The present text treats the concept
of exotopy in Bakhtin and Lacan,
explicating the direction and the possible
indices for comparison between
post-Marxism and Psychoanalysis.
The general idea is not to seek a new
causative element – the unconscious
in place of economics, although this
problem cannot be overlooked in view
of contemporary debates – but rather
to trace the logic of outsidedness of
truth and knowledge: the concept of
desire in Eastern and Western theory
constitutes an immanent (real) outside,
which cannot be subsumed into
Aufhebung or any higher level of unity.
Both Bakhtin (1895–1975) and Lacan
(1901–1981), without having met each
other, belonging in one and the same
generation and facing different conceptual
challenges and problems, work
in a condition of unique philosophical
‘likelihood’ on the subject of the human
being’s ex-centricity – the secret
of the human being, its innermost
intimacy, is located outside itself.
