In Lacan’s perspective, the cogito is unable to account for the separation between desire and language for the individual. The fundamental difference pertaining to the signifier (signifiant) makes it impossible for the enunciation (sum) to ever coincide with what is enunciated (sense). Therefore no final knowledge of self, being and reality (réel) is possible within the framework of the imaginary-symbolic life-world. This analysis, which is decisive for the therapeutic process, is then confronted with a radical-phenomenological critique that questions Lacan’s presuppositions about alterity from the perspective of a primal and transcendental life (Lebendigkeit), a confrontation that ought to bear fruit for the dialog between psychoanalysis and phenomenology.

This essay critically examines theories of war which imply an affirmation of the unavoidable rule of war. In contrast to such theories, the author advocates a notion of war that presupposes processes of becoming enemies, which eventually enthrone war as “dominating” power. From this position result a number of desiderata of research which call for a revision of actual theories of war.