Changes

It is in order to answer this question that, from 1953 on, [[Lacan]] stresses the importance of distinguishing between the [[symbolic]] [[father]], the [[imaginary]] [[father]] and the [[real]] [[father]].

The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is not a real [[being]] but a position, a function, and hence is synonymous with the term "[[Name-of-the-Father|paternal function]]."

<blockquote>"The true function of the Father... is fundamentally to unite (and not to set in opposition) a desire and the Law."<ref>{{E}} p.321</ref></blockquote>

Although the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is not an actual [[subject]] but a position in the [[symbolic order]], a [[subject]] may nevertheless come to occupy this position, by virtue of exercising the paternal function.

However, the [[symbolic]] [[father]] does not usually intervene by virtue of someone incarnating this function, but in a veiled fashion, for example by being mediated by the discourse of the [[mother]].

The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is the fundamental element in the [[structure]] of the [[symbolic order]]; what distinguishes the [[symbolic order]] of [[culture]] from the [[imaginary order]] of [[nature]] is the inscription of a line of male descendence.

By structuring descendence into a series of generations, patrilineality introduces an [[order]] "whose structure is different from the natural order."<ref>{{S3}} p.320</ref>

The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also the [[dead]] [[father]], the [[father]] of the [[primal horde]] who has been murdered by his own sons.

The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also referred to as the [[Name-of-the-Father]].

The [[presence]] of the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] as a third term in the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal]] [[imaginary|imaginary triangle]] indicates that the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is already functioning at the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal stage]]; behind the [[symbolic]] [[mother]], there is always the [[symbolic]] [[father]].

The [[psychotic]], however, does not even get this far; indeed, it is the [[absence]] of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] which characterizes the essence of the [[psychotic]] [[structure]].