Abstract
Althusser and Lacan: Theory of the Subject
From Descartes’ Cogito to Husserl’s transcendental consciousness, the Subject has undergone
countless formulations over the course of philosophical history. In “Ideology and Ideological
State Apparatuses,” Louis Althusser proposed a complete rethinking of the Subject. For
Althusser, to be a Subject is to have one’s thoughts, beliefs, and (as we shall later see) most
intimate perceptions partly shaped by external influences. On this point, Althusser was
avowedly influenced by the work of Jacques Lacan, who attempted to provide a concept of the
Subject that would be commensurate with both structuralism’s emphasis on scientific formalism
and psychoanalysis. Lacan and Althusser’s rejection of the post-structuralist view of the Subject
as anachronistic put them in a liminal position as vanishing mediators between the heyday of
structuralism and the imminent advent of post-structuralism. According to Althusser, Subjects do
not preexist their ideological capture, but emerge through processes of interpellation within
ideological state apparatuses (more on this later).