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The [[Subversion ]] of the [[Subject ]] and the [[Dialectic ]] of [[Desire ]] in the [[Freudian ]] [[Unconscious ]]

In this essay [[Lacan ]] formally addresses a colloquium not of [[psychoanalysts ]] but of [[philosophers]], gathered at Royaumont (September 1960), under the leadership of J ean Wahl, to discuss the theme "Dialectic." It is altogether appropriate, then, that Lacan take for his own theme the issue of "dialectic" in [[Freud ]] and, indeed, the aspect most specific to the Freudian discovery, namely, the [[nature ]] of the unconscious. For philosophers, dialectic . implies movement through a series of negations, each of which is followed by a [[sublation ]] ([[Aufhebung]]), which assumes the negated [[moment ]] into a higher [[synthesis]]. Since the basic dynamism of the subject for Lacan arises from [[desire, ]] it is not surprising that he focuses attention on the "dialectic of desire," nor should it be surprising that [[negation ]] and negativity come to playa crucial [[role ]] in the [[discussion]].

has moved to a new level of [[reflection ]] - not because the essay is probably the most enigmatic of this [[particular ]] collection, but rather because over the years his [[thought ]] has led him into deeper and deeper waters. We [[know ]] that his [[doctoral dissertation ]] (1932) [[left ]] Lacan with a [[dual ]] interest: in the role of [[image ]] and the role of milieu in [[personality ]] [[formation]]. The former interest is explored in the first two essays of this collection, "The [[Mirror ]] [[Stage]]" (Chapter 1) and "[[Aggressivity ]] in [[Psychoanalysis]]" (Chapter 2). The latter interest is developed in the essays that begin to elaborate Lacan's conception of the unconscious as "the [[Other]]" that is "[[structured ]] like a [[language]]," namely, "The Function and Field of [[Speech ]] and Language" (Chapter 3), "The Freudian [[Thing]]" (Chapter 4) and "The [[Agency ]] of the [[Letter ]] in the Unconscious" (Chapter 5). The discussion of the [[Schreber ]] [[case ]] in "On a Question Preliminary to Any Possible [[Treatment ]] of [[Psychosis]]" (Chapter 6) raises in a general way the question [[about ]] the relation between the subject and the unconscious insofar as this is conceived as the Law of the [[Father ]] and what happens if the subject is somehow "[[foreclosed]]" from this Law. Here for the first [[time ]] in these essays the importance of the [[phallus ]] in the [[oedipal ]] [[resolution ]] becomes explicated. The next two essays in the collection, "The [[Direction of the Treatment]]" (Chapter 7) and "The [[Signification ]] of the Phallus" (Chapter 8), both address with increasing subtlety the problems involved in the [[castration ]] [[complex]]. In the [[present ]] essay this issue receives a still further refinement on a new level of complexity, insofar as the role that the phallus plays in a [[dialectical ]] assumption by the subject of his own desire now becomes thematized. Be that as it may, the obscurity of this essay almost defies paraphrase without support from a complementary [[text]], "[[Position ]] de l'[[inconscient]]" (1966, pp. 829-850), delivered one month later at Bonneval, as well as from the text of the [[seminars ]] (still unpublished) on which both papers are based. Without these supports we must [[content ]] ourselves with a kind of make-do [[coherence ]] which is [[forced ]] to take its bearings from a few relatively clear points of reference that peek through the shifting clouds

At the beginning of the essay there is, so to [[speak]], only the babble of greetings and farewells along the dockside. Lacan greets his audience of philosophers with appropriate allusions to the [[philosophy ]] of [[science]], to the dialectic of [[Hegel]], to the status of Freud as a [[scientist ]] (at least of ambi tion). His "farewells" are to the "empiricist" conception of science (1977, p. 293/795), to Hegel's "immanentism" (the march of the [[conscious ]] subject to [[complete ]] [[identity ]] with itself in [[total ]] [[self]]-[[awareness]]) as an account of the vagaries of the [[history ]] of science (1977, p. 296/798), to the alleged radicality of the so-called "Copernican [[revolution]]" that still left man conceiving of himself as a conscious subject, i.e., in the [[sense ]] of the [[Cartesian ]] [[cogito]]. Since these early passages may be taken as introductory, we shall not delay over [[them]]. Rather, let us disregard the [[order ]] of the text and cull a few propositions that seem to us to articulate the [[essence ]] of what Lacan is trying to say. "The praxis that we call psychoanalysis," he tells us, "is constituted by a [[structure]]" (1977, p. 292/793), so his fundamental question is: What is the nature of this structure that makes psychoanalysis possible? He chooses for special focus in this essay the structure of the subject, the traditional conception of which has been "subverted" by psychoanalysis. He will attempt to discuss this "subversion proper" and explain how radical it is. Fundamentally at issue is the subversion (i.e., the overthrow) of the Cartesian subject (i.e., the presumed identity of [[subjectivity ]] and conscious thought). Freud's assault on man's conception of himself as subject was more radical than either the "revolution" of [[Copernicus ]] (1977, p. 296/798) or that of [[Darwin ]] (1977, p. 295/797). The overthrow took [[place ]] through Freud's discovery of the unconscious as "a [[chain ]] of [[signifiers ]] that somewhere (on [[another ]] stage, on another [[scene]], he wrote) is repeated, and insists on interfering in the breaks offered it by the effective [i.e., conscious] [[discourse ]] and the cogitation that it in-

forms" (1977, p. 297/799). Here "the crucial term is the [[signifier]], brought back to [[life ]] from the ancient art ofrhetoric by modern [[linguistics]]" but unavailable as such to Freud because of the dislocations of history. Nonetheless, "the mechanisms described by Freud as those of 'the primary [[process]]', in which the unconscious assumes its role, correspond exactly to the functions that this [[school ]] [of linguistics] believes determines the most radical aspects of the effects of language, namely [[metaphor ]] and [[metonymy]]" (1977, pp. 297-298/799). The conception implied here of a [[divided ]] subject re<;:eived direct treatment in "The Agency of [[the Letter ]] in the U nconscious" (see Chapter 5, pp. 167-168), where we saw that "the place that I occupy as the subject of a signifier [is] ... excentric, in relation to the place that I occupy as subject of the [[signified]]" (1977, p. 165/517). Such a conception obviously is incompatible with that of any simplistic [[psychology ]] that takes as its criterion the "[[unity ]] of the subject" or assumes that "the [[psychical ]] had to obtain its credentials as a [[double ]] of the [[physical ]] organism" (1977, p. 294/795). What is significant for Freud, then, is not any "[[state]]" of [[mind ]] (1977, p. 294/795) or "some archetypal, or in any sense ineffable, [[experience]]" of the subject (1977, p. 295/796), even though such phenomena might offer some auxiliary "illumination." What really matters - even in the case of the [[hysteric ]] - is not the "phenomena associated with [[hysteria]]" but rather the [[patient]]'s "discourse" (1977, p. 294/795; italics added). An emphasis of this kind on the discourse of the subject in psychoanalysis leads us to the question that will polarize the [[remainder ]] of the essay: "Once the structure of language has been recognized in the unconscious, what sort of subject can we conceive for it" (1977, p. 298/800)? Lacan now makes his first assay at answering that question. Whatever the answer turns out to be, it must take account of the [[relationship ]] between the unconscious and the "I" who

recalling what the [[linguists ]] have said about "I" as a "[[shifter]]," i.e.,

a double structure that functions both as a signifier within the spoken discourse (hence, as "subject of the [[statement]]," the "spoken I") and as a designation of the subject as "now [[speaking]]" (1977, p. 298/800) by [[reason ]] of what [[Barthes ]] calls an "existential bond" (1964, p. 22) (hence, as "subject of the [[enunciation]]," the "speaking I"). Now it is obvious enough that the speaking subject may not be represented in the spoken discourse by any signifier at all, or may be signified in only the most subtle ways, as, for example, in the nuances of the expletive ne (1977, p. 298/ 800). Fair enough, but the question we are pursuing is: " 'Who is speaking?', when it is the [[subject of the unconscious ]] that is at issue" (1977, p. 299/800). The unconscious itself cannot answer if [[the subject of the unconscious ]] "does not know what [it] is saying, or even if [it] is speaking, [which] the entire experience of [[analysis ]] has taught us" (1977, p. 299/800). This unconscious is both immanent and transcendent to [[individual ]] [[subjects]], and marks the frontier beyond which the traditional subject, presumed to be "[[transparent]]" to himself, loses the self-[[transparency ]] and begins to "fade," with all the consequent effects that lead to those characteristic manifestations of unconscious [[processes]], such as [[slips of the tongue]], witticisms, etc. In more technical [[terms]], what happens here is that the "cut" ([[coupure]]) in the discourse, i.e., the bar between the signifier and signified - a fundamental [[principle ]] of linguistics and basic ingredient of the law of the language - begins to have its effect. The result is that the irruptions of unconscious processes into conscious discourse become more [[manifest ]] - and these are the focus of psychoanalysis. Hence, "the [[paradox ]] of conceiving that the discourse in an [[analytic ]] [[session ]] is valuable only in so far as it stumbles or is interrupted" (1977, p. 299/801). Paradox or not, the fact remains: "If linguistics enables us to see the signifier as the determinant of the signified, analysis reveals the [[truth ]] of this relation by making 'holes' in [[meaning ]] the determinants of its discourse" (1977, p. 299/801). In this context Lacan comes again to the familiar [[words ]] of Freud: "Wo Es war, sol! Ich werden"(cf. 1977, pp. 128-129/417-

418). He underlines the fact that the tense of Freud's war corresponds not to the [[French ]] [[past ]] historical tense but to the imperfect, designating an incomplete [[action]]/state-of-[[being ]] in past time. The point is important and worth stressing. Lacan makes it again, and more clearly, in the complementary essay "Position de [[l'inconscient]]" (1966, pp. 829-850). There he is discussing the nature of the subject ([[barred]], of course) as definable only in terms of its relation to the [[signifying chain ]] in which the signifier is [[understood ]] essentially as that which "represents the subject for another signifier" (1966, p. 840; our [[translation]]). Speaking of the subject in this sense, Lacan clarifies: "What [i.e., the subject who] was there ready to speak [has] the double sense that the imperfect tense in French gives to [the expression] there was." Here Lacan is referring "to the moment preceding (e. g., "he was here but is no longer") and to the moment following (e.g., "a little longer and he was there"). In other words, he adds, "what was there [[disappears ]] insofar as it is no longer anything but a signifier" (1966, p. 840; our translation). What is important here is not so much the conception of the subject that is at stake (we shall [[return ]] to this below) but Lacan's use of the double sense of the French imperfect to [[interpret ]] the "was" (war) in Freud's [[formula]]. In any case, the complementary text permits a better [[understanding ]] of his remark in the essay we are presently considering: "There where it was just now, there where it was for a while, between an extinction that is still glowing and a [[birth ]] that is retarded, I [no [[quotes]]] can come into being [as the speaking subject] and [yet] [[disappear ]] from what I say" (1977, p. 300/801). This [[disappearance ]] is what we take to be the "[[fading]]' of the subject. To illustrate what he has in mind, Lacan recalls a [[dream ]] related by Freud: A man who had once nursed his father through a long and painful mortal [[illness]], told me that in the months following his father's [[death ]] he had repeatedly dreamt that his father was alive once more and that he was talking to him in his usual way. But he felt it exceedingly pairiful that his father had really died, only without [[knowing ]] it [1911a, p. 225].

Now for Lacan, what the father did not know was the fact "that he'was [[dead]]" (1977, p. 300/802). What life the father had, then, was only in the signifying chain of the dreamer's [[psyche]]. But does the dreaming/speaking subject fare any better? The dreaming subject, too, withdraws from the signifying chain of his dream/discourse. "[T]hat is how I as subject comes on the scene, conjugated with the double aporia of a [[true ]] survival that is abolished by [[knowledge ]] of itself, and by a discourse in which it is death [of the speaking subject in his [[withdrawal]]] that sustains [[existence ]] [in the discourse]" (1977, p. 300/802). How does a subject conceived in this way compare with the subject as conceived by Hegel? In fact the two conceptions are separated by a "gap" that can be seen most clearly if we compare them in terms of the way the subject in each case relates to knowing ([[savoir]]). Traditionally and in the most general terms, knowing has always been considered to be some kind of union between one being (the knower) and another being (the known) that involves a "[[presence]]" of the known to the knower and reciprocal "awareness" in the knower of the known that is not purely physical, which often has been called (for [[want ]] of a better term) "intentiona1." Traditionally, too, knowledge is considered true if the awareness in the knower corresponds to the [[object ]] known, and in that sense the knower depends on the object known as a standard to which the knowledge must conform in order to [[guarantee ]] its truth. With [[Descartes]], however, truth came to be conceived not merely as conformity of knower to known but as certitude in the knowing subject (i.e., "knowing' that he [[knows]]). Henceforth, in order to be true the knowing depended not only on its [[objects ]] but on its own assurance of itself. Now when a Hegel talks about knowledge as "absolute," this must be understood in the most radical sense of"absolute"-at least so one astute co~mentator (Martin [[Heidegger ]] [1950, p. 124]), namely, suggests - in the [[Latin ]] sense (ab-solvere) of "to loosen." In other words, if truth is conceived as stated here, then knowing is absolved (loosened) from its complete [[dependence ]] on the object in the process of truth. The more the nature of self-assurance is

The entire thrust of Hegel's The [[Phenomenology ]] of Mind (1807a) consists in the process by which Knowing comes to know itself. Initially, indeed, what the subject knows is an object (an sich), say, of sense [[perception]]. In a second moment, however, the subject becomes aware of itself as knowing the object (fur sich), and then becomes aware of its own role in constituting the object for itself (an undfur sich), thereby "loosening' itself (in whatever small degree) from dependence on this object to assure itself of the truth of its knowledge. This, then, is the basic movement of the dialectic. The knowing subject passes from an initial moment of "[[affirmation]]" of its object to an awareness of the inadequacy of this perception (hence, negation) to a new moment of reconciliation of these two previous moments in a higher (or deeper) view of the process, which then becomes the starting point of a new cycle of the dialectic. This movement of affirmation-negation-synthesis on the part of the subject is called "mediation," i.e., the means by which the initial im-mediate experience (affirmation) is processed through negation into synthesis. The initial, un-mediated moment of knowing is what we [[understand ]] by knowledge-asconnaissance. Through the mediation it is assumed into the ongoing process of savoir coming to know itself. To the extent that the mediation is also a process of self-assurance on the part of the subject, it is also a moment of truth, which, of course, yields to synthesis within a higher truth as the dialectic moves on. What propels the dialectic for Hegel, however, is not some hidden thrust within knowing itself but fundamentally desire.

to call this a desire of savoir, that may be possible, provided that one understands savoir in a very special sense, i.e., not as "knowledge" in any traditional sense of intentional union between knower and known but as a "knowing" that takes the [[form ]] of an inscription in the discourse of the subject, "of which, like the 'messenger-[[slave]]' of ancient usage, the subject who carries under his hair the codicil that condemns him to death knows neither the meaning nor the text, nor in what language it is written, nor even that it had been tatooed on his shaven scalp as he slept" (1977, p. 302/803). Such a conception of the unconscious has [[nothing ]] to do, of course, with Freud's so-called [[biologism]]. This does not gainsay the fact that this biologism, properly understood, plays an important role in Freud's thought. One form of it is the death [[instinct]], and "to ignore the [[death instinct ]] in his [[doctrine ]] is to misunderstand that doctrine entirely" (1977, p. 301/803). For example, the "return to the inanimate" that characterizes the death instinct is a metaphor for "that margin beyond life that language gives to the [[human ]] being by virtue of the fact that he speaks"another way of talking about the Freudian unconscious savoir. Another form of biologism is the role ascribed to the phallus in the dialectic of desire, as we shall see in more detail below. But to recognize the central role of biologism in Freud is not to correlate the unconscious with [[physiology]], and the translation of [[Trieb ]] as "instinct" is very misleading. A much better [[choice ]] would be "[[drive]]" ([[pulsion]]). "Instinct" might imply "knowledge" ([[connaissance]]) of some sort, the way a bird has "knowledge" of how to build a nest, but in no way can "knowledge" of this type be [[identified ]] with savoir in the sense we have explained (1977, pp. 301-302/803). At this point Lacan begins his attempt to describe precisely how desire functions with [[regard ]] to this subject who is "defined in his articulation by the signifier" (1977, p. 303/805) like the messenger-slave just alluded to. He does so by resorting to a series of [[graphs ]] that aim to map out "the most broadly [[practical ]] structure of the data of our experience" (1977, p. 303/804-805)

[[Graph ]] I is the "[[elementary cell]]" of this series. We take it to be a kind of general statement of the nature of the subject "defined in his articulation by the signifier" (1977, p. 303/805). We [[recall ]] that for Lacan signifiers do not refer to any specific signified in a one-to-one correspondence but rather to other signifiers so as to constitute a signifying chain. As a result we "are forced ... to accept the [[notion ]] of an incessant sliding [glissementJ of the signified under the signifier" (1977, p. 154/502). But there are certain privileged moments when the signifying chain comes to fix itself to some signified, and these are "anchoring points" ([[points de capiton]]), "points like buttons on a mattress or intersections in quilting, where there is a 'pinning down' (capitonnage) of meaning, not to an object but rather by 'reference back' to a [[symbolic ]] function" (Wilden, [[1968]], p. 273). N ow Graph I [[diagrams ]] one of these anchoring points "by which the signifier stops the otherwise endless movement (glisse-

cates the signifying chain posed by the speaking subject. We may [[think ]] of it in both [[diachronic ]] and [[synchronic ]] terms. "The diachronic function of this [[anchoring point ]] is to be found in the [[sentence]], even if the sentence completes its signification only with its last term, each term being anticipated in the construc- (tion of the [[others]], and, inversely, sealing their meaning by its [[retroactive ]] effect" (1977, p. 303/805). In other words, the meaning~ed to the end of the sentence, must be read backwards into the preceding words once the sentence is finished. As for the synchronic structure of the anchoring point, it is less obvious. This consists in [[the symbolic ]] order itself that in its most elemental form may be seen in the primordial [[division ]] of the phonemes. It is this basic pattern of the [[symbolic order ]] that permits even a [[child ]] to transpose the bark of a dog perceived as [[sign ]] into a [[phoneme]]-signifier, utilizing the latter in the process of signification in the form of a nursery rhyme. We are taking the diagram to [[suggest]], then, that in the progressive-[[regressive ]] movement of the anchoring point in which signification emerges,

of contextualized meaning that is made possible by the [[synchrony ]] of the symbolic order. Graph II introduces several new elements into Graph I, principally a place in which to locate the Other. Given the [[interpretation ]] we have offered of the synchronic structure of the anchoring point, it is perfectly understandable that the Other as "treasure of the signifier" be located precisely where the two vectors cross at the beginning of the reverse trajectory at point 0, and that the effect of the Other on the eventual signified be indicated there where a given assertion, ending on "its own scansion," receives its final [[punctuation ]] at point s(O). The circularity of this process is evident. But who (and where) is the subject of it all? If the subject here means the individual, [[real ]] subject, then he "is constituted only by subtracting himself" (1977, p. 304/806) in the fading of the "I" from the discourse as spoken. But if the Other is considered the subject, it is "simply the pure subject of modern [[games ]] [[theory]]" (1977, p. 304/ 806). Lacan adds that this Other as "locus of Speech, imposes itself no less as [[witness ]] to the Truth" (1977, p. 305/807). The reason is that if, according to a [[tradition ]] at least as old as [[Aristotle]], the locus of truth is in the judgment and presupposes a correspondence between the judgment and what is affirmed in the judgment, then truth thus understood (as also falsehood) supposes the symbolic order. To be sure, there is a kind of "pretence to be found in physical combat and [[sexual ]] display" that is essentially a matter of "[[imaginary ]] [[capture]]," and we find this in animals, too. An [[animal ]] "does not pretend to pretend," however, nor does he "make tracks whose [[deception ]] lies in the fact that they will be taken as [[false]]." Pretense of this kind implies a passage to the order of the signifier, and "the signifier requires another locus-the locus of the [[Other, the ]] Other witness, the witness Other than any of the partners - for the Speech that it supports to be capable oflying, that is to say, of presenting itself as Truth" (1977, p. 305/807).

But if this much can be said about the subject of the discourse, what can be said about the ego? Recall what we know about Lacan's conception of the ego. As he tells us in his description of the "[[mirror stage]]," it is the "[[specular ]] image" the child jubilantly assumes at the irifans stage, while still sunk in his "motor incapacity and nursling dependence." Here the "I" is "precipitated in a primordial form" that "would have to be called the [[Ideal]]-I, if we wished to incorporate it into our usual [[register]], in the sense that it will also be the source of secondary identifications, under which term [Lacan] would place the functions of [[libidinal ]] normalization" (1977, p. 2/94). How the ego thus conceived is victimized by a "[[paranoiac ]] [[alienation]]" (1977, p. 5/98) that affects all its knowledge, how it [[defends ]] itself by "the armour of an [[alienating ]] identity" (1977, p. 4/97), how its aggressivity is "a correlative tension of [this] [[narcissistic ]] structure" (1977, p. 22/116)-all this we have seen already. What Lacan seems to add here is the reminder that the ego thus conceived in its origins must now be dealt with by the (presumably [[adult]]) subject: "At this point the ambiguity of a failure to recognize that is essential to knowing myself (un meconnaitre essentiel au me connaitre) is introduced. For, in this 'rear view' (ritrovisee), all that the subject can be certain of is the anticipated image coming to meet him that he catches of himself in [the] mirror" (1977, p. 306/808). This is the ego that Descartes discovered and that [[Kant ]] [[analyzed ]] in terms of a "[[transcendental ]] ego," though the analysis was inevitably relativized by the fact that there, too, the ego was "implicated ... in the [[meconnaissance ]] in which the ego's identifications take root" (1977, p. 307/809). When all is said and done, the emphasis since Descartes on [[consciousness ]] as essential to the subject is for Lacan "the deceptive accentuation of the transparency of the I in action [en [[acte]]] at the expense of the opacity of the signifier that determines the I" (1977, p. 307/809), i.e., (as we understand it) the opacity of the symbolic order that, beyond the transparency of consciousness to itself, silently permeates all discourse.

to his philosophy audience?). His [[intention]], it appears, is to suggest how the early [[development ]] of the ego follows the classical dialectical [[master]]-slave [[struggle ]] between the ego and its [[counterpart ]] that "is rightly called a struggle of pure prestige, and the stake, life itself, is well suited to echo that [[danger ]] of the generic pre [[maturation ]] of birth" that sets the stage for the mirror [[phase ]] (1977, p. 308/810). He suggests, too, how the same [[master-slave ]] struggle offers an appropriate paradigm for understanding the [[neurotic ]] patterns of the [[obsessional]], who simply waits out the Master's death (1977, p. 309/811). Implicit here, of course, is the supposition that the [[dynamic ]] of this dialectical struggle is desire, hence the remonstrance that "philosophers should not make the mistake of [[thinking ]] that they can take little account of the irruption that Freud's views on desire represented" (1977, p. 309/811). What, then, were Freud's views on desire? They are not to be understood in terms of familiar cliches about "[[repressed ]] wishes," or discerned in the kind of aberration that, according to Lacan, passes for [[psychoanalytic ]] [[practice ]] today. Nor are they to be grasped by overlooking the subtleties that differentiate desire from [[need ]] and [[demand]]. If the meaning of desire for Freud is to be sought under the guise of [[sexuality]], then this should be done in terms of certain "[[structural ]] elements" that transcend those common vagaries of sexuality that led Freud to admit that it "must bear the mark of some unnatural [[split]]" (1977, p. 310/ 812). These "structural elements" are most clearly seen in the [[Oedipus ]] complex. Central to the [[Oedipus complex]], of course, is the role of the Father. Freud himself saw the paradigm for this in the dead Father of his own hypothetical [[myth]], but Lacan has [[interpreted ]] the role in terms of the [[Name]]-of-the-Father. What is at stake clearly is not the real father but the "[[paternal function]]," which for Lacan is grounded in "the Other as the locus of the signifier" (1977, p. 310/812-813). The Other here is Law and, as such, ultimate-"there is no [[Other of the Other]]" (1977, p. 311/813). But the "fact that the Father may be regarded as the original

[[representative ]] of [ the] [[authority ]] of the Law requires us to specify by what privileged mode of presence he is sustained beyond the subject who is actually led to occupy the place of the Other, namely, the [[Mother]]" (1977, p. 311/813). This opens up new difficulties. \ The fundamental issue that now comes more and more into focus (however circuitously) is the relationship between desire and the Other (i.e., the Law, the [[Name-of-the-Father]]). The difficulty of this issue will be compounded by the fact that the [[desiring ]] subject is also related to the one who occupies the place of the Other in terms of need and demand. These are the parameters within which the play of the dialectic will be contained. Let us begin with what is already familiar. Just as we have been told that the unconscious is "the discourse of the Other," where "of" is to be understood in the sense of the Latin de (i.e., discourse "from" the Other), so, too, we have heard before (1977, p. 264/628) that "man's desire is the desire of the Other," i.e., "it is qua Other that he desires (which is what provides the true compass of human [[passion]])" (1977, p. 312/814). The [[subject's desire]], then, is in fact the Other's desire. That is why the question coming from the Other to the subject in the form of "What do you want?" leads him more surely "to the path of his own desire," provided he is able to respond to it-and for this the [[help ]] of a [[psychoanalyst ]] may be necessary - not in terms of "What do I want?" but rather "What does he [i.e., the [[analyst]]] want of me?" (1977, p. 312/815). It is through collaboration with the analyst that he comes to recognize the [[otherness ]] of desire and is able to [[invert ]] the original question so as to ask of the Other, "What do you want of me?" (1977, p. 335/908). If the subject is able to appreciate the sense of such a question, he may become aware of the alienation of which he has been the [[victim ]] by reason of his own ego. Thus, quite possibly, "what he [as subject] desires presents itself to him as what he [as ego] does not want" (1977, p. 312/815). That leaves us with the delicate task of understanding the relationship between subject and ego, and this is where "[[fantasy]]" plays an important role in the process.

, Laplanche and Pontalis define fantasy in the following classical terms: "imaginary scene in which the subject is a protagonist, representing the fulfillment of a [[wish ]] [i.e., desire] (in the last analysis, an unconscious wish [desire]) in a manner that is distorted to a greater or less extent by defensive proces~es"; but they conclude their discussion more succinctly by saying that "the primary function of fantasy [is] the [imaginary] miseen-scene of desire" (1967, pp. 314-318). Lacan here is more specific. We understand him to be saying something like this: When the subject becomes "barred" (g) at the moment of "[[primal ]] [[repression]]" (i. e., "the [[splitting ]] that [he] suffers from [his] subordination to the signifier") and subsequently comes to expression only in the "fading" of the speaking I from his spoken discourse, he maintains an essential liaison with some imaginary "object" called "fantasy" (1977, p. 313/816). This imaginary object has as its fundamental paradigm a [[body ]] image that is homologous with the image of the [[infant ]] perceived by itself in [[the mirror stage ]] and designated by Lacan as the ego.

" 'stuff' of that'!, that is originally repressed" (1977, p. 314/816), i.e., the manner in which the speaking I, subject to desire, becomes manifest as it [[fades]]. At any rate, this relationship between the split/repressed/barred subject and fantasy is expressed ( in the [[algorithm ]] gOo, where the 0 apparently expresses the relationship between the barred subject and the Other, presumably as a function of desire and its "[[cause]]."

"drive, in which [it] is designated by an [[organic]], [[oral]], [[anal]], etc. [[mapping]]," "inhabiting," as it were, these organic functions (1977, p. 314/816-817). But the drive isolates from the sheer metabolism of these functions certain "[[erogenous zones]]" that are marked by what Lacan calls a "cut (coupure), expressed in the [[anatomical ]] mark ([[trait]]) of a margin or border-lips ... the rim of the anus, the tip of the [[penis]], [etc.]" (1977, p. 314/817). The [[full ]] force of "cut" here is for the moment not clear to us, though we recall that Lacan spoke earlier of the "cut in discourse, the strongest being that which [[acts ]] as a bar between the signifier and signified" (1977, p. 299/801). Perhaps the term is intended to suggest a sign of negativity (of discontinuity and therefore of [[lack]], as basis for desire) in the human organism, the supreme form of which would be symbolic castration; perhaps, too, it is an [[anticipation ]] on the level of the organism of the "bar between the signifier and signified" in the register of the symbolic order. Be that as it may, it is apparently organic parts such as these that coalesce to form the body [[schema ]] serving as paradigm for the [[fantasies ]] that become "stuff" through which the speaking I manifests itself as it fades. The "[[partial ]] features" of these objects are rightly emphasized, of course, "not because [they] are part of a total object, the body, but because they [[represent ]] only partially the function that produces them," i.e., the drive/desire of the subject (1977, p. 315/817). By now Lacan is well into the exposition of his Completed Graph, which we shall not follow in detail. Let it suffice to say that as in Graph II he plotted the formulation of a meaningful statement in conscious discourse by "looping its signification" (1977, p. 316/818), so now he attempts to plot this "looping" of signification on the level of unconscious enunciation, presumably by the "subject of the unconscious." "If we are to expect [this looping] effect from the unconscious enunciation, it is to be found here in the S(Q'», and read as: signifier of a [[lack in the Other]], inherent in its very function as the treasure of the signifier." The shock of this formulation is Soon mitigated when we are

told that the "lack referred to here is indeed that which I have alrea:dy formulated: that [[there is no Other of the Other]]" (1977, p. 316/818). This says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of some higher being as specified in any particular [[religion ]] - all it says is that the Other is not grounded in any order of signifiers beyond itself. Proceeding to explain this enigmatic formula, Lacan focuses directly on the signifier of the Other-as-Iacking. Taking it in [[linguistic ]] terms, he tells us: "My definition of a signifier (there is no other) is as follows: a signifier is that which represents the

~~[[ding ]] subject, for example, thi; subject is represented in its spoklfn discourse by a signifier that, in place of the speaking I, relates to other signifiers in the self-referential signifying chain. Here, however, there is question of the subject of the unconscious as such. Hence, the signifier in question, S(Q'» will be "the signifier for which all the other signifiers represent the sub- -ject: that is to say, in the [[absence ]] of this signifier, all the other signifiers represent nothing" (1977, p. 316/819). The [[whole ]] battery of signifiers, then, is complete and selfcontained. If this particular signifier is to be distinguished among the rest, it will have to be by some mark that will not [[separate ]] it from the other signifiers, and Lacan chooses the sign - 1. If this signifier, with its corresponding signified, together yields the "statement" (enonce) articulated by the subject of the unconscious, then a simple [[algebraic ]] operation will yield the result: s (unconscious statement) equals J ~ i-an [[irrational ]] [[number ]] that is otherwise quite "inexpressible," even "unthinkable," if we try to _ think it on the level of the conscious Cartesian cogito. If we are to 1 conceive it at all, it will have to be in terms of the faded subject that, through its withdrawal, undergoes a kind of death and therefore resides in a place "from which a [[voice ]] is heard clamouring 'the [[universe ]] is a defect in the purity of Non-Being' " (1977, p. 317/820).

[[jouissance]]. The term, though it has appeared in previous essays, has not been thematized heretofore, and we have very little data to help us understand its nature. We are told thatjouissance is usually experienced as "[[forbidden]]" (1977, p. 317/820) - not because of "a bad arrangement of [[society]]," nor because of some fault of the Other (as if it existed), nor because of a consequence of some "original sin" (1977, p. 317/820). Rather,jouissance is limited by an interdiction imposed by the Law. We take this to mean that when the subject enters into the symbolic order, i.e., when the subject submits to the law of the signifier and becomes barred through [[primal repression]], the subject must accept the consequences of his [[finitude ]] that are never more [[apparent ]] than in the limits imposed uponjouissance (1977, p. 319/821). In any case, this lets us see that the limitations ofjouissance are closely connected with the barring of the subject in primal repression. Since these are intimately connected with the [[castration complex]], it would be [[impossible ]] to exaggerate the importance of this complex as "structural of the subject" (1977, p. 318/ 820). With r~gard to it, Lacan suggests a second meaning for the term "subversion" of the subject. "In the castration complex we find the major mainspring of the very subversion that I am trying to articulate here by means of its dialectic" (1977, p. 318/ 820). Castration involves a sacrifice of the phallus, "image of the penis." We must distinguish, however, "between the principle of sacrifice, which is symbolic, and [[the imaginary ]] function that is devoted to that principle of sacrifice, but which, at the same time, masks the fact that it [the imaginary function] gives it [the principle] its [[instrument ]] [of sacrifice]" (1977, p. 319/822). We take this to mean that Lacan wants to distinguish clearly between the phallus as symbolic (hereafter [[capital ]] Phi [<P]) and as image (hereafter small phi [<t>]). According to our understanding of the matter, the phallus as imaginary is (on the [[psychic ]] level) the bond with the Source of All, which, like the umbilical cord, must be severed in order to enter into human existence in the symbolic order (though at the cost of the irreparable [[loss ]] of

joui~sance). As image, the phallus forms part of the body schema perceived in the [[specular image ]] that, for Lacan as well as for Freud, "is the channel taken by the transfusion of the body's [[libido ]] towards the object" and serves as paradigm for fantasy (1977, p. 319/822).

broad sense, for insofar as the phallus is erectile (hence also detumescent and in that way "detachable"), it may be experienced as "[[lacking]]" to, or "negatived" in, the body image (1977, pp. 319-320/822). As a result of this [[negative ]] quality, it bears a certain affinity with the negativity of th,e signifier ( - 1) as with the nega~vity of its signification (,,';--=-1). Since "the erectile [[organ ]] come~ to [[symbolize ]] the place ofjouissance," there is a [[natural ]] correlation between the phallus imagined as castratable and the limitation of jouissance, by reason of which the erectile organ may be said to "[[bind ]] [nouer] the [[prohibition ]] of jouissance" (1977,

tachable ( - ¢) {implying a castration equally imaginary) into \ the phallus as symbolic (<P) is a step forward in the emergence of the subject and in that sense "positive," even though it may be correlated with the filling up of some lack (1977, p. 320/823) and, as signifier of the Other's desire, signifies the lack in the Other. However that may be, the castration of the phallus brings into play some kind of object on the level of fantasy that Lacan refers to as [[objet ]] a. How this may be understood admits of various [[interpretations]]. After scrutinizing relative [[texts ]] in Lacan, Lemaire suggests two possible ways of understanding the [[objet a]]: the first sense would be to take objet a as "the first image to fill in the crack of [[separation]]" from the mother, hence necessarily referring to the phallus "in the symbolic sense of the hyphen, par excellence, of the impossible unification" with her that in the separation is severed; a second (broader) sense would take objet a as the "representative of the object of lack," i.e., "the [[metonymic ]] [[object of desire]]" (1970, p. 174).

timable treasure" that in [[Plato]]'s [[Symposium ]] [[Alcibiades ]] fantasizes as contained in hidden fashion within [[Socrates]]. Recall how Alcibiades had projected onto Socrates the ideal of the "perfect master" (1977, p. 323/826). Yet because Socrates refuses to respond to any of his advances, Alcibiades fantasies Socrates as deprived of the [[imaginary phallus ]] ( - 1» and in that sense as "[[castrated]]," hence, "ideal Master" or not, as "completely imaginarized." This does not make Socrates any less "the object of desire," however, for, like "the [[woman ]] concealed behind her [[veil]], it is the absence of the penis that turns her into the phallus, the' object of desire" (1977, p. 322/825). We understand this to mean that the [[absent ]] penis in the woman makes her desirable tothe subject, i.e., the object of the subject's desire, in the sense that, not having the phallus, she can now be the phallus for/to him, i.e., the object of his desire. Phallus in this case, however, is obviou"sly used in the symbolic sense (<I» as signifier of desire or oflack. Similarly, Socrates remains the "symbolic" phallus for Alcibiades, even though (or rather precisely because) he is castrated of the imaginary phallus ( - 1». In all this, Lacan claims that Alcibiades (though he may well be a lecher and a lush) "is certainly not a neurotic," for he is ''par excellence [one] who desires," i.e., is in touch with his own desire. Socrates, "the precursor of psychoanalysis," is shrewd enough to discern the true focus of Alcibiades' desire, "object of the [[transference]]," i.e., [[Agathon ]] (1977, p. 323/825-826), insofar as he matches (as [[homosexual ]] object) the object in Alcibiades' unconscious fantasy, the object marked by the - 1> "as castrated" (1977, p. 323/825).

When the subject is split through [[primary repression ]] (5), the neurotic's ego remains strong and, essentially imaginary itself, functions in the [[imaginary order]]. The phallus on this level, as also the castration of it, is equally imaginary. The neurotic's relation to the Other is such that "he imagines that the Other [[demands ]] his castration" (1977, p. 323/826). But in his imaginary struggle against an imaginary castration, the neurotic fails to appreciate the genuine role of the symbolic phallus and the need for symbolic castration as the price of any satisfactory relationship of the subject to the Other. We understand this satisfactory relationship to involve the dialectic of desire through reciprocal [[recognition ]] of:. subject and Other. In other words, it is as if the neurotic played out the scenario of the classic oedipal stereotype on the imaginary level and failed utterly to appreciate the symbolic [[significance ]] of castration. In any case, what [[analytic experience ]] shows us is that, whether in the normal or abnormal, castration is the "ondition for desire to become human. In that

But all this, along with the tantalizing allusions to different kinds of [[neuroses ]] ([[phobic]], obsessional, [[hysterical]]) ~nd to [[perversion]], suggests a [[clinical ]] relevance to Lacan's reflections here

3) Thus we consider Hegel's [[epistemology ]] regarding the subject,

a) which consequently jeopardize practice, b. and nullify its [[scientific ]] status. 2) Its [[social ]] basis is not at issue, a. not even its deviations in [[Britain ]] and America. 3. It is subversion itself that we will try" to define. C) Science cannot be founded on [[empiricism]],

D) [[People ]] fail to see that when we question the unconSCIOUS,

2) We lead the subject to decipher its [[logic]], a. provided our voice enters at the [[right ]] place.

3. Our [[goal ]] is not some archetypal or mute experience.

a) But heliocentrism is no less a [[lure]],

1) Truth emerges in knowledge by putting [[ignorance ]] to [[work]],

b) The consideration shown psychoanalysis by science indicates a wish for [[theoretical ]] [[enlightenment]].

1) This has nothing to do with the [[categories ]] of psychology, whose fate is sealed.

a. it is far from Freud's malaise of [[civilization]],

a) nor in terms of a phenomenology that would reassure [[idealism]].

c. nor can [[affect ]] ground the subject.

2) The shifter indicates the speaking subject, a. but does not [[signify ]] it.

a) for the subject fades from discourse, b. a discourse marked by [[parapraxes]]. 4) As [[analysts ]] we must return to the function of the

5) We thus arrive at the subject as bound 'to signification and thereby under the sign of the [[preconscious]]. a) This leads us to the. paradox of conceiving the [[analytic discourse ]] as of- [[value ]] only in its lapses and parapraxes.

2) The [[Hegelian ]] subject of [[absolute knowledge ]] fails to see the vanity of its discourse, a. and thus risks [[madness]].

1) Hegel's "[[cunning of reason]]" implies that the subject knows what he wants.

B) The biologism of Freud is far from the [[psychoanalytic theory ]] of instinct. 1) The tone of Freud's [[biology ]] is found only by [[living ]] the death instinct.

1) [[Psychosexual ]] development provides symbolic elements.

D) A simplified graph (I) illustrates the [[topological ]] structure showing how desire is related to a subject defined by its articulation through the signifier.

1) The diachronic sentence which is thus anchored completes its meaning [[retroactively]].

a) It is apparent in the child's song that raises sounds which serve as [[signs ]] to the level of signifiers.

b) the second as "boring-[[hole]]" for escape (in articulation).

1) Assertions are circular insofar as they cannot be grounded [[outside ]] of themselves in the certitude of an action.

a) determining all [[codes]]. b) It is from here that the subject receives the [[message ]] which he emits and whereby he is constituted.

a) Without this [[dimension]], [[verbal ]] deception could not be distinguished from the imaginary pretense of animals,

3) Truth draws its guarantee not from [[Reality ]] but from Speech.

W) The emblem of symbolic [[identification ]] is the "unbroken line" joining S to 1(0), the castrated subject to the [[ego ideal]].

b) and his self-[[certainty ]] lies in meeting his anticipated [[mirror image]].

B) The ego as originating in the mirror stage is counterposed to the American notion of the "[[autonomous ]] ego."

a) established as a function of [[mastery]], martial bearing, and [[rivalry]].

4) The ego achieves itself by being articulated not as the speaking I, but as the [[displacement ]] of its meanmg,

b) despite the deceptive emphasis on the [[self-consciousness ]] of the acting I.

1 .. Its stake, life itself, echoes 'the danger of our specif!c [[prematurity ]] at birth,

a) thus showing that the pact precedes the [[violence]], b. and that "the symbolic dominates the imaginary." 3) [[Murder ]] is not the absolute Master,

a) whose lure makes us think the slave's work and renunci1ation of Jouissance through [[fear ]] of death is his way to [[freedom]].

a) which wrongly emphasizes demand and [[frustration ]]

2) Demand introduces incompatibility into [[needs]], a) for every demand must "[[pass ]] through the defiles of the signifier."

4) Even the [[sexual function ]] bears the mark of an unnatural split.

b) which is not a [[cultural]]-anthropological notion, as some analysts believe.

b) and we look in vain for another signifier outside of this place, for a "[[metalanguage]],"

b) Rather than focusing on demand as a [[request ]] for [[love]], we concentrate on desire,

G) By representing need, man's [[subjective ]] opacity produces the substance of desire.

a) thereby introducing [[anxiety ]] insofar as desire cannot be [[satisfied]], _ b) as well as introducing the [[phantom ]] of the Other's

2) This [[phantasm ]] of the Other's omnipotence must be

3) This mediation origina~es in desire's [[reversal ]] of the unconditional demand for l<>ve,

4) [[Control ]] over anxiety and detachment from the Other is achieved by means of the transitional ob-

tation of a [[representation]],"

phantasm as [[cause of desire]].

2) The fantasy [[structures ]] desire just as the image of the body structures the ego.

2) Hence arises the [[concept ]] of drive as an organic registration all the more removed from speaking the more he speaks.

b) This cut is the drive's "[[grammatical ]] artifice" as seen in the reversions of the drive's articulation to its source as to its objects.

E) The "[[erogenous zone]]" is what the drive isolates from the metabolism of the organic function.

2) This trait of a cut is also evidept in the [[part-objects ]] described in analytic theory,

•ii. but to the function that produces them (the drive-fantasy that structures desire). /-~ 3. These objects have no [[alterity]],

3 . We cannot question the subject as I for he does not know if he [[exists]], a) since the [[word ]] "I" can designate, with equal rigor, the dreamer or dead man dreamt.

a) nor is it equivalent to Levi-[[Strauss]]' notion of zero [[symbol]].

C) What we must hold to is that jouissance is prohibited to the [[speaker ]] as such.

3) [[Concrete ]] [[pleasure ]] sets limits to jouissance,

of [[primary process]].

4) In his notion of the "[[pleasure principle]]" Freud was not merely echoing a traditional [[idea]],

a. but as what the desired image [[lacks]].

a) with the consequence that lust is reduced to the brevity of auto-[[eroticism]].

a) but Freud does not promote a [[technique ]] of the body. b) Otherwise analytic practice would not induce [[guilt]],

c) which appears in the contrast between [[auto-eroticism ]] and desire.

X) The structure of unconscious fantasy sheds light on perversion and [[neurosis]].

a) The obsessional denies the desire of the Other by [[structuring ]] his fantasy so that he emphasizes the [[impossibility ]] of vanishing as subject.

b) In the case of the hysteric, desire is maintained by the [[dissatisfaction ]] introduced when he conceals himself as object, i. ,as evidenced in the [[denial ]] present in hysterical intrigue.

4) The analyst must show a calculated variability in his [[neutrality]], a) and preserve the [[imaginary dimension ]] of his necessary imperfection through his ignorance of the case,

1) But in perversion desire is a [[defense ]] setting a [[limit ]] on )OUlSSance. 2) The neurotic imagines himself to be a [[pervert ]] to make sure of the existence of the Other.

1) This, reinforces the [[imagination ]] proper to it, that of the ego,

a) He wants to preserve his [[difference ]] as a wantto-be,

293c1794 The phrase, "a subject of science" (un [[sujet ]] de la science) refers to the scientist.

293i1795 "At a second stage" (De second [[temps]]) suggests that general psychology is an offshoot of the broader field of general science just discuss,ed.

294h1795 A simple misprint in the [[English ]] has "hynoid" instead of "hypnoid" (hypnoi'des). The meaning of "fruitful moments" is unclear; it may have to do with the way the ego in paranoiac knowledge projects its own attributes onto things (as discussed earlier [1977, p. 17/111]).

The doctrine of double truth was a theological vehicle aimed at preserving the "truth" of a literal [[reading ]] of the scriptures while acknowledging the "truth" of . the findings of the science of [[astronomy]]. The Scholastic "[[antinomy]]" is unclear; perhaps it has to do with the relationship between esse and essentia, the principle of "existence" whereby a being exists and that of "essence" whereby it has a determinate structure. Lacan interprets Hegel as viewing such a [[distinction ]] as spurious.

297]/799 The "judicial [[astrology ]] in which the [[psychologist ]] dabbles" appears to refer to a predictive psychology that makes judgments of people.

298a/799 Geneva and Petrograd refer, respectively, to the work of [[Saussure ]] and J akobson. For a succinct and remarkably lucid history of modern linguistics, see [[Jakobson ]] (1973).

299d/801 In Heidegger Being'spresencing comes to pass through [[Dasein]]'s [[openness ]] to the Being of beings.

The "sign of the pre-conscious" appears to refer to the way [[latent ]] significations appear in homophonic resonances (as exemplified in the example of tue).

[[Mallarme]]'s metaphor of the worn coin was alluded to in the "Discourse at Rome" (1977, p. 43g/ 251). 299]/801 Instead of "by making 'holes' in the meaning of the determinants of its discourse," the translation should read "by making holes in meaning the determinants of its discourse" ("a faire des trous du sens les determinants de son [[discours]]"). 300cl801 For the double sense of the imperfect tense in French, ~ see Guillaume (1968). It should be remarked that I Lacan's tortured version of the [[future ]] sense of the imperfect (ily etait d'avoir puy hre [1966, p. 840]) admits of rio convenient counterpart in English. Colloquial English would accept a future imperfect such as "another minute and I was dead," but this is at best a hasty abbreviation of what in [[formal ]] English would be " ... I would have been dead." This raises the question as to whether Freud's [[German ]] war has any more flexibility than the English "was," and if not, whether Lacan is [[interpreting ]] Freud here by saying (however ingeniously) what Freud did not say, perhaps could not say. If this turned out to be the case, the implications for Lacan's entire hermeneutic of Freud would be far-reaching.

301b/802 This sentence should read: "And to show that there is no firmer root [for the distinction between the Freudian and Hegelian subjects and their relation to knowing] than the modes in which the dialectic of desire becomes conspicuous" ("Et qu'il n'en est pas de plus sure racine que les modes dont s'y distingue la [[dialectique ]] du desir"). 301h/803 The "margin beyond life" assured by language (Ie [[langage]]) would seem to refer to~the way the symbolic order dominates and structures human existence, from the name and kinship relation present before birth to the gravesite, legends, and judgments that follow one after death. The theme is a repeated one (1977, p. 68/279), but here specific attention is drawn to the way in which body parts can serve as signifiers (that is, go beyond their function in the living body), with the phallus as preeminent signifier with which the body as a whole comes to be identified and which also functions "as that in which being is at stake" (comme enjeu de l'etre).

302d/804 To be more precise, the French text reads "the real of the body and of the imaginary of its [[mental ]] schema"

("Ie reel du [[corps ]] et de l'[[imaginaire ]] de son schema mental").

~ach level (ego [e] and specular image [i(o)], diachroI ny [s(O)] and synchrony [0], the unconscious fantasy [S 00] and desire [d], the Other as lacking [S( (]»)] and drive [SOD]). We shall attempt to say something about each of these terms as they come up in the text, though here, even more than elsewhere, a satisfactory explanation of their import must await the publication of the seminars in which these [[formulas ]] were developed. The reader's attention is called to the comments of the French editor on these graphs (1977, pp. 334-335/907-908).

304b/806 The "four-cornered [[game]]" echoes the earlier use of bridge to illustrate the relation of subject to analyst (1977, p. 229-230/589-590) and also echoes the structure of schemas L (p. 193/548) and R (p. 197/ 553). This raises the question whether we have to in-

elude in these graphs a dialogue in process (i.e., between two subjects) "if the subsequent [[construction ]] must be dependent on it." 304c1806 Since the signifier's treasure appears to lie in its phonemic structure as reciprocally distinctive features, and the [[code ]] is limited to "the univocal correspondence of a sign with something," it seems inappropriate to speak of "the code's treasure"; the French text allows us to translate instead "the locus of the signifier's treasure, which does not mean [the locus] of the code" ("Ie lieu du tresor du [[signifiant]], ce qui ne veut pas [[dire ]] du code"). 304e/806 Lacan elsewhere (1959) speaks of the "hole in the real" caused by the death of another (pp. 37-38). We recall, again, that language is "the murder of [[the thing]]" (1977, p. 104/319), since the brute facticity of objects is negated by words where objects come to have a presence in absence, a presence that is hidden in the synchronic ensemble of the storehouse of language, but is expressed in articulated diachronic speech in which desire is channeled from lack to [[substitute ]] objects. 304g-h/ Lacan seems to be saying that the previous [[topology ]] 806 of the square, in which subject is related to the Other, must be modified ("such a squaring is impossible"), since we must subtract the subject from his discourse and therefore the more appropriate notation is "the barred subject" (55), while the emphasis shifts to the structure of the self-referential discourse (expressed in the various loops of the graphs). 305a/807 Rather than "and to make it function as a lack" for et ny faire [[fonction ]] que de [[manque]], we translate "and to only function there as a lack," referring to the subject's role in the signifying battery.

in a place prior to death and operative in death. The symbolic order as Other is not reducible to a code and is the foundation for the message which constitutes the subject. The English is misleading: rather than "in the message, since it is from this code that the subject is constituted," we translate "in the message, since it is from it that the subject is constituted" ("dans Ie message, puisque c'est de lui que Ie sujet se constitue"). The notation "0" would then represent the Other as synchronic [[system]], while "s(O)" would be the articulated, diachronic message, with the arrows in Graph II (1977, p. 306/808) suggesting the circular movement between them, i.e., that articulated sentences borrow words from the storehouse of Janguage and "that it is from the Other that the subject receives even the message that he emits." The dominant position of the symbolic order is emphasized again when Lacan goes on to discuss the

Pretending to pretend is illustrated by Freud's [[joke]],

ties of the symbolic order, making possible primary repression, and differentiating the subject from objects by mediating his relationships to them. (In a later [[seminar ]] [1964] Lacan refers to notch marks used to count kills [po 141 D. The mother's act of naming achieves inchoative differentiation of mother and child and puts in place the ego ideal as the primary [[symbolic identification]]. Since all naming and symbolic identification is a function of the [[Law of the Father ]] (the law oflanguage), this earliest moment in which the "first words" are spoken involves an eventual barring of the subject, and acknowledgment of a lack in both mother and infant, and a kind of anticipated castration (see the discussion of the "[[paternal metaphor]]" in Chapter 6, specifically note 199i/557). The trait [[unaire]], then, would be a foreshadowing of symbolic castration (trait is repeated later in the context of the Other-as-lacking [1977, p. 316f-g/819D. It is the observable mark that "fills out" (cambler), i.e., gives form to, "the invisi~le mark the subject derives from the signifier," i.e., the mark of primary represSIOn. Once the mirror stage is entered, the ego ideal (taken here to refer to primary symbolic identification) is overlaid by the [[ideal ego ]] (mai ideal), that "function of mastery" that develops from the narcissistic identification with the reflected specular image (as discussed earlier in Chapters 1 and 2). Lacan now adds to the graph the structure of the discoursing ego. The [[imaginary identification ]] with the image of the other (i[ aD leads to the development of the ego (e), and this process of ego development is "doubly articulated" - first in an aborted manner (the "short circuit" from S to 1[0], pertaining to the primary symbolic identification), second as excluded from articulated speech (the relation between dia-

The scenario for the master-slave dialectic, the reciprocal roles of master and slave, is prescripted in the symbolic order, which has a dominant function over the imaginary struggle. We must therefore distinguish between physical death "which is brought by life" and the symbolic death "which brings life." The signifier is the murder of the thing; hence symbolic death is the symbolic castration requisite for [[participation ]] in the symbolic order.

In the master, the bondsman feels self-existence to be something [[external]], an [[objective ]] fact; [bu t] in fear [of death] self-existence is present within himself [i.e., in the slave]; in fashioning the thing [in work], self-existence comes to be felt explicitly as his own proper being, and he attains the consciousness that he himself exists in its own right and on its own account [po 239].

Rather than translating "artificially inseminating [[women ]] who have broken the [[phallic ]] bounds," we translate "artificially inseminating women in [by or through] rupturing the phallic order" ("d'inseminer artificiellement les femmes en rupture du ban phallique"). [[Tragedy ]] assumes a universe in which there is some kind of underlying [[harmony ]] or order. In "[[Some Reflections on the Ego]]" (1951), Lacan wrote:

represents in our [[culture ]] the vestigial relics of the relationships by means of which earlier communities were able for centuries to ensure the [[psychological ]] mutual interdependence essential to the [[happiness ]] of their members [po 17] .

Other. Embedded in this appeal is the articulation of desire, which has no [[universal ]] object of [[satisfaction ]] - and this condition of impossible satisfaction is called anxiety. Since the Other is addressed as capable of providing this satisfaction, the Other takes on a fantasized omnipotence vis-a.-vis the subject, which sets up the [[necessity ]] (la necessite, woefully translated in this context as "the need") for its curbing by the Law. The function of the Law ( of language) as mediation between subject and the omnipotent Other originates in desire (for desire presupposes the structure of primary repression, symbolic castration, and the "cut" or differentiating [[power ]] of symbolic articulation). Desire then enables the subject to transcend "the unconditional nature of the demand for love, in which the subject remains in subjection to the Other" (as omnipotent) by raising this unconditional nature to the power of an "absolute" condition, that is, a de- \~tached and differentiate? status. In its root meaning "absolute" (ab-solvere, "to loosen or to free") implies "detachment." Desire, then, comports a differentiation from the Other, initially achieved in the Fort.' Da.' moment (for the moment "in which desire becomes human is also that in which the child is [[born ]] into language" [1977, p. 103/319]) bu~ prefigured by the [[transitional object]], an object that is on its way toward becoming a signifier. 31~815 We are told that the «eke vuoi?" is taken from Diable amoureux (1772), a novel by the French [[author]], Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792).

ject in fantasy (SOo), and this appears to serve as substitute object inciting desire (d), but incapable of [[satisfying ]] it. Regarding the sign (0) in the formula, Lacan comments on its meaning elsewhere (1977, p. 280, n. 26/634, n. 1). Clement (1981, pp. 206-207) provides a helpful interpretation of the poinfon (Lacan's symbol 0 that [[links ]] the barred subject to the [[object a ]] [0] and to demand [D]). She makes two points: first, that the poinfon ("stamp"), not unlike the mark on French coins that guarantees authenticity, is that feature of the subject's implication in his or her unconscious fantasy that marks it as his or her own, that "authenticates" the fantasy as mine. Second, she sees the symbol as a combination of the [[mathematical ]] [[symbols ]] for "less than" «) and "greater than"

313e1816 The French has a (for [[autre]]) in the formula. In terms of "the phonematic element," we wonder about a play on the letter a as first letter of the alphabet, as element of the Fort! DaI, etc. 314b/816 The graph indicates parallel levels, both participating in the [[imaginary register]], wherein the specular image structures the ego in miconnaissance, i(o)-e, with a homologous relation wherein desire is regulated and disguised in the fantasy, d-(SOo). This completes the structure of the imaginary, "there where [not "and where"] the unconscious was itself' ("la ou s'etait l'inconscient").

accepted as castrated and the jouissance of imaginary symbiosis as impossible - and then this lack is assumed to be a demand in which the subject is impli" cated in fantasy, S(0)-(5; 0 D). For the neurotic, "the demand of the Other assumes the function of an object in his [[phantasy]]" - we recall the formula for fantasy is (5; 00) - and his fantasy, therefore, is "reduced to the drive (S 0 D)" (p. 321/823). Since demand is a diachronic articulation, it has a [[temporal ]] duration and "disappears." In saying, "I want, I must have ... " the neurotic is saying this in identification with the assumed lack in the Other (he is saying this in the place of the Other), and for him this demand is bound up with a [[part-object ]] related to a [[bodily ]] function. When Lacan states that "the cut remains," we take this to mean that the unconscious content of the drive in relation to body-part with which the subject is implicated remains structured

[[linguistically]], i.e., in an unconscious signifying manner. This is not to say that the part-object in the drive is a signifier (the signifiers are in the demand which expresses the drive), for it remains related to a bodily function. But the kind of bodily function relevant to drive, Lacan appears to be saying, is of a particular sort: it is marked by a cut, a pattern of opening and closing, a rhythmical discontinuity analogous to the gap that differentiates signifiers. It is this "cut" that "distinguishes the drive from the organic function it inhabits" and opens a place for the advent of a signifier. Conceived in this way (albeit vague to us at the present time), the part-object involves a lack which has "no specular image," i.e., is not governed by the processes of reflection indigenous to the imaginary order. The lack, moreover, is camouflaged by the image returned by the mirror, which serves to buttress the ego in a fictional manner. The reference to Freud appears to be to his [[Three ]] Essays on the Theory oj Sexuality (1905c), and to the variability among source, aim, and object in which "[[active]]" and "[[passive]]" modes are evident. Since we have been translating repondre de as "answer for," we do not read "the Other is required ... to respond to the value of this treasure," but rather "the Other is required ... to answer for the value of this treasure" ("l'Autre est requis ... de repondre de la valeur de ce tresor"). An alternative reading is that the Other is required to respond from the value of "this treasure," i.e., from the place of the signifiers. We have seen that the Other (0), on the level of conscious articulation, is the ensemble of phonematic features (1977, p. 304/806); at the level of unconscious signification, the Other is also barred, correlatively with the lack inherent in symbolic castration that makes symbolic [[exchange ]] possible, and is desig-

In specifying the lack in the Other as "there is no Other of the Other," no [[claim ]] is made about [[religious ]] [[belief]], for as analysts "We have to answer for no ultimate truth" ("Nous n'avons a repondre d'aucune verite derniere"). ) 316j- It is striking that the transposition into English of 317b/819 'Lacan's algorithm for the barred Other, S(~), should yield the symbol that in mathematical [[set theory ]] represents the "empty"/"null" set: S(0), i.e., a set which contains no members. Lacan's intention seems to be to designate a signifier for the universal set of signifiers that should itself be included within the set, because it is a signifier, and therefore cannot be taken out of the set to signify it lest the universal set thereby continue to expand. Such a signifier, then, must be somehow [[inside ]] the universal set and conceived of as a lack ( - 1) within it. In this sense it is the complement of the universal set, i.e., an "empty," or "null," set.

For additional commentary on the phrase "a signifier is that which represents the subject for another signifier," see the section "The [[Primacy of the Signifier]]" in the linguistic [[dictionary ]] by Ducrot and Todorov (1972, pp. 351-356).

Rather than "would spoil the [[secret]]," we translate ferait tomber le secret as "would push down the secret," i.e., render it inaccessible.

[[Levi-Strauss]]'s paradox is that whereas the linguistic [[totality ]] (of meaning) must have'come in-

to existence ( as structure) all at once, that which we know has been acquired progressively. With the irruption of language, the whole [[world ]] began to take on meaning all at once, before anyone could know (connaitre) what the meaning was. "But, from the preceding analysis, it follows that it (the world) meant (a signifie), from the beginning, the totality of what humanity could expect to know of it." This dissymmetry between the synchronic (structural) nature of the meant and the diachronic nature of the known results in the existence of "an overabundance of signifier (signifiant) in relation to the signifies to which it might apply." And it is this "[[floating ]] signifier," this "semantic function whose role is to allow symbolic thought to operate despite the [[contradiction ]] inherent in it" which Levi-Strauss sees, in this elusive essay, as the reality of mana. It is "a symbol in the pure state," thus apt to be charged with any symbolic content: "symbolic value zero" [po 23]. Lacan appears to be saying that S(0) signifies the lack inherent in mana or the zero symbol ("mais c'est plutot du signifiant du manque de ce [[symbole ]] zero qu'il nous paralt s'agir en notre cas").

319g/822 The image of the penis is not "negativity" but "negatived" (negative) "in its place in the specular image." We take this to mean that the penis is imagined to be detachable from the image of the body (in imagina~. castration). The later reference to "phantasy of d crepitude" ([[fantasme ]] de caducite) suggests the transitor detumescence that lends support to this detachability. The phallus, therefore, comes "to embody jouissance in the dialectic of desire" by representing what is [[missing]], and therefore what is capable of completmg. 320a/822 One way to read this dense paragraph is to see the erectile organ, the part lacking in the desired image, as functioning like the lack present in signification (-)--=1) correlative with the fading of the subject, and like the lack inherent in the ensemble of signifiers ( - 1). The erectile organ promises a [[wholeness ]] that would restore jouissance on the level of image as well as on the level of discourse - both impossible. 320b/822 The erectile organ's role is to [[knot ]] (nouer) the interdiction of jouissance because as desired object that is lacking it comes to represent symbolic castration. It does this not for "these reasons of form" (ces raisons de forme), i.e., not on the level of the desired image, the

seded by symbolic structures. Once symbolic differentiation and exchange are established, jouissance that is lusted after (jouissance convoitee, misleadingly translated as "desired jouissancd') is reduced to an auto-[[erotic ]] moment (presumably as in [[masturbation]], suggested by the reference to the hand). [[Autoeroticism ]] is then, in analysis, seen to be inadequate to desire (for desire presupposes the symbolic order, while auto-eroticism is a kind of turning away from it) and this inadequacy is referred to as guilt.

321d/824 Instead of "conceals its anxiety from the desire of the Other," we translate "conceals his anxiety concerning the desire of the Other" (cache son [[angoisse ]] du desir de ['Autre).

322e/825 The Greek word &yaAp..a has the meaning of "glory, delight, honour," or "pleasing [[gift]]" or "image," or "statue" as "an object of worship" (Liddell and Scott, 1897, p. 5).

give me back some of those ribbons, will you? I want to crown Socrates' head as well- and a most extraordinary head it is" (p. 565). Later, he tries to [[seduce ]] Socrates: So I got up, and, without giving him a [[chance ]]

The neurotic may be said to be someone without a name (un Sans-Nom) because he attempts to deny symbolic castration (the prerequisite for symbolic identification) by focusing on imaginary castration. It would be more consistent to translate si ... il existait, il en jouirait not "if. .. it did [[exist]]" but rather "if ... he did exist [i.e., the fantasized uncastrated Other ofjouissance], he [this Other] would [[enjoy ]] it [one's own castration]."

Well, a rebus is a rebus is a rebus. What we have seen in these pages is a selection of texts, chosen by Lacan himself to introduce the English-speaking reader to his thought. Or should we not rather say to his style? For they convey, at least to us, less clearly an impression of what Lacan thinks than how. Allegedly, he is sharing with us through his [[Ecrits ]] his own experience of how the unconscious works, and we are left with the task of interpreting these writings more or less as we would a dream, searching for a signification that insists in the web of signifiers he has spun rather than consists in any particular thing he has said. In other words, these ecrits offer us, like [[dreams ]] for Freud, essentially a rebus. This means that understanding them is not exactly guesswork but, nonetheless, a highly precarious business, and sharing our impressions with the reading [[public ]] may be utter folly. After all, it exposes us to the embarrassment of being told how wrong we are, especially when the master's many disciples are there to say, "that's not what he meant at all." Yet we take this risk, for we feel that with the publication of this translation the