, instead of being discouraged and frustrated by it. To state that

Badiou is easily sublating the sexual impasse though the amorous truth is as much a

simplification as stating that Lacan is pessimistically stuck in the sexual impasse due to his

skepticism of the possibility of the advent of the Two. Rather, it is important to note that the

Badiouian limping march in love implies that, without the impact of the non-relationship,

love would never actually be limping and that the Lacanian consistency of the analytic

discourse lies in the formation of the bond of two against the backdrop of the non-

relationship. In sum, love constitutes an interlacing of the non-relationship and the Two.

2.5 The Badiouian Absolute with the Lacanian Absolute

Finally, let us address the problem of the absolute in Lacan and Badiou. In his intellectual

itinerary, Lacan brings up different kinds of the absolute. In Écrits, he regards death as the

absolute master of human being37 and states that a woman “represents the absolute Other in

the phallocentric dialectic.”38 In Seminar XI, he brings up the absolute point of transference,

at which the analysand’s desire is projected onto the analyst as the subject-supposed-to

know.39 As mentioned above, he states in Seminar XVI that the hysteric poses her jouissance

as absolute. For our part, let us suggest another kind of the Lacanian absolute via the hole of

the work of art mentioned above. Doubtless, this hole is the hole of the sexual non-

relationship. Although the analysand succeeds in creating his/her singular destiny, like an

artist, by working through his/her particular symptoms, the analysand is ultimately

encouraged to encounter the hole of a work of art. The fundamental intention of the analyst is

not concerned about the analysand’s creation of a work of art but about the analysand’s

37
Lacan (2006b, p. 289).
38
Lacan (2006b, p. 616).
39
Lacan (1981, p. 253).
 17

psychoanalytic experience of going through the hole. This implies that the hole is an ultimate

endpoint. Moreover, the hole is also a structural deadlock. In Seminar XVIII, Lacan observes

that the sexual non-relationship figures as the central void in the structure of the neurotic’s

discourse.40 The sexual non-relationship is a topological and irreducible void that cannot be

filled up with any social, legal, or discursive relationship. In this respect, the sexual non-

relationship constitutes one of the figures of the Lacanian absolute. For Lacan, the absolute is

a hole or void. The absoluteness of love then would not lie in feeling eternity and attaining

harmony, but in facing the hole and enduring the void. The absoluteness of love is inseparable

from the immanent limit of love.

Although Badiou would certainly reject such an amorous absoluteness, the situation is not so

simple. In L’Immanence des vérités, Badiou defines the absolute substance V as the place in

which all set-theoretically multiple-beings can be thought. What is notable here is the

ambivalence of V. On the one hand, V is open because it has a hierarchical structure that

begins with the empty set and moves interminably upward to the complete cardinal and

beyond. Now, for Badiou, love can be evoked as both the empty set (the multiple-of-nothing

as the indeterminate name) and the infinite multiplicities of large cardinals. “The power of the

multiple and its empty ‘heart’ can also be summoned through the systematic play, carried to

infinity, of pure difference (love).”41 Insofar as every multiplicity, including the empty set, can

be summoned through love, we can state that love is pervasively embedded within the ever-

ascending movement from the empty set to the complete cardinal and above. However, as

Kunen’s theorem proves, there is a limit to the ascending movement, which implies that the

domain of V is closed. In our approach to the absolute, an interminably open-ended

succession is impossible, and this constitutes “the real of the absolute.” 42 However, one may

40
Lacan (2007b, p. 166).
41
Badiou (2004, p. 234).
42
Badiou (2018a, p. 681).
 18

be tempted to ignore the real of the absolute and to attain the ultimate cardinal that entertains

a privileged relationship with the absolute. In technical terms, this can occur when one

engages in an elementary embedding (plongement élémentaire) of V into V. In philosophical

terms, one commits such a deviating practice by appealing to the internal movement of the

substance, rather than dialectically touching the substance through the mediation of the

attribute. In love, this temptation emerges as the desire to attain the One.

The ecstatic fusional love of romanticism … is nothing but the desire to no

longer have to deal with the gap, the difference, the separation between the

absolute referent and the place of absolutization of singular truths. It is an

immense hope to find … an ultimate infinity as testimony of a truth without

withdrawal or defect. The ambition, basically, to be in V, the one that goes from

V to V.43

Note that the absolute referent itself and the place of absolutization of truths are distinct.

Truths can and must be absolutized, not by means of the substance V, but by the attribute M

as the internal model of V. Moreover, the gap between V and M must be maintained

rigorously. Applying this to love, love can survive and persist only when it continues struggle

with the gap between the desiring One and the ever-precarious Two, rather than leaning

toward the desiring One, which ultimately aims for the ecstatic One. Just as absolute power

corrupts absolutely, fusional love perishes absolutely.

In this respect, while the absoluteness of love can be summoned through the void and infinity,

the real of the absoluteness of love should be handled carefully. The absoluteness of love lies

not only in applying the power of the Two to the ascending movement in the kingdom of

infinity, but also in facing the real of the ascending movement and staying alert to the

overwhelming temptation to be the One. Here, let us note that Badiou regards V as both the

43
Badiou (2018a, p. 481).
 19

abbreviation of “Truths (Vérités)” and the abbreviation of “Vacuum (Vacuum).”44 Although it

is philosophically imperative to stay true to the amorous absoluteness, those who treat the

great Vacuum poorly are sucked into and devoured by it. The scene of the Two can be

constructed only insofar as lovers avoid falling into the One as the great Vacuum. For Lacan’s

part, in Seminar XX, he articulates the One of the sexual relationship, which is distinct from

the One of pure difference.45 In Seminar XXV, he remarks that the sexual relationship is

equivalent to the empty set.46 Integrating and recasting these two remarks slightly allows one

to assert that the sexual relationship does not merely amount to the empty set, but to the

Vacuum that can dominate the subject through the fatal temptation of becoming the One.

Thus emerges another Lacanian absolute, the absolute of the Vacuum of the sexual

relationship, which works in concert with the previous Lacanian absolute, that of the hole of

the sexual non-relationship. In clinical terms, if the sexual non-relationship may trigger

various neurotic symptoms, the sexual relationship may reduce the unsatisfactory lack of love

to the ravaging excess of jouissance. If the sexual relationship is fully operative at the level of

the traumatic real outside the mediation of fantasy, lovers in the sexual relationship who face

its invasive jouissance may get bogged down in the black hole of the Vacuum. Here, love

leads to the total nullification of subjectivity, as in Nagisa Oshima’s film In the Realm of the

Senses, where the woman cuts off the penis of her beloved, an act that prompts Lacan to

comment that the woman’s fantasy actually consists of killing him rather than castrating him 47

and, arguably, of dying with him to achieve absolute eroticism. In sum, the sexual

relationship is a significant form of the absolute that the absoluteness of the amorous truth

should devise a way of handling, and the Badiouian amorous absolute should learn to resist

yielding to the temptation of the Vacuum of the catastrophic sexual relationship. Thus, the

44
Badiou (2018a, p. 40).
45
Lacan (1998a, pp. 7/47).
46
Lacan (1977, the lesson of 15th November 1977).
47
Lacan (2017, p. 107).
 20

Lacanian absolute and the Badiouian absolute are knotted together.

3 Amorous Labor, Dialectic between Œuvre and Waste, and Artisan of Love

Let us summarize our five points. First, the framework “Lacanian finitude vs Badiouian

infinity” can be misleading. Second, for Badiou himself, the unconscious and the analytic

discourse are inscribed by the dialectic between finitude and infinity. Third, Lacan allows us

to recognize that the œuvre and the waste do not stand in opposition, but rather supplement

each other. Fourth, for both Lacan and Badiou, love constitutes the interlacing of the non-

relationship and the Two. Fifth, the Badiouian amorous absolute must stay moderate toward

the real of the absolute as the fusional One and thus, cannot be conceived as separate from the

Lacanian absolute as the sexual relationship. What then is a term capable of epitomizing all

of these points? This article argues that it is an amorous labor. For Badiou, love is a labor,

because it is neither sublime nor trivial. 48 Love is a labor, because it is a procedure of

constructing the immanent Two. However, a Lacanian supplementation to L’Immanence des

vérités allows us to recognize that love is a labor in a more concrete and comprehensive way.

Love is a labor, because it is a process affected by the unconscious as the finite/infinite

knowledge and yet moves towards the truth, because it is a work that deals with waste as the

passive remainder of infinity and creates the œuvre as the active effect of infinity, because it

is a practice that struggles with the limit of the sexual non-relationship and launches into the

singular Two, and because it is a force that connects the void and the multiple with infinity

without falling prey to the temptation posed by the sexual relationship of the One as the

Vacuum. In fact, an amorous labor implies the following point experienced by every lover: all

of the anguish and happiness proper to love comes from and consists of the amorous labor

itself. Love contains anguish, because it requires a constant struggle with the infinite

difference of the unconscious structure of each individual, and yet, it remains a happy labor

48
Badiou (2018a, p. 622).
 21

because it allows us to touch upon the unprecedented infinity that can be produced by the

expansion of the pure difference of the Two. For this reason, an amorous labor can become a

labor of love. An amorous labor is both a stammering act that works through the real and a

limping march that constructs the Two, point by point.

This idea of an amorous labor provokes a new approach to the problem of the amorous

absolute and the amorous agent. Concerning the amorous absolute, it does not exclusively

belong to the œuvre. For Badiou, the concept of the index (index) serves as a criterion that

distinguishes between the œuvre and the waste. It is the index that saves the œuvre from

being stuck onto finitude, makes the œuvre irreducible to the archive, and leads the œuvre

into touching upon the absolute.49 However, as discussed above, the distinction between the

œuvre and the waste can be blurred, rendering it impossible to specify the amorous absolute

cannot be specified by the operation of the index. In fact, the amorous absolute lies in

something that is not directly articulated by, but can be drawn from, Badiou’s discussion; this

is the dialectic between the œuvre and the waste, the consequence of which is an amorous

labor. Badiou argues for the creation of the œuvre through the specifically oriented dialectic

between finitude and infinity. Love, however, goes so far as to affirm the practice of labor

through the immanently untotalizable dialectic between œuvre and waste, the space of which

can be conceived of as the interstitial zone of the super-absolute. While the amorous œuvre is

indexed by the absolute, love remains irreducible to and untamable by the absolute. Just as

the theory of large cardinals shows that a super-compact cardinal can subsume a compact

cardinal, due to its reflexivity, love opens up the zone of super-absolute beyond the truths

indexed by the absolute, due to its protean character. Let us add the observation that, if a

super-compact cardinal relativizes and subsumes a compact cardinal due to its superior

degree in the kingdom of infinity, the amorous super-absolute embraces the amorous absolute

49
Badiou (2018a, pp. 521–527).
 22

and lets it remain absolute.

In love, what is at stake is not simply that the absolute is with us all along (Badiou with

Hegel), but that the lover makes him/herself committed to a unique labor. This labor actually

fits well into the etymology of absolute (absolutus). Absoluteness means being freed. While

biochemical mechanisms, conjugal obligations, romantic codes, and sociopolitical ideologies

signify that love is different from freedom, it is the amorous labor that evokes and proves that

the lover is radically freed. A lover, however, is freed in an enigmatic way, without being able

to identify or discern from what he or she is freed. A lover is freed without being freed from

anything, because a lover is committed to a strange labor, from which one can neither be

freed (labor constitutes love itself) nor bound to (while there are conjugal obligations, nothing

essentially binds us to the amorous labor). A lover is not merely indexed by the absolute truth,

but is so absolutely freed that he/she cannot be contained or restricted by the absolute. What

kind of an agent, then, is a lover? In Seminar IX, Lacan specifies that there is no such thing as

the subject of love, but rather only the victim of love. 50 This is because love constitutes a

wound caused by the Vacuum of the sexual relationship. For Badiou’s part, he articulates the

subject of love, which turns the sexuality of the human animal into the material of the trans-

human truth. This occurs because love constitutes a singular infinity that is heterogeneous to

the finitude of the sexual. However, the amorous super-absolute calls for neither the victim of

love nor the subject of love, but rather the artisan of love. Only the artisan of love knows how

to devote him/herself to the masterpiece (chef d’œuvre), while finding a way to recycle the

misfired and fragmentary waste. And this artisan’s elaborate workmanship does not appear

only rarely in a fine museum, but frequently in our daily lives; yet, it is never totally

manifested and transparent, for the amorous labor is both an intimate phenomenon and an

opaque mystery.

50
Lacan (1961, the lesson of 21st February 1962).
 23

4 Concluding Remarks: Love and the Interlacing of Lacan and Badiou

The common implication of the amorous labor, the dialectic between the œuvre and the

waste, and the artisan of love is the need to articulate the interlacing of Lacan and Badiou in

our practice and thinking about love. While Badiou’s philosophical project focuses on the

critique of finitude and the affirmation of infinity, this article argues that one must return to

the experience of the artisan of love from the perspective of the interlacing of Lacan and

Badiou, and not simply from an empiricist or phenomenological perspective. Let us recall

Fichte’s description of love as “a desire for something altogether unknown, the existence of

which is disclosed solely by the need of it, by a discomfort, and by a void that is in search of

whatever will fill it, but that remains unaware of whence fulfillment may come.”51 The love

invoked here can be called “Bacanian,” namely, Lacanian/Badiouian. It is Badiouian, in the

sense that it is non-objective movement heading toward infinity. At the same time, it is

Lacanian, in the sense that it is related to desire and disclosed by discomfort and void. If this

Bacanian approach to love seems too idealist, it is possible to conceive of a more sensible

Bacanian figure of love.

─upper lack, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the stream

and drifted. She lay stretched out on the floorboards with her hands under her

head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and

lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking

gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going

on and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [Pause.] I asked her to look at me

and after a few moments─[pause]─after a few moments she did, but the eyes just

slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadows and they

opened. [Pause. Low.] Let me in. [Pause.] We drifted in among the flags and

51
Rougemont (1983, p. 220).
 24

stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! [Pause.] I lay down

across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without

moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from

side to side.52

This passage narrates the scene of love that Krapp encountered again, while listening to the

tape recording of his life episodes. Badiou proposes two different readings of this passage.

According to one reading, what is at stake is the immanence of the Other inscribed in the

subject’s memory and the possibility of awakening. 53 Despite Krapp’s old age, the trace of the

Other still intrudes on his isolation, and evokes the evental possibility of the other life that

differs from the present lonely life. According to the alternative reading, the passage

describes “the multiple of the absolute moment, the one in which love, even when in the

statement of its end, suggests the infinite of the sensible.” 54 At the very moment that lovers

agree on the idea that their love is hopeless, lovers lay there, unmoving, but are moved by all

that moves under them. As a literary reconfiguration of the Aristotelian unmoved mover or

the Badiouian substance V, the passage shows lovers engaged in a movement without

movement. Even at its hopeless point of crisis and limit, love allows for a paradoxical spatio-

temporality, in which lovers are radically freed like a gentle stream.

For our part, it is important to note that Beckett presents the Bacanian figure of love, namely,

love in its structural limit and its absolute trace. We can illustrate this point by

contextualizing Krapp’s last speech within the structure of the play. Krapp finally states:

“Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want

them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.” 55 One may claim

that, while Krapp is now indulged in his perverse practice of listening to his recordings, the

52
Beckett (1984, p. 55).
53
Badiou (2003a, pp. 70–71).
54
Badiou (2008, p. 278).
55
Beckett (1984, p. 58).
 25

amorous scene in question may belong to one of Krapp’s best years, when he had a chance of

happiness. A brief re-encounter with this scene, however, is so strong that it infiltrates

Krapp’s solitude, kindling fire in him. This absolute trace of love, which eventally causes the

resurrection of the amorous fire, serves as the Spinozian-Badiouian index of truth. Truth is

the index of both itself and the false (verum index sui et falsi). It is not the case that Krapp

was previously in love and now exists in solitude. Rather, Krapp’s past and present are

marked indelibly by the amorous scene and can be re-marked by it in an unpredictable way.

Therefore, love in its absolute trace is already enough for him, so “he would not want them

back.” At the same time, let us note that, despite his random and impatient manipulation,

Krapp repeatedly runs into the recording of this amorous scene over the course of the play.

The scene thus amounts to the Lacanian real, as that which always returns to the same place.

Krapp will have remained irresistibly attached to and haunted by the amorous scene in a

symptomatic way. Here, love is discovered and re-discovered only through its loss. As in the

Freudian-Lacanian aim of drive, he will have circumnavigated the hole of the de-naturalized

drive beyond the satisfaction of biological need, extracting his jouissance from the amorous

mis-encounter without knowing what he is involved in. The amorous scene thus constitutes a

structural limit to his subjectivity. This time, exhausted by the demonic repetition of the loss

of love, “he would not want them back.”

Let us provide a formulation of love’s intrinsic ambivalence at a more general level. In

Seminar XXII, Lacan declares: “And that is why love is precious, eh!, rarely realized, as

everyone knows, only lasting for a time and all the same made up of the fact that it is

essentially this breaking down of the wall where one can only give yourself a bump on the

forehead, in short, that is at stake.” 56 For Lacan, the preciousness, rarity, and transience of

love are correlative with the fact that love is an attempt to breach its own impasse, which

56
Lacan (1974, the lesson of 21st January 1975).
 26

never authorizes an easy way through. Any attempt to surmount the lovewall (amur) results

in an insurmountable bump. Here, love appears as an impassable impasse. For Badiou, what

matters is not breaking down the wall (fracturer le mur), but jumping over the wall (faire le

mur) of relativism, nihilism, and skepticism. To create the œuvre of love, one should not rely

on existing norms to bypass the wall, nor tolerate being imprisoned behind the wall. Love can

touch upon its proper infinity beyond the power of finitude. Of course, this love is not devoid

of a risk or obstacle. But it contains a sort of surplus, undisturbed by and invulnerable to the

impasse. This surplus is borne of turning the stumbling block of the sexual into a stepping-

stone of the amorous. Love preserves its index of the absolute, despite a bump on the

forehead. Here, love appears as an impassible pass. We thus reach the following formulation,

from the perspective of the interlacing of Lacan and Badiou: Love resides between an

impassable impasse and an impassible pass.

To conclude, L’Immanence des vérités shows that love is an itinerary of the absolute that

passes through the dialectic between finitude and infinity. As Badiou is not only

supplemented by but also interlaced with Lacan, however, we have been inspired to move

beyond love as theorized in L’Immanence des vérités. Here, it is possible to witness love

glimmering at the gap between the œuvre and the waste, the Two and the non-relationship,

the truth and the hole, the absolute and the Vacuum. There is no eros of integration, but rather

an errancy of interstice. It is also possible to envision the artisan of love, who stands

obliquely between the victim of love and the subject of love, practicing the amorous labor,

holding dear the misfired waste of love, and constructing the infinite subjective world.

Moreover, every lover can hear this artisan, who sometimes tires, but never gives up on the

laborious work, voice wishfully, “Let love become an integral absolution for the super-

absolute interstice.”
 27

References

Badiou, Alain. 2001. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. Trans. Peter Hallward.
London: Verso.
Badiou, Alain. 2003a. On Beckett. Eds. Alberto Toscano and Nina Power. Manchester:
Clinamen.
Badiou, Alain. 2003b. The Scene of Two. Trans. Barbara P. Fulks. Lacanian Ink 21: 42–55.
Badiou, Alain. 2004. Some Replies to a Demanding Friend. Trans. Alberto Toscano. In Think
Again: Alain Badiou and the Future of Philosophy. London: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain. 2008. Conditions. Trans. Steven Corcoran. New York: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain. 2009a. Logics of Worlds. Trans. Alberto Toscano. London: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain. 2009b. Theory of the Subject. Trans. Bruno Bosteels. New York: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain. 2012. In Praise of Love. Trans. Peter Bush. London: Serpent’s Tail.
Badiou, Alain. 2013. Lacan: L’antiphilosophie 3, 1994–1995. Paris: Fayard.
Badiou, Alain. 2014. Toward a New Thinking of the Absolute. Crisis & Critique, Special
Issue: 11–21.
Badiou, Alain. 2015. Métaphysique du bonheur réel. Paris: PUF.
Badiou, Alain. 2017. The True Life. Trans. Susan Spitzer. Cambridge: Polity.
Badiou, Alain. 2018a. L’Immanence des vérités, Paris: Fayard.
Badiou, Alain. 2018b. Citéphilo Conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-
sFK0ThZMM
Beckett, Samuel. 1984. Krapp’s Last Tape. In Samuel Beckett: The Collected Shorter Plays.
New York: Grove Press.
Bryant, Levy. 2007. Symptomal Knots and Evental Ruptures: Žižek, Badiou and Discerning
the Indiscernible. In International Journal of Žižek Studies 1(2): n.p.
Lacan, Jacques. 1961. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book IX: Identification, 1961–1962.
Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1966. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XIV: The Logic of Fantasy, 1966–
1967. Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1967. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XV: The Psychoanalytic Act,
1967–1968. Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1973. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XXI: Les non-Dupes Errent,
1973–1974. Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1974. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XXII: RSI, 1974–1975.
Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1977. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XXV: The Moment to Conclude,
1977–1978. Unpublished translation by Cormac Gallagher.
Lacan, Jacques. 1978. Le plaisir et la règle fondamentale: Intervention à la suite de l’exposé
d’André Albert. In Lettres de l’École Freudienne 24: 22–24.
Lacan, Jacques. 1981. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI: The Four Fundamental
Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. A. Sheridan. New York: W.W.Norton.
Lacan, Jacques. 1998. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XX: On Feminine Sexuality, the
Limits of Love and Knowledge, 1972–1973. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York:
W.W.Norton & Co.
Lacan, Jacques. 2001. Autres écrits. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Lacan, Jacques. 2006a. Le Séminaire XVI: D’un autre à l’Autre, 1968–1969. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
 28

Lacan, Jacques. 2006b. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Trans. Bruce Fink.
New York: W.W.Norton & Co.
Lacan, Jacques. 2007a. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XVII: The Other Side of
Psychoanalysis, 1969–1970. Trans. Russell Grigg. New York: W.W.Norton & Co.
Lacan, Jacques. 2007b. Le Séminaire XVIII: D’un discours qui ne serait pas du semblant,
1970–1971. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Lacan, Jacques. 2017. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XXIII: The Sinthome, 1975–1976.
Trans. Adrian Price. Cambridge: Polity.
Lacan, Jacques. 2018. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XIX: ...or Worse, 1971–1972.
Trans. Adrian Price. Cambridge: Polity.
Lacan, Jacques. 2019. The Third. In The Lacanian Review 7: Get Real. Paris: New Lacanian
School.
Lachaud, Denise. 1995. L’enfer du devoir: Le discours de l’obsessionnel. Paris: Denoël.
Park, Youngjin. 2018. On Love: Between Lacan and Badiou. University of Toronto,
PhD dissertation. TSpace, tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/89811.
Price, Adrian R. 2015. “I START OFF FROM THE LIMIT,” On the first lesson of Seminar
XX, Encore. Lacunae 11: 131–164.
Rougemont, Denis de. 1983. Love in the Western World. Trans. Montgomery Belgion.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Vinciguerra, Rose-Paule. 2014. Femmes lacaniennes. Paris: Éditions Michèle.