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This article seeks to link the two notions of experience and experimentation, notions that are sometimes synonymous and sometimes opposite. In particular we will look at the notion of crucial experiment ( experimentumcrucis), that is of supposed scientific value, capable of judging between two rival theories (according to Karl Popper’s thesis a theory is only deemed valid as long as it has not been “falsified”, proven false), and the experience of thought ( experimentum mentis), in the sense of Galileo, who deducted scientific truths from principle, without necessarily using experiments which, in his eyes were unsure. The article spells out the figures of these two operations regarding psychoanalysis, according to Lacan in the main, but also laterally, in line with Freud.