An Invitation to Structuralist Epistemology: Klein, Lacan, and the Perils and Richness of “Understanding”

1. Why Do We Frame Thought in “Structures”?

Human thought and cognition remain shrouded in mystery. Yet, we must live in society, interact with others, and make judgments daily, all while embracing this incomprehensibility. Structuralism is a powerful tool for making this “unknowable” manageable. It seeks to grasp the essence of complex phenomena not as a mere collection of individual elements, but as a “structure” woven from the relationships between them.

It was the French psychiatrist Jacques Lacan who introduced this approach into the realm of psychoanalysis, profoundly influencing philosophy, particularly epistemology. He attempted to structurally elucidate the human act of “understanding.” This article will trace the psychoanalytic lineage from Freud to Melanie Klein and then to Lacan, to examine how our cognition is formed. We will also consider the inherent “violence of simplification” in the act of understanding, and the crucial importance of the “feeling of having understood” nonetheless.

2. Two Questions in Philosophy: “To Be” and “To Know”

Since antiquity, philosophy has had two main pillars: ontology, which asks “what exists and how,” and epistemology, which asks “how do we perceive the world?”

In the modern era, ontology underwent a major shift with Husserl’s phenomenology. Phenomenology presented a methodology that suspends (epoché) the question of whether an object before us “truly exists” and instead focuses on “how it appears” to our consciousness. This freed philosophers from the burden of asserting existence itself, allowing for a deeper exploration of the mechanisms of cognition.

Adopting this stance, this article will trace how the process of “understanding” or “feeling that one understands” is established within us, without questioning the reality of the object.

3. The Primal Scene of Cognition: From Part to Whole (Klein’s Object Relations Theory)

How does our perception achieve “coherence”? Melanie Klein approached this question through the observation of the infant’s mind. According to her Object Relations Theory, a newborn baby does not perceive the world as a whole from the outset.

Initially, the infant engages with the world through fragmented sensations of partial objects: the “warmth of the mother’s breast,” the “taste of milk,” a “gentle voice,” the “scent of her skin.” Then, through the process of development, these disparate sensations are eventually integrated into a single whole object: the “Mother.”

This model—where a “bundle of parts (details) forms a single image (a whole)”—suggests a fundamental mechanism for how we perceive everything in the world, not just our mothers. It can be described as a core cognitive function of selecting, integrating, and understanding complex information as a single “meaningful thing.”

4. Schematizing the Dynamics of Cognition: Lacan’s Schema L

Lacan further refined the model of cognitive formation proposed by Klein from a structuralist perspective, representing it in a diagram known as Schema L.

This diagram explains the dynamics of cognition through the relationship of four terms:

• S (sujet / Subject): The source of desire and interest, the speaking “I.”
• a (autre / small other): The imaginary self-image (the ego), and the “image” of the object created by the subject. This corresponds to what Klein called the “whole object.”
• a’ (autre / small other): The set of partial objects that constitute ‘a’. These are the fragmented elements like the breast, voice, and gaze that form the ego or the object’s image.
• A (Autre / Big Other): The symbolic order that exists before the subject’s birth—language, law, culture. It often provides a framework for our cognition through the words spoken by parents and the rules of society.

According to this schema, our perception (a) is formed by selecting and integrating some of the countless partial objects (a’) toward which the subject’s (S) desire is directed. However, this process does not occur in a vacuum; it always takes place within the web of the “Big Other” (A)—language and culture. What we value and what we integrate as meaningful is heavily influenced by this symbolic framework.

In other words, “to understand” is an event where a bundle of partial objects, guided by desire, clicks into place with a symbolic framework of language and culture, and an “image” emerges.

5. The Peril of “Understanding”: The “Violence of Simplification”

What emerges from the models of Klein and Lacan is the fact that the act of “understanding” is, in essence, a simplification. We create an “understood” image (a) by extracting a very small part from the infinite aspects of an object (the countless a’ that come from A). This can be seen as an unavoidable “violence” that cuts down complex reality into a manageable form.

The Buddhist parable of the “blind men and an elephant” brilliantly illustrates this essence of cognition. In this story, blind men touch different parts of an elephant and declare, “An elephant is like a pillar,” or “No, it is like a wall.” This is often interpreted with the moral that “if you see the whole, you will know the truth.”

However, from a contemporary philosophical perspective, this parable can be reinterpreted. That is, “even with sight, it is fundamentally impossible to fully comprehend the being that is an elephant.” Its genomic information, its role in the ecosystem, its historical significance… the more we know, the more “what we don’t know” increases.

“To understand” is nothing more than drawing a temporary outline in an infinite sea of possibilities. Without drawing that line, thought cannot proceed, but the humility to realize that the line is not the absolute truth is indispensable to avoid dogmatism.

6. And Yet, the “Feeling of Understanding” is Necessary

On the other hand, even if “understanding” is always incomplete and violent, we cannot live without the ability to “feel that we understand.” The sense of “I get it,” even if it later proves to be mistaken, serves as a cognitive foothold for taking the next step. If this feeling is extremely weak, learning cannot progress; conversely, if it is too strong, it can lead to a dogmatism that refuses to listen to others.

What is important is not to rest on the conclusion of “having understood,” but to treat it as a hypothesis that can be updated at any time. This is also an ethical stance that reconciles the necessity of assertion with the consideration for the possibility that assertion can always hurt someone.

7. Walking on Two Legs: Realism and Structuralism

Realism, which aligns with human intuition, is based on the belief that “the world certainly exists, and we can perceive it correctly,” generating powerful momentum. However, it carries the risk of descending into a self-righteousness that brandishes its own “correctness.”

In contrast, the structuralist epistemology discussed in this article serves as a counterpart, questioning that absolutism by illuminating how our “understanding” is constructed and changes. It is another, more flexible leg that supports and balances the powerful leg of realism.

To master the use of these two legs—that is, to possess both the strength to “feel that we understand” in order to act, and the humility to constantly question that “feeling” and remain open to others—is this not the philosophical wisdom needed to live more thoughtfully and gently in our complex modern world?