In the beginning was the Other: Lacanian psychoanalysis and its implications for educational research method

Abstract

In much of educational philosophy and sciences the fundamental concepts are the subject conceived of as conscious and constituting and the learning process conceived of as a matter of cognition. This article asks what the effect would be on educational research method and educational theory in general if the fundamental concept were the subject in the sense of the psychoanalytic subject of the unconscious. Both failure and success in educational processes may mistakenly be ascribed to didactical methods rather than unconscious processes of transference. Psychoanalysis can provide educational research with useful concepts that can facilitate the perception and analysis of both unpredictable failure and surprising success in the educational processes. The key problem concerning research method consists in how to address the question of the subject as any scientific discourse excludes the possibility of thinking the question ‘what is a subject?’ The axiom of this article reads “In the beginning was the Other”. It serves the purpose of escaping from a horizon where the subject is conceived of as foundation. Alain Badiou’s concept of the event will here serve the purpose of presenting the subject of the unconscious as “a universal singularity”.

Keywords:

• The subject of the unconscious
• self‐formation
• the event
• philosophy of history
• transference
• desire of the Other