Who am I?

Wang Yangming and Lacan’s Answers

Abstract

The ancient Greek proverb “know yourself” has always led Western scholars to interpret and argue “me”, and Lacan is undoubtedly one of the leaders. He followed in the footsteps of Freud's psychoanalysis and pioneered a new approach to interpreting and arguing about the subject through linguistic dimensions of psychoanalysis. He proposed the theory of the order of the subject's spirit at three levels: reality, imagination, and symbolism, and the establishment of these three realms relies on language. The concept of subject is also a topic that many thinkers cannot avoid in the context of the East, especially originating from Mencius and inheriting the mind studies of Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming. Whether it is”irrational beyond the heart “or”the human heart is human nature “, it all indicates Wang Yangming's enthusiasm for finding himself. Although the subject is not a familiar word in the Eastern context, upon closer examination, it is not difficult to find that the subject refers to either “ self “or ”me “in a certain situation. The discussion on” me “in Yangming's psychology implies the path of why I am myself, Both can find one-to-one correspondence in Lacan's three orders, so there are similarities in their theories and they can interpret each other, but at the same time, differences in speculation lead to differences between the two.