The Order of Lack: Language, Contradiction, and Identity in Hegel and Lacan
Hegel’s philosophy of contradiction is a philosophy of the symbolic order. In Jacques Lacan’s real-imaginary-symbolic triad, the symbolic order is the order of referentiality, containing all signifiers. A signifier never equals itself. According to Lacan “a signifier is that which is the subject for another signifier”. A signifier always refers to something else. The Hegelian concept must thus be understood through the realm of the symbolic if we are to do a proper analysis.
In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel argues that identity is inherently self-contradictory by analyzing the ways in which we use verbs like “to be” in everyday speech. In the chapter about perception (A. II), Hegel gives the example of salt having multiple proprieties: salt is white, tart, cubical shaped, etc. When we say that salt is white, we use the verb ‘to be’ to express the inherent contradiction inside the concept of salt. When one says “salt is white” instead of “salt is salt”, one is implicitly saying “salt is (something which is not equal to salt)” because white and salt are not synonyms. Despite salt and white not being the same word, therefore not being equal to each other, the word “is” nevertheless puts an equality between them. Hegel says: “The This is therefore posited as not-this, or as sublated, and thereby as not nothing but as a determinate nothing, or as a nothing of a specific content”1.
“White” is not the same thing as salt, which is why when we say that “salt is white” we are in a way saying “salt is not-salt”, therefore the concept containing its own otherness within it. However, Hegel’s analysis does not go far enough. When we are talking about salt or whiteness, are we referring to the signifiers or to the signified concepts? We have to remember that philosophy is always done in words, usually in writing but sometimes also in speech, which implies that it is always done through signifiers. If philosophers were to do philosophy through painting or sculpture for example, then they would exemplify their ideas in the imaginary order of signifieds (images), but this is not the case. Philosophy must limit itself to the symbolic order of words, which is why very often a confusion arises as a philosopher’s insights only apply to the symbolic order of signifiers.
I argue that this is the case with Hegel. Hegel’s analysis of contradiction (of which I gave one example above) is limited to the symbolic order, as a result of his own ideas being expressed through language and not through imagery. “Salt is white” is only a contradiction in the symbolic order of language. The imaginary order does not contain contradictions: in the imaginary, everything ‘fits’ and is equal to itself. Lacan marks the confrontation with the illusive nature of the imaginary by the mirror stage, in which the imaginary specular image in the mirror (the ideal-ego) is perfect and whole, without contradiction, while the symbolic ego-ideal judges the chaotic and inconsistent reality of one’s own body. The imaginary is thus an order of identification, where things appear to be what they are, fully integrated with their own being, which is why it does not contain lack. The imaginary is an illusion of wholeness.
The symbolic order contains contradictions because it is made up of signifiers. A signifier is a contradiction. A signifier is that which is the subject for another signifier, which means that it negates itself in its own identity. The sign (signifier + signified) is united in its own difference. A signifier always refers to something else, by definition. When we use any word, like “salt”, we have to decode its meaning by positing it as something else, something which it is not. We can do this through a definition, by saying “salt is a white crystalline substance that gives seawater its characteristic taste and is used for seasoning or preserving food”. The signifier “salt” is thus equated (through the word “is”) with another, different signifier (“a white crystalline substance that…”). Therefore, each signifier contradicts itself, encapsulating within it its otherness.
Lacan’s insight that lack exists only in the symbolic order complements the analysis of contradiction in Hegel’s philosophy and underscores the limitations inherent in the symbolic realm. In Lacan’s framework, the real and the imaginary are orders that do not contain lack, while the symbolic, being an order of signification, is the only domain where lack can be experienced and articulated. The imaginary does not contain lack or contradiction because the imaginary is the realm of identification, of identity. The real, on the other hand, is a realm that escapes symbolization entirely. It is not ordered by language or images and, thus, cannot be spoken about or represented. The real is not a realm of lack either, but rather of absolute presence — what Lacan calls the “impossible” or “that which resists symbolization.” In the real, there is no gap or contradiction because there is no distinction between a thing and its signifier or signified. In other words, the real is full, it just “is,” without mediation or relationality.
Contrastingly, the symbolic order is the order of language and signifiers, where meaning is constantly deferred. As discussed earlier in the analysis of Hegel’s contradiction, signifiers never fully coincide with themselves — they always refer to something other than what they are. When we say “salt is white,” we invoke a process in which the identity of salt is negated and reconstituted through another signifier (“white”). This process introduces what Lacan would call “lack,” a gap or absence in meaning that is intrinsic to the structure of language itself. Each signifier, by referring to another, fails to fully express the completeness of what it signifies. It is precisely this failure — the gap between signifiers and the impossibility of a self-contained meaning — that constitutes the presence of lack in the symbolic order.
Lacan argues that the subject is constituted by this lack. The subject of the symbolic order is not a unified, whole being but rather an entity split by language. The subject’s identity is always mediated by the signifiers that represent it, and since these signifiers are always incomplete, the subject can never fully coincide with itself. This lack, or gap between the subject and its signifiers, is what produces desire in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Desire emerges from the subject’s awareness of their own incompleteness, their own lack, within the symbolic structure.
Lacan’s insight that lack is contained only in the symbolic order enriches our understanding of Hegel’s analysis of contradiction by showing that this contradiction is not merely a philosophical abstraction but an inherent feature of the symbolic realm of language and signifiers. While the imaginary offers a fantasy of wholeness and the real remains outside symbolization, the symbolic is marked by its incompleteness, its internal contradictions, and its inherent lack. This lack is what makes desire possible, as the subject’s identity is always in flux, never fully coinciding with itself but instead mediated and split by the chain of signifiers in which it is embedded. Thus, both Hegel and Lacan point us toward a fundamental truth of human experience: that meaning, identity, and understanding are always constituted through contradiction and lack within the symbolic order.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
1: G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 113
