Downloaded By: [University of Essex] At: 14:29 22 July 2008 This essay sketches out the way in which Lacanian psychoanalysis can have a productive bearing on the analysis of political issues in general, and questions of freedom in particular. The article takes its bearings from a broad research problem  the problem of self-transgression  that can be said to structure the work of a wide range of social and political analysts. The problem of self-transgression aims to capture an intuition about those kinds of situations where an individual or group appear to both affirm an ideal and simultaneously to transgress it. In the first part of the essay I examine several possible conceptions of self-transgression with the aim of identifying, in the next part, the character of a Lacanian conception of self-transgression. The final part of the essay explores the implication this conception of self-transgression carries for our understanding of freedom, with special reference to the contented slave puzzle and to some aspects of a desire-based conception of freedom. Introduction: The Problem of Self-Transgression The aim of this essay is to sketch out the way in which psychoanalytic theory, specifically the theory developed by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (190181), can have a productive bearing on the analysis of political issues in general, and questions of freedom in particular. One way of demonstrating the relevance of Lacanian psychoanalysis for political thought is to start with a broad research problem that can be said to structure the work of a wide range of social and political analysts. I shall call it the problem of self-transgression. The problem of self-transgression aims to capture an intuition about those kinds of situations where an individual or group appear both to affirm an ideal and, simultaneously, to transgress it. 1 A simple example of this might be the affirmation of a concrete academic ideal requiring CRISPP, Vol.6, No.2 (Summer 2003), pp.120 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON 1 Self-Transgression and Freedom JASON GLYNOS 62cri01.qxd 26/01/04 15:43 Page 1