In the upcoming class, we will reflect on Lacan's famous formula: "Man's desire is the desire of the Other." This formula appears systematically in Lacan's text from the Ecrits collection, "The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power" (1958), which we are studying as part of the basic FPPL seminar this academic year. Thus, we will invite you to refer to it based on two other texts – excerpts from the transcripts of Lacan's Seminars. Not only does Lacan distinguish in them between desire, need, and demand (including love), but he also, using the law governing the signifier, presents it ambiguously. This raises the question: does he mean that we desire what the Other desires, that we desire the Other, or that we desire the Other to desire us? In Seminar V, The Formations of the Unconscious (1957–1958), in Lecture XX titled The Dream of the Beautiful Butcher's Wife, Lacan shows that desire does not belong to the subject, as it is born in language, in response to the Other. The subject desires that the Other remains desiring, because only then can the subject exist as desiring. The embodiment of this truth is the woman with hysterical neurosis, who lives by the desire of the Other, which she provokes into existence so that it does not disappear. Otherwise, everything would fall apart. Clinically, Lacan considers why, to maintain a satisfying love relationship, the hysteric must, first, desire "something else," and second, organize herself so that this "other" is not given to her. In Seminar VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959–1960), whose main thesis is that man is responsible for his desire, Lacan calls his famous sentence a "gnomic formula." In essence, it encapsulates his thought on the subject, desire, and language – although he himself attributes it to Freud. Lacan emphasizes here that the Other, in relation to whom man desires, is at once the treasury of signifiers, the one who gives meaning, and the one in whom the subject recognizes a lack, reflecting his own lack. Lacan situates his formula in a broader context of reflection on sublimation and the Thing [Freudian] (la Chose), and on how art, religion, and science (along with them, hysterical neurosis, obsession, and paranoia) relate to what in human experience is connected with lack as something impossible to represent. Facilitators: Anna Wojakowska-Skiba, Marcin Piotrowski, psychologists, psychoanalysts, members of the EPFCL-France School 📍 Location: ul. Ordynacka 11/1, Warsaw, 1st floor, entrance A, room 3 and Zoom 💰 FPPL class payments: - Participation in one seminar: 100 PLN, for students: 60 PLN (10% discount for paying for the entire cycle in advance) - Annual flat fee: For those who are not FPPL members, we offer a one-time annual fee allowing access to all FPPL classes during the academic year – NOTE – EXCEPT FOR SEMINARS WITH GUESTS FROM FRANCE (about 40% discount compared to regular prices): - November 2025–June 2026 - Regular flat fee: 1350.00 PLN - for students: 800.00 PLN If you choose this option, please make the payment no later than November 14, 2025. It is possible to split the flat fee into installments or pay a monthly fee of 170 PLN. For this purpose, please contact zarzad@fppl.pl. All payments should be made to the FPPL bank account: 79114020040000390275538931, indicating the period or classes concerned. Please send proof of transfer to the facilitators' addresses: - anna.wojakowskaskiba@gmail.com - mar_pio@onet.pl in order to receive the TEXTS FOR THE CLASS and the Zoom LINK. ℹ️ Information about our classes can also be found at https://www.fppl.pl. The facilitators do not receive remuneration. Fees are allocated to the statutory activities of FPPL: promoting psychoanalytic knowledge through organizing classes and inviting psychoanalysts from abroad.
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