The subject in Lacan and the autistic point of view in Deligny: different ways of being human

Abstract

 This article analyzes the constitution of the subject in Lacanian psychoanalysis and its contrast with the autistic perspective proposed by Fernand Deligny. Based on Jacques Lacan's conception that the unconscious is structured like a language, the article discusses the process of alienation and separation that inscribes the subject in the symbolic order, as well as the role of foreclosure in the structuring of psychoses. From this perspective, the absence of symbolic inscription—as occurs in autism—is interpreted as a failure of subjective constitution and a departure from the standard of the human. In contrast, Deligny proposes a notion of humanity not grounded in language. Thus, while psychoanalysis defines the human by submission to the symbolic structure, Deligny identifies, outside of language, the possibility of an impersonal and common existence 

that resists the domestication of the subject. The contrast between Lacan and Deligny allows us to rethink the boundaries between language, subjectivity, and humanity