The Art of Reading: From Strauss and Kojeve to Lacan

More than once, in a text or on a seminar, Lacan gives details on how to read. How to read a philosophical text, a piece of theater, or a novel. In Seminar VIII, reading Plato's Symposium, he even refers to "our method of comment", distinguishing it from the academic method. This article intends to develop this point, showing what psychoanalysis, specially the work of Lacan, can provide to the understanding of the different ways of reading and commenting on a text at the moment of accomplishing the act of teaching. In order to do so, the article inquires previously on Lacan's possible philosophical influences in the construction of his art of reading: Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojeve.