How do I into Lacan?

Hey OP!
Read a clinical introduction to lacan by Bruce Fink. Any other advice you get is misinformation.

>Sartre

God no

>Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of jouissance, not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as a part lacking in the desired image: that is why it is equivalent to the sqrt(-1) of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (−1). (Lacan, Jacques. 1977b. “The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious”, pp. 318–320).

How do I read Lacan when he uses mathematics he doesn't understand while claiming it's legitimate mathematics being applied to attempt to give rigor to his arguments?

Listen to this guy. The other suggestions are alright but you want to get a footing in Lacan first

That's basic imaginary algebra user. I think you're the one who needs to work on your math understanding

Read Freud and be very familiar with his writings, then Lacan's seminaries beginning by the first. If you don't get a clue about the Ecrits, avoid them for a first time, read the seminaries, then come back to them. Don't begin with the end by trying to understand mathems and such, there's already a lot to learn without that.
I don't really agree with people recommending you such or such introduction to Lacan without reading him himself. Reading only second hand writings without frequenting the texts themselves will mainly expose you to the thought of other authors, not to Lacan's one

Why might the seminars be more accessible than the Ecrits?

I probably should have given the examples where he defines a "calculus in which zero was irraitonal" (Lacan, Jacques. 1977. “Desire and the interpretation of desire in Hamlet” I think) and then goes on to equate irrational numbers with imaginary, of which 0 is neither, or in another case where he keeps asserting confused definitions of compactness in a topological space and asserting these to correspond directly to his jouissance without actual justification.
Regarding the imaginary algebra, firstly its complex algebra since multiplying i*i will give a real number so purely imaginary algebra would be pretty useless and restricted to the point its effectively just addition and subtraction like on the real number line anyway.
Also this bullshit in pic related where all it's saying is -1/i=i. His choice of the division was arbitrary anyway.

There's probably no point elaborating further on this since trying to argue over several pages of text full of arbitrary choices without justification and densely written faulty or confused mathematical definitions isn't going to go far when most people here don't know anything about math beyond high school and will appeal to their preferred authority figure over established definitions in the field he's appropriating to look more rigorous that they are unfamiliar with and will take his word for it over a mathematicians.

Pic related is best secondary text, bar none.

Seminars are very much more didactic and centred on a particular aspect, you can "follow" him unfolding his thought. Ecrits are more technical and gather a little bit of everything and from different years. I don't really know the editorial reasons behind this.

Calm down, besides me there was only one guy who has been replying to you so far.
I personally don't know mathematics and thus refrain from speaking about it. There's a lot of Lacan's writing which don't require a knowledge in mathematics, it's a lot of clinician work.

Sorry, its just infuriating when I see someone use their established position through their other work to make assertions using mathematics that don't make sense, when they could have very easily used a mathematical analogy without asserting their idea to literally be that thing.
As a result I find it hard to confront reading his other works fearing he might use similar arguments. Maybe something that he has evidence for like clinical studies would be a better read then.

I can understand a dislike for what is seen as an authority argument, but there's happily more than that in Lacan's work. The mathematical switch is a rather late one and there's a lot to read outside of it.
If you want to give it a try one day, you could try taking it more "chronologically", it's very much more pleasant. Though once again, reading Freud is a pre-requirement, otherwise I don't know how one can see where he is going.

I think experimenting psychoanalysis on oneself is also a plus. I've met a lot of people reading Lacan out of the blue, on a pure philosophical point of view. It wasn't devoid of any interest to listen to them (it was even very interesting), though I'm more doubtful about the interest these people had themselves into Freud or Lacan work. Psychoanalysis is a praxis before anything else, I really believe it's hard to sustain a durable interest into it on a solely "pure intellectual stance".
I'm not necessarily talking about an obligation to be in analysis oneself to like it : it's more about the fact of talking about Freud without having ever tried to follow free associations or to experiment dream interpretation on oneself. It lacks "corporeality"

bump

/mu/

dailymotion.com/video/x2t8lfq

What was the context of this?

To add to this there's a terminology book floating around An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Just google it it'll come up. We used it in a lit theory/psychology class.

Freud as Metaphilosopher allowed me to skip most of the bullshit.

fpbp