To put it simply, each of these relations tothe Hegelian system is always that of a I know well, but all the same[je sais bien, mais quand mme]:2 one knows well that Hegel affirmsthe fundamentally antagonistic character of actions, the decentring ofthe subject, etc., but all the same ... this division is eventually overcomein the self-mediation of the absolute Idea that ends up suturingall wounds. The position of Absolute Knowledge, the final reconciliation,plays here the role of the Hegelian Thing: a monster both frighteningand ridiculous, from which it is best to keep some distance,something that is at the same time impossible (Absolute Knowledge isof course unachievable, an unrealizable Ideal) and forbidden (AbsoluteKnowledge must be avoided, for it threatens to mortify all the richnessof life through the self-movement of the concept). In other words, anyattempt to define oneself within Hegels sphere of influence requires apoint of blocked identification the Thing must always be sacrificed ...For us, this figure of Hegel as panlogicist, who devours and mortifiesthe living substance of the particular, is the Real of his critics,Real in the Lacanian sense: the construction of a point which effectivelydoes not exist (a monster with no relation to Hegel himself), butwhich, nonetheless, must be presupposed in order to justify our negativereference to the other, that is to say, our effort at distantia-tion.Where does the horror felt by post-Hegelians before the monster ofAbsolute Knowledge come from? What does this fantasmatic constructionconceal by means of its fascinating presence? The answer: a hole,a void. The best way to distinguish this hole is by reading Hegel withLacan, that is to say, by reading Hegel in terms of the Lacanian problematicof the lack in the Other, the traumatic void against which theprocess of signification articulates itself. From this perspective, AbsoluteKnowledge appears to be the Hegelian name for that which Lacanoutlined in his description of the passe, the final moment of the analyticprocess, the experience of lack in the Other. If, according toLacans celebrated formula, Sade offers us the truth of Kant,3 thenLacan himself allows us to approach the elementary matrix that36/464summarizes the entire movement of the Hegelian dialectic: Kant withSade, Hegel with Lacan. What is implied, then, by this relationshipbetween Hegel and Lacan?Today, things seem clear: although no one denies that Lacan owed acertain debt to Hegel, it is argued that all Hegelian references are limitedto specific theoretical borrowings, and restricted to a well-definedperiod of Lacans work. Between the late 1940s and the early 1950s,Lacan tried to articulate the psychoanalytic process in terms of an intersubjectivelogic of the recognition of desire and/or the desire for recognition.Already at this stage, Lacan was careful to keep his distancefrom the closure of the Hegelian system, from an Absolute Knowledgethat was allied to the unachievable ideal of a perfectly homogeneousdiscourse, complete and closed in upon itself. Later, the introductionof the logic of the not-all [pas-tout] and the concept of the barred Other( ) would render this initial reference to Hegel obsolete. Can oneimagine any opposition more incompatible than the one between HegelianAbsolute Knowledge the closed circle of circles and theLacanian barred Other absolutely empty knowledge? Is not Lacanthe anti-Hegel par excellence?But, ironically, it is on the basis of Lacans debt to Hegel that mostcritiques proceed: Lacan remains the prisoner of phallogocentrismdue to a subterranean Hegelianism that confines textual disseminationwithin a teleological circle ... To such a critique, Lacanians couldrespond, rightly, by stressing the rupture of Lacanianism with Hegelianism trying hard to save Lacan by emphasizing that he is not andnever has been a Hegelian. But it is time to approach this debate in adifferent light, by expressing the relationship between Hegel andLacan in an original way. From our perspective, Lacan is fundamentallyHegelian, but without knowing it. His Hegelianism is certainly notwhere one expects it that is to say, in his explicit references to Hegel but precisely in the last stage of his teaching, in his logic of the notall,in the emphasis placed on the Real and the lack in the Other. And,reciprocally, a reading of Hegel in the light of Lacan provides us with a37/464radically different image from that, commonly assumed, of the panlogicistHegel. It would make visible a Hegel of the logic of the signifier,of a self-referential process articulated as the repetitive positivizationof a central void.Such a reading would thus affect the definition of both terms. Itwould mark off [dgageant] a Hegel freed from the residues of panlogicismand/ or historicism, a Hegel of the logic of the signifier. Consequently,it would become possible clearly to perceive the most subversivecore of the Lacanian doctrine, that of the constitutive lack inthe Other. This is why our argument is, fundamentally, dialogical: it isimpossible to develop a positive line of thought without including thetheses that are opposed to it, that is to say, in effect, those commonplacesalready mentioned concerning Hegel, which would see in Hegelianismthe instance par excellence of the imperialism of reason, aclosed economy in which the self-movement of the Concept sublatesall differences and every dispersion of the material process. Such commonplacescan also be found in Lacan, but they are accompanied byanother conception of Hegel which one does not find in Lacans explicitstatements about Hegel for which reason we pass by these statements,for the most part, in silence. For us, Lacan does not know atwhat point he is Hegelian, because his reading of Hegel is inscribedwithin the tradition of Kojve and Hyppolite.4 It would therefore benecessary, in order to articulate the connection between the dialecticand the logic of the signifier, to bracket for the moment any explicitreference by Lacan to Hegel. [...]2. Three Stages of the SymbolicIt is only after clarifying the relationship between the Hegelian dialecticand the logic of the signifier that one is in the position to situatethe Hegelianism in Lacan. Let us take the three successive stages ofthe progression of the concept of the Symbolic in Lacan.38/464The first stage, that of The Function and Field of Speech and Lan