Editing Jacques Lacan (section)

===Incomprehensibility===
Several critics have dismissed Lacan's work wholesale. French philosopher {{ill|François Roustang|fr}} called it an "incoherent system of [[pseudo-scientific]] gibberish", and quoted [[linguist]] [[Noam Chomsky]]'s opinion that Lacan was an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious [[charlatan]]".<ref name=roustang>{{cite book |url=http://bactra.org/reviews/lacanian-delusion/ |last=Roustang |first=François |date=1986 |title=Lacan, de l'équivoque à l'impasse |language=French |trans-title=Lacan, from ambiguity to dead end |publisher=[[Les Éditions de Minuit]] |pages=100–110 |chapter=L'illusion lacanienne |trans-chapter=The Lacanian Delusion |isbn=978-2707311085 |access-date=2 February 2016 |archive-date=10 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210101642/http://bactra.org/reviews/lacanian-delusion/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]], in a 2012 interview on ''Veterans Unplugged'', said: "[Q]uite frankly I thought [Lacan] was a total charlatan. He was just posturing for the television cameras in the way many Paris intellectuals do. Why this is influential, I haven't the slightest idea. I don't see anything there that should be influential."<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html|title= Noam Chomsky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Empty 'Posturing'|last= Springer|first= Mike|date= 28 June 2013|website= Open Culture|access-date= 31 August 2018|archive-date= 19 March 2022|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220319200117/http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html|url-status= live}}</ref>

Academic and former Lacanian analyst [[Dylan Evans]]{{efn|Evans published a dictionary of Lacanian terms in 1996, titled ''An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis''.}} came to dismiss Lacanianism as lacking a sound scientific basis and as harming rather than helping patients. He criticized Lacan's followers for treating Lacan's writings as "holy writ".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Evans |first1=Dylan |chapter=From Lacan to Darwin |title=The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative|url=https://archive.org/details/literaryanimalev00gott_879 |url-access=limited |date=2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/literaryanimalev00gott_879/page/n64 38]–55|publisher=[[Northwestern University Press]]|location=[[Evanston, Illinois]]|editor1=Jonathan Gottschall|editor2=David Sloan|citeseerx=10.1.1.305.690 }}</ref> [[Richard Webster (British author)|Richard Webster]] decries what he sees as Lacan's obscurity, arrogance, and the resultant "[[Cult]] of Lacan".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.richardwebster.net/thecultoflacan.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020910203351/http://www.richardwebster.net/thecultoflacan.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=10 September 2002 |title=The Cult of Lacan |publisher=Richardwebster.net |date=14 June 1907 |access-date=18 June 2011}}</ref>

[[Roger Scruton]] included Lacan in his book ''Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left'', and named him as the only 'fool' included in the book—his other targets merely being misguided or frauds.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/10/fools-frauds-and-firebrands-thinkers-of-the-new-left-roger-scuton-review | title=Fools, Frauds and Firebrands by Roger Scruton review – a demolition of socialist intellectuals| newspaper=The Guardian| date=10 December 2015| last1=Poole| first1=Steven}}</ref>

In ''Les Freudiens hérétiques'', the 8th tome of his work ''Contre-histoire de la philosophie'' (''Anti-History of Philosophy''),<ref name=anti>{{cite book |last= Onfray |first=Michel|author-link=Michel Onfray |date=2013 |title=Les Freudiens hérétiques : Contre-histoire de la philosophie|language=French|trans-title=The heretic Freudians: Anti-History of Philosophy|volume= 8th |publisher=[[Éditions Grasset]] |isbn=978-2246802686}}</ref> philosopher and author [[Michel Onfray]] describes Lacan's ''[[Écrits]]'' as "illegible".<ref name=anti/>{{rp|49}} According to Onfray, Lacan engages in constant [[word play]], has a taste for the formulaic, and deploys "incantatory [[glossolalia]]" and unnecessary [[neologism]]s.{{efn|In 2002, the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis, ''École lacanienne de psychanalyse'', edited and published a book titled ''789 Neologismes de Jacques Lacan'' (Epel publishers).}} He calls Lacan a "charlatan," and a "dandy figure" who "sinks into [[autism]]," eventually becoming senile.<ref name=anti/>{{rp|49–50}}