The Autonomy of the Symbolic On Lacan’s Cybernetic Seminar

Abstract

The second year of Lacan’s seminar (1954-55) is often called the ‘cybernetic seminar’, owing the frequent references made to concepts developed contemporaneously in the field of cybernetics. Today, however, cybernetics is seen as something of a historical curiosity – an ambitious project that failed – and so much of the cybernetic content of the seminar is overlooked. This article attempts to restore the centrality of that cybernetic content, firstly by presenting a brief history of first-order cybernetics and its concepts, and then by examining some of the didactic uses to which Lacan put these concepts. The reason for this reorientation, the article argues, is the many parallels that can be drawn between the ambitions of first-order cybernetics and the purported revolution in human subjectivity that our present digital age is soon to unleash.