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The term "[[death]]" occurs in various contexts in [[Lacan]]'s work.
==Symbolic Death==
[[Death]] is constitutive of the [[symbolic]] [[order]], because the [[symbol]], by standing in place of the [[thing]] which it [[symbolization|symbolizes]], is equivalent to the [[death]] of that [[thing]]:
<blockquote>"The [[symbol]] is the murder of the [[thing]]."<ref>{{E}} p.104</ref></blockquote>
===Death of the Subject===
It is only by virtue of the [[signifier]] that the [[subject]] has access to and can conceive of his own [[death]]:
<blockquote>"It is in the signifier and insofar as the subject articulates a signifying chain that he comes up against the fact that he may disappear from the chain of what he is."<ref>{{S7}} p.295</ref></blockquote>
===Subject Beyond Death===
The [[signifier]] also puts the [[subject]] beyond [[death]], because "the [[signifier]] already considers him [[dead]], by nature it immortalizes him."<ref>{{S3}} p.180</ref>
===Dead Father===
[[Death]] in the [[symbolic order]] is related to the [[death]] of the [[Father]] (i.e. the murder of the [[father]] of the [[horde]] in ''[[Totem and Taboo]]''<ref>{{F}} (1912-13) ''[[Totem and Taboo]]''; , 1912-13. [[SE]] XIII, 1</ref>); the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is always a [[dead]] [[father]].
==Second Death==
===First Death===
In the [[seminar]] of 1959-60, ''[[The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]]'',
[[Lacan]] talks about the "[[second death]]."<ref>{{S7}} p.211</ref>
The [[death|first death]] is the [[materialism|physical]] [[death]] of the [[body]].
The [[death|first death]] ends one [[human|human life]] but which does not put an end to the cycles of corruption and regeneration.
The [[death|second death]] is that which prevents the regeneration of the [[dead]] [[body]], "the point at which the very cycles of the transformations of nature are annihilated."<ref>{{S7}} p.248</ref>
===Beauty, Being, Pain===
The concept of the [[second death]] is used by [[Lacan]] to formulate ideas on various themes:
* beauty - "It is the function of beauty to reveal man's relationship to his own death."<ref>{{S7}} p.260, 299</ref>* the direct relationship to [[being]];<ref>{{S7}} p.285</ref> and * the [[sadistic]] [[fantasy]] of inflicting perpetual [[pain]]<ref>{{S7}} p.295</ref>
===Between the Two Deaths===
The phrase "[[zone between-two-deaths]]" (''[[l'espace de l'entre-deux-morts]]'') designates "the zone in which tragedy is played out."<ref>{{S8}} p.120</ref>
==Philosophical Death==
==="Absolute Master"===
From [[Hegel]] (via [[Kojève]]), [[Lacan]] takes the idea that [[death]] is both constitutive of [[man]]'s [[freedom]] and "[[Master|the absolute Master]]."<ref>[[Alexandre Kojève|Kojève, Alexandre]] (1947 [1933-39]) ''[[Kojève|Introduction to the Reading of Hegel]]'', trans. James H. Nichols Jr., New York and London: Basic Books, 1969. [1933-39] p.21).</ref>
[[Death]] plays a crucial part in the [[Hegelian]] [[dialectic]] of the [[master]] and the [[slave]] where it is intimately linked with [[desire]], since the [[master]] only affirms himself for others by means of a [[desire]] for [[death]].<ref>{{E}} p.105</ref>
==="Being-For-Death"===
From [[Heidegger]], [[Lacan]] takes the idea that [[human]] [[existence]] only takes on [[meaning]] by virtue of the finite limit set by [[death]], so that the [[human]] [[subject]] is properly a "[[death|being-for-death]]".
This corresponds to [[Lacan]]'s view that the [[analysand]] should come, via the [[treatment|analytic process]], to assume his own [[mortality]].<ref>{{E}} ppp.104-5</ref>
==Psychoanalytic Death==
In his comparison between [[psychoanalytic treatment]] and the game of bridge, [[Lacan]] describes the [[analyst]] as playing the position of the "dummy" (in [[French]], ''le mort''; literally, "the dead person").
<blockquote>"The analyst intervenes concretely in the dialectic of analysis by pretending that he is dead. . . he makes death present."<ref>{{E}} p.140</ref></blockquote>
The [[analyst]] "cadaverises" himself (''se corpsifiat'').
===Obsessional Neurosis===
The question which constitutes the [[structure]] of [[obsessional neurosis]] concerns [[death]]; it is the question "Am I dead or alive?"<ref>{{S3}} ppp.179-80</ref>
==See Also==
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
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