The original linguistic accumulation

This article represents an attempt at identifying a lack (of a lack) in analytic philosophy. It claims that one of the central features common to a variety of analytic philosophies is the absence of an investigation of what Jacques Lacan has identified as the lack of being (manque être). This lacking lack is investigated through what could be termed a Lacanian intervention into one of the finest (relatively) recent products of the analytic tradition, Robert Brandom's Making It Explicit. The aim of the intervention is twofold: first, to identify some of the (maybe surprising) similarities between Brandom and the Lacanian tradition; second, to identify the lacking lack within analytic philosophy by focusing on what Brandom ('explicitly') does not say - and to argue that what is thus usually passed over in silence in the analytic tradition contains a perspective of fundamental significance to understanding humans and their societies.