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1960 (35 pp.)-SUBVERSION DU SUJET ET DIALECnaUE DU DESIR DANS L'INCONSCIENT FREUDIEN (SUBVERSION OF THE SUBJECT AND DIALEcnC OF DESIRE IN THE FREUDIAN UNCONSCIOUS)-l966
At the colloquium on dialectic organized by Jean Wahl at Royaumont, Lacan defended, in front of an audience of distinguished philosophers, three asser�tions: psychoanalysis, insofar as it elaborates its theory from its praxis, must have a scientific status; the Freudian discovery has definitively and radically changed the concepts of the subject, of knowledge, and of desire~ the analytic. field is the only one from where it is possible to efficiently interrogate the insufficiencies or the blind spots of science and philosophy. He adopted a double position on these assertions. In front of non analysts he spoke in the name of his analytic experience; among analysts, he was the only one who was truly determined to make up for a certain "theoretical nullitY coupled
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with abuses in the way in which theory [was 1 passed on." Then he made the wager that it would not take him very long to present what indeed had to be called his system.
1 This text is difficult to grasp both in its formulations and in its articulations, ~ and it functions on several levels: the philosophical level, provided a radical criticism of the philosophical posiiion IS made;the mathematic~L~~el, pro�vided there is a "distortion of the mathematical aigorithm for our use"; the linguistic level, which led Lacan to assert that "language is the condition of the unconscious" (75), with the reservation that "the unconscious is the con�dition of linguistics" (77); the metaphysical level if one accepts that the analyst "does not have to answer for any ultimate truth" since there is no Other of the Other to guarantee him (41); and finally, the analytical level if one preserves the ambiguity between the discourse in analysis and the discourse about analysis, in which the high level o( abstraction requires re�course to concepts of other disciplines. Is this text, then, "half-scientific, half-metaphorical," as he himself said? This does not mean that the two halves could be juxtaposed to complement each other. It is at once both yet neither 4uitc one nor thc othcr. From this point of view, th~~i~l~ i~xem�plary of Lacanian writing.
The subjcct of psychoanalysis is neither Hegel's absolute subject, nor the abolisl~ed subject of Science. I!_is a su.!Jj~~t i!!em~_~i'!.~ly divided by the emer-
i I gcnce_?f the.~ig!lifier. Regarding the subject of the unconscious, it is impos�sible to know who speaks. This subject is nlerely "the'place of the 'inte'r-said' (illter:ditl ~ whlCllls the 'intra-said' (intra-ditl of a between-two-subjects," it is cOlislciiltly subjccted to the effects of fading provoked by "its occultation by an ever purer signifier." It is "the pure subject of the enunciation," which
-9the pronoun I in a statement indicates but does not signify. The argument ,\ produces some nice flights of rhetoric: "An enuriciatlOn {lnlt denounces itself. a statement that renounces itself, ignorance that dissipates itself, an opportu�nity that loses itself, what remains here if not the trace of what must be in ordcr to fall from being?"
The key concept here is that of desire. However, Lacan's dialectic of desire is very different from Hegel's. The heart of this text lies in the graph of {~esire. elaborated during the seminar on Les Formations de {' inconscient(36) ~iiid revised here, improved, and commented upon differently. Lacan wanted to transform this graph into a real topology of the different steps constitutive of the subject. In its complete version it is supposed to be the synthesis and the ordering of all previous theorizations since the mirror stage. Ultimately, it is supposed to answer all the questions raised in psychoanalysis. Thus, one can understand why this text is at the center of Lacan's teaching-with a bonus of
j. IIIler-dil suggests both "inter-said," what is said between two subjects, and prohi�bition, illlerdil.
The Works of Jacques Lacan 1711
pleasure (or of <:.Q!lsolation): "it is precisely because desire is articulated that it is not articulable."
One can try to follow this zigzag trajectory of the subject, this poor com�batant. One can try to orient oneseiflilthemuIITple definitions of the Other,
to get interested in the new adventures of the phallus, and to meditate on the answer to the question "Who am I?": "I am in the place from which a voice
is heard c1amouring 'the universe is a defect in the purity of Non-Being'." One may, or may n,ot,,!>e happy that a human being is condemned to talk instead of make love, and one may prefer the state-ment accordiilgtowhich it II is "not the law that bars the subject's access to jouissance but pleasure," that
is, life. Don't forget the final sentence, added in 1966: "Castratiol!.me~hat jouissance must be refused, so that it can be reached on thl;. inverted ladder [echelle renversee] of the Law of desire."
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The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious (1960)
Lacan's work, like psychoanalysis generally, draws heavily on literature. Gradually, however, his writings seem to move in the direction of science: first, linguistics, and later, mathematics. This paper is full of algorithms and graphs and exemplifies the drive towards 'science'.
