The theory created by Jacques Lacan, with solid roots in Freud’s thinking, is a valuable and necessary guide for the practice of psychoanalysis. Admittedly, Lacan’s texts give the impression of being an inaccessible, dense and difficult-to-master conceptual network, but when one begins the process of studying it, in place of this discouraging impression there arrives a desire for knowledge that will lead to the rules of conduct towards the subject, who comes to a session in order to say what is possible and wrestle with what cannot be said. Theoretical knowledge is also a guide for the formation of the psycholanalyst, who undergoes his own analysis up to the very end (the Pass procedure).

The subject of the following article will be a series of digressions from a practical perspective on such questions as: the transferential relationship and the psychoanalysts’ fight against transference, the desire of the subject for the Other, respect for the symptom jouissance, the game of the imaginary, symbolic and real registers, the make-up of a phantasm. These phenomena that arise in psychoanalysis are useful for the analyst only so far as he is able to place himself in the position of the Other. This allows him to conduct psychoanalytic discourse in which the analyst and the analyzed are unaware that they are indispensable partners to one another.

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This radical “weakening” of perception and of the Cartesian Cogito brings Lacan to the conclusion that an act of cognition, and consequently the entire system of human knowledge, is unable from the start to give any truth about the subject. This is because truth is not revealed in the undisturbed, pure realm of perception of cogito ergo sum. Difficult and complicated investigation into the truth of the subject brings one to the experience of psychoanalysis and its inconclusive character.

Finally, I show how Lacan, delving into the well-known Freudian thesis wo Es war, soll Ich warden, relocates the subject of psychoanalysis in the structure of speech. In other words, I will connect the entire range of possible interpretations of the subject with speaking and speech. It is in the structure of speech, and only through this structure that the subject’s ego can appear in language.

Finally, two problems are highlighted. The first is a cognitive problem concerning stunning. Does shechita truly contain stunning as a natural or ‚integral’ element, as some documents claim? Or, by contrast, should Jewish communities follow European conventions, i.e. accept stunning as an additional element of the shechita procedure? Both options are examined here. Secondly, the animal’s protection against suffering prevails morally. However, Jewish tradition has always paid extraordinary attention to life and living beings. So it is still difficult to find strong arguments to convince Jewish communities to modernize the shechita procedure. The entire discussion remains open.

The seminar entitled The Myths of (Post)Modern Europe is a narrative defined by the themes proper to modern society, such as identity, recognition and respect for the other. The principal educational objective of the seminar is to describe the situation of a man in a pluralistic society, and particularly to develop reflective and critical thinking. The phrasing ‘teaching the word through the word’ defines the didactic method used in the seminar, which is conversation informed by the philosophy of dialogue and Socratic dialogue.