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The Sexual Sinthome, Geneviève Morel, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Psychoanalysis possesses the means to think the difference of the sexes without relying on the phallus. Lacanian theory of the sinthome offers an alternative by articulating a new quadruplicity (R, S, I, and the sinthome), which allows us to think the relation between the sexes and the generations without necessarily referring to the Name-of-the-Father or the phallus as absolute norms. Thanks to this theory, we can avoid the moral and political prejudices that accompany the grand questions of society posed to us at the dawn of the 21st century: the treatment of “mental health,” the legislation of marriage, filiation, and …