Difference between revisions of "Desire"

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[[Desire]] is a major concept of [[psychoanalytic theory]].  
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The concept of [[desire]] is at the center of [[Lacan]]ian [[psychoanalysis]] as a theoretical, ethical and clinical point of reference.  Theoretically, Lacan's elaboration of the concept is supported by, yet goes beyond, its Freudian origins.  From an ethical perspective, Lacan has examined in an original way the relationship between desire and the [[law]], and its implications for [[treatment|psychoanalytic praxis]].
 
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Revision as of 03:46, 3 July 2007

French: désir
German: Wunsch

The concept of desire is at the center of Lacanian psychoanalysis as a theoretical, ethical and clinical point of reference. Theoretically, Lacan's elaboration of the concept is supported by, yet goes beyond, its Freudian origins. From an ethical perspective, Lacan has examined in an original way the relationship between desire and the law, and its implications for psychoanalytic praxis.

Translation

Lacan's term, désir, is the term used in the French translations of Freud to translate Freud's term Wunsch, which is translated as "wish" in the Standard Edition.

Unconscious Desire

Lacan follows Spinoza in arguing that "desire is the essence of man."[1] Desire is simultaneously the heart of human existence and the central concern of psychoanalysis. However, when Lacan talks about desire, it is not any kind of desire he is referring to, but always unconscious desire. This is not because Lacan sees conscious desire as unimportant, but simply because it is unconscious desire that forms the central concern of psychoanalysis.

Truth and Desire

The aim of psychoanalytic treatment is to lead the analysand to recognize the truth about his desire. It is only possible to recognize one's desire when it is articulate in speech.

Existence

Hence in psychoanalysis, "what's important is to teach the subject to name, to articulate, to bring this desire into existence."[2] However, it is not a question of seeking a new means of expression for a given desire, for this would imply a expressionist theory of language. On the contrary, by articulating desire in speech, the analysand brings it into existence. (The analysand, by articulating desire in speech, (does not simply give expression to a pre-existing desire but rather) brings that desire into existence.)

"That the subject should come to recognise and to name his desire; that is the efficacious action of analysis. But it isn't a question of recognising something which would be entirely given. ... In naming it, the subject creates, brings forth, a new presence in the world."[3]

However, there is a limit to how far desire can be articulated in speech because of a fundamental "incompatibility between desire and speech;"[4] it is this incompatibility which explains the irreducibility of the unconscious (i.e. the fact the the unconscious is not that which is not known, but that which cannot be known).

"Although the truth about desire is present to some degree in all speech, speech can never articulate the whole truth about desire; whenever speech attempts to articulate desire, there is always a leftover, a surplus, which exceeds speech."[5]

Criticism

One of Lacan's most important criticisms of the psychoanalytic theories of his day was that they tended to confuse the concept of desire with the related concepts of demand and need. In opposition to this tendency, Lacan insists on distinguishing between these three concepts. This distinction begins to emerge in his work in 1957,[6], but only crystallises in 1958.[7]

Need

Need is a purely biological instinct, an appetite which emerges according to the requirements of the organism and which abates completely (even if only temporarily) when satisfied. The human subject, being born in a state of helplessness, is unable to satisfy its own needs, and hence depends on the Other to help it satisfy them. In order to get the Other's help, the infant must express its needs vocally; need must be articulated in demand. The primitive demands of the infant may only be inarticulate screams, but they serve to bring the Other to minister to the infant's needs. However, the presence of the Other soon acquires an importance in itself, an importance that goes beyond the satisfaction of need, since this presence symbolizes the Other's love. Hence demand soon takes on a double function, serving both as an articulation of need and as a demand for love. However, whereas the Other can provide the objects which the subject requires to satisfy his needs, the Other cannot provide that unconditional love which the subject craves. Hence even after the needs which were articulated in demand have been satisfied, the other aspect of demand, the craving for love, remains unsatisfied, and this leftover is desire.

"Desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second."[8]

Demand

Desire is thus the surplus produced by the articulation of need in demand;

"Desire begins to take shape in the margin in which demand becomes separated from need."[9]

Unlike a need, which can be satisfied and which then ceases to motivate the subject until another need arises, desire can never be satisfied; it is constant in its pressure, and eternal. The realisation of desire does not consist in being "fulfilled", but in the reproduction of desire as such.

Alexandre Kojève

Lacan's distinction between need and desire, which lifts the concept of desire completely out of the realm of biology, is strongly reminiscent of Kojève's distinction between animal and human desire; desire is shown to be distinctively human when it is directed either toward another desire, or to an object which is "perfectly useless from the biological point of view."[10]

Desire and Drive

It is important to distinguish between desire and the drives. Although they both belong to the field of the Other (as opposed to love), desire is one whereas the drives are many. In other words, the drives are the particular (partial) manifestations of a single force called desire (although there may also be desires which are not manifested in the drives).[11] There is only one object of desire, object (petit) a, and this is represented by a variety of partial objects in different partial drives. The object (petit) a is not the object towards which desire tends, but the cause of desire. Desire is not a relation to an object, but a relation to a lack.

Desire of the Other

One of Lacan's most oft-repeated formulas is: "man's desire is the desire of the Other."[12] This can be understood in many complementary ways, of which the following are the most important.

More

1. Desire is essentially "desire of the Other's desire", which means both desire to be the object of another's desire, and desire for recognition by another.

Lacan takes this idea from Hegel, via Kojève, who states:

Desire is human only if the one desires, not the body, but the Desire of the other . . . that is to say, if he wants to be 'desired' or 'loved', or, rather, 'recognised' in his human value. . . . In other words, all human, anthropogenetic Desire . . . is, finally, a function of the desire for 'recognition'.[13]

Object of Another's Desire

Kojève goes on to argue (still following Hegel) that in order to achieve the desired recognition, the subject must risk his own life in a struggle for pure prestige (see master). That desire is essentially desire to be the object of another's desire is clearly illustrated in the first 'time' of the Oedipus complex, when the subject desires to be the phallus for the mother.

Two

2. It is qua Other that the subject desires:[14] that is, the subject desires from the point of view of another. The effect of this is that "the object of man's desire . . . is essentially an object desired by someone else."[15] What makes an object desirable is not any intrinsic quality of the thing in itself but simply the fact that it is desired by another.

The desire of the Other is thus what makes objects equivalent and exchangeable; this "tends to diminish the special significance of any one particular object, but at the same time it brings into view the existence of objects without number."[16]

This idea too is taken from Kojève's reading of Hegel; Kojève argues that:

"Desire directed toward a natural object is human only to the extent that it is 'mediated' by the Desire of another directed towards the same object: it is human to desire what others desire, because they desire it."[17]

The reason for this goes back to the former point about human desire being desire for recognition; by desiring that which another desires, I can make the other recognise my right to possess that object, and thus make the other recognise my superiority over him.[18]

Hysteria

This universal feature of desire is especially evident in hysteria; the hysteric is one who sustains another person's desire, converts another's desire into her own (e.g. Dora desires Frau K because she identifies with Herr K, thus appropriating his perceived desire).[19] Hence what is important in the analysis of a hysteric is not to find out the object of her desire but to discover the place from which she desires (the subject with whom she identifies).

Desire for the Other
  1. Desire is desire for the Other (playing on the ambiguity of the French preposition de). The fundamental desire is the incestuous desire for the mother, the primordial Other.[20]
  1. Desire is always "the desire for something else,"[21] since it is impossible to desire what one already has. The object of desire is continually deferred, which is why desire is a metonymy.[22]
  1. Desire emerges originally in the field of the Other; i.e. in the unconscious.
Social Product

The most important point to emerge from Lacan's phrase is that desire is a social product. Desire is not the private affair it appears to be but is always constituted in a dialectical relationship with the perceived desires of other subjects.

(M)other

The first person to occupy the place of the Other is the mother, and at first the child is at the mercy of her desire. It is only when the Father articulates desire with the law by castrating the mother that the subject is freed from subjection to the whims of the mother's desire.

See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 275
  2. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p. 228
  3. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p. 228-9
  4. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 275
  5. Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. 2003. New York: Brunner-Routledge. p. 36
  6. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. pp. 100-1, 125
  7. Lacan, Jacques. (1958c) "La signification du phallus." Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966: 685-95 ["The signification of the phallus". Trans. Alan Sheridan Écrits: A Selection. London: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1977: 281-91].
  8. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 287
  9. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 311
  10. Kojève, Alexandre (1947 [1933-39]) Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Trans. James H. Nichols Jr. New York and London: Basic Books, 1969: 6
  11. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 243
  12. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 235
  13. Kojève, Alexandre (1947 [1933-39]) Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Trans. James H. Nichols Jr. New York and London: Basic Books, 1969: 6
  14. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 312
  15. Lacan, Jacques. "Some Reflections on the Ego." International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Vol. 34. 1953[1951b]: 12
  16. Lacan, Jacques. "Some Reflections on the Ego." International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Vol. 34. 1953[1951b]: 12
  17. Kojève, Alexandre (1947 [1933-39]) Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Trans. James H. Nichols Jr. New York and London: Basic Books, 1969: 6
  18. Kojève, Alexandre (1947 [1933-39]) Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Trans. James H. Nichols Jr. New York and London: Basic Books, 1969: 40
  19. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 138; Freud, Sigmund. (1905e) "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria." SE VII, 3.
  20. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p. 67
  21. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 167
  22. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 175