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Published online: 18 October 2025
© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025
In Seminar VI, Jacques Lacan (2013/2019) remarked that psychoanalysis harbors a “big secret”: “there is no Other of the Other,” inscribed with the matheme S(
). Jacques-Alain Miller (2014) reflects that this discovery is principally a secret to psychoanalysts themselves—akin to Hegel’s inversion that the mysteries of the Egyptians were also mysteries for the Egyptians themselves. But what does it mean to recognize “there is no Other of the Other” in the clinical, theoretical, and social praxis of psychoanalysis? Alireza Taheri, Chris Vanderwees, and Reza Naderi’s edited volume Philosophy After Lacan: Politics, Science, and Art orients this path.
In this collation of incisive essays on contemporary philosophy (rather than philosophers of the past) dialoging with Lacan, Taheri et al. demonstrate the applicability of Lacan-inspired (anti-)philosophies to current issues in politics (e.g., religion and atheism; Occupy Wall Street; Marxism and the Left; psychoanalytic institutions), the sciences (e.g., psychiatry, mathematics, biology), and the arts (e.g., the art of clinical work, Kafka, and creative reimaginings). This volume is an assured fortress against criticisms regarding the outdatedness or irrelevance of Lacanian theory and praxis.
Slavoj Žižek’s “Lacan’s Lesson for Philosophy” discusses how an atheistic project cannot simply disregard religion but must negate religion from within. In other words, it is not enough to simply not believe in God (the Other); one must pass through the inconsistent, fallible, and monstrous dimension of God (barring the Other: S[
]. With characteristic deployment of Hegel, Lacan, film, and humor, Žižek addresses recent theological scholarship by Lorenzo Chiesa and criticisms by Adrian Ivakhin on his (Žižek’s) own references to Buddhism and deploys his
John Dall'Aglio
Duquesne University McAnulty College and Graduat
John Dall'Aglio
Duquesne University McAnulty College and Graduat