Quaternary

From No Subject

French: quaternaire

[edit] Structure

A quaternary is a structure which comprises four elements.

Although Lacan's rejection of dualistic schemas in favour of an emphasis on the triangular structure of the symbolic involves a predominance of triadic schemes in his work, Lacan also insists on the importance of fourfold schemes:

A quadripartite structure has, since the introduction of the unconscious, always been required in the con- struction of a subjective ordering.^[1]

[edit] Anthropology

The emphasis on the quaternary first comes to the fore in Lacan's work in the early 1950s, and is perhaps due to the influence of Claude LÈvi-Strauss, whose work on the structure of the avunculate shows that the basic unit of kinship always involves a minimum of four terms.^[2]

Thus, in a 1953 paper which deals with the neurotic's 'individual myth' (another reference to Levi-Strauss), Lacan remarks that "there is within the neurotic a quartet situation,"^[3]

and adds that this quartet can demonstrate the particularities of each case of neurosis more rigorously than the traditional triangular thematisation of the Oedipus complex.[4]

He concludes that "the whole oedipal schema needs to be re-examined."^[5]

Thus, in addition to the three elements of the Oedipus complex (mother, child, father), Lacan often speaks of a fourth element; sometimes he argues that this fourth element is death,^[6]

and at other times he argues that it is the phallus.[7]

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In 1955, Lacan goes on to compare psychoanalytic treatment to bridge, "a game for four players."^[8]

In the same year, he describes a quaternary made up of a triadic structure plus a fourth element (the letter) which circulates among these three elements.^[9]

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Other important quaternary structures which appear in Lacan's work are schema L (which has four nodes), the four partial drives and their four corresponding part-objects, and the four discourses (each of which has four symbols assigned to four places).

Lacan also enumerates four "fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis"^[10]

and speaks of the sinthome as a fourth ring which prevents the other three rings in the borromean knot (the three orders of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary) from becoming separated.

[edit] References