On the absolute impossibility of the world’s existence : Lacan against the cosmologists

english

2025

volume 46, issue 2

etika   psychoanalysis

ZRC SAZU
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

This essay argues that the contemporary relevance of psychoanalysis and Joan Copjec’s Read My Desire can be derived from Sigmund Freud’s consistent rejection of the pro-gram of the “re-enchantment of the world.” Facing the onslaught of technological mo-dernity, many of Freud’s contemporaries lamented the disenchantment of the world. Today, this tradition persists as a renewed desire for a shared or common world; we col-lectively mourn the loss of the world. But, in this context, Copjec’s work raises a disturb -ing question: Can a sexed being have a world? In order to draw out some of the conse-quences of this question, I examine the role Immanuel Kant’s philosophy plays in Read My Desire in two steps: First, I address the theoretical argument against the existence of the world and, second, I examine some of the practical consequences of this insight. By providing a parallel reading of Kant’s reflections on the antinomies of cosmological ideas and Jacques Lacan’s formulae of sexuation, Copjec effectively establishes the fact that “the world” and “sex” are mutually exclusive categories

24.02.2026