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Book XI: The Four Fundamental [[Concepts ]] of Psychoanalysis

January 15 1964, marks the opening [[session ]] of the [[seminars ]] at the École Nationale Supérieure where, in the [[presence ]] of celebrities ([[Lévi-Strauss]], [[Althusser]], [[Fernand Braudel]]) and a new younger audience, [[Lacan]] talks [[about ]] the [[censorship ]] of his [[teachings ]] and his [[excommunication ]] from [[official ]] [[psychoanalytical ]] circles.

He wants to train [[analyst]]s and, at the same [[time]], address the non-analyst by raising the following questions: Is [[psychoanalysis]] a [[science]]? If so, under what [[conditions]]? If it is - the "science of the unconscious" or a "conjectural science of the subject" - what can it teach us about science?

Praxis, which "places the subject in a [[position ]] of dealing with the [[real ]] through the [[symbolic]]," produces concepts; four are offered here: the [[unconscious]], [[repetition]], [[transference]] and the [[drive]].

The 1973 title has often been contested in favor of the 1964's: ‘’Les fondements de la psychanalyse’’, which implies neither that it is a matter of concepts, nor that there are only four of [[them]].

Did they not have a founding father and quasi-[[secret ]] [[texts]]?

[[Freud ]] was "legitimately [[the subject supposed to know | the subject presumed to know]]," at least as to the [[unconscious]]: "He was not only the subject who was presumed to [[know]], he knew."

"He gave us this [[knowledge ]] in [[terms ]] that may be said to be indestructible."

"No [[progress ]] has been made that has not deviated whenever one of the terms has been neglected around which Freud ordered the ways that he traced and the paths of the unconscious."

This declaration of allegiance contrasts with the study of Freud's [[dream]] about the [[dead ]] son screaming "[[Father, can't you see I'm burning?]]"

The main problem remains that of [[transference]]: the [[Name-of-the-Father]] is a foundation, but the legacy of the [[Father]] is sin, and the original sin of psychoanalysis is Freud's desire that was not [[analyzed]].

In "The [[Freudian ]] [[thing]]" (‘’Écrits‘’[[Écrits]]: A Selection’’), Lacan presents the [[Name]]-of-the-Father as a treasure to be found, provided it implies [[self]]-immolation as a sacrificial [[victim ]] to [[truth]].

Of the four concepts mentioned, [[three ]] were developed between 1953 and 1963.

As to [[drive]]s, whose importance has increased since the study of ‘’objet ‘’[[objet]] a’’ in ‘’[[L'angoisse]]’’, Lacan considers them as different from [[biology|biological]] [[needs]] in that they can never be [[satisfied]].

The [[purpose ]] of the drive is not to reach a [[goal ]] (a final destination) but to follow its aim (the way itself), which is to circle round the [[object]].

Such a [[list ]] may seem quite [[natural]]; my purpose is to prove that the [[text ]] was written to show that it is not as natural as that."

The drive is a thoroughly [[cultural ]] and symbolic [[construct]].

Lacan integrates the aforementioned elements into the drive's circuit, which originates in an [[erogenous zone]], circles the object and returns to the erogenous zone.

This circuit is [[structured ]] by the three [[grammatical ]] voices:

# the [[active ]] (to see)

# the [[passive ]] (to make oneself be seen).

The first two are autoerotic; only in the passive voice a new subject appears, "this subject, the [[other]], appears in so far as the drive has been able to show its circular course." The drive is always active, which is why he writes the [[third ]] [[instance ]] as "to make oneself be seen" instead of "to be seen."

Lacan rejects the [[notion ]] that [[partial ]] [[drives ]] can attain any [[complete ]] organization since the primacy of the [[genital ]] zone is always precarious.

The drives are partial, not in the [[sense ]] that they are a part of a [[whole ]] (a [[genital drive]]), but in that they only [[represent ]] [[sexuality ]] partially: they convey the [[dimension ]] of ‘’[[jouissance]]’.

"The [[reality ]] of the unconscious is [[sexual ]] reality - an untenable truth," much as it cannot be separated from [[death]]. "’’Objet a’’ is something from which the subject, in [[order ]] to constitute itself, has separated itself off as [[organ]].

This serves as [[symbol ]] of the [[lack]], of the [[phallus]], not as such, but in so far as it is [[lacking]].

At the [[oral ]] level, it is the [[nothing]]; at the [[anal ]] level, it is the locus of the [[metaphor ]] - one object for [[another]], give the [[feces ]] in [[place ]] of the phallus - the anal drive is the [[domain ]] of the [[gift]]; at the [[scopic ]] level, we are no longer at the level of demand, but of [[desire, ]] of the desire of the Other; it is the same at the level of the [[invocatory ]] drive, which is the closest to the [[experience ]] of the unconscious."

Under the [[form ]] of ‘’objet a’’, Lacan groups all the partial drives linked to [[part objects]]: the [[breast]], feces, the [[penis]], and he adds the [[gaze]] and the [[voice]].

Here, he asserts the [[split ]] between the eye and the gaze when he analyzes [[Holbein]]'s ‘’[[The Ambassadors]]’’ as a "trap for the gaze" (‘’piège à regards’’), but also as a ‘’[[dompte-regard]]’’ (the gaze is tamed by an object) and a ‘’trompe-l'oeil’’.

In the foreground, a [[floating ]] object, a [[phallic ]] [[ghost ]] object gives presence to the -  of [[castration]].

In "La [[Lettre ]] vol?e" (‘’Écrits’’) Lacan states that "[[the unconscious is the discourse of the Other]]," [[meaning ]] that "one should see in the unconscious the effects of [[speech ]] on the subject."

The unconscious is the effect of the [[signifier]] on the [[subject]]- the signifier is what gets [[repressed ]] and what returns in the [[formations ]] of the unconscious.

How then is it possible to reconcile desire linked to the signifier and to the Other with the [[libido]], now an organ under the shape of the "[[lamella]]," the placenta, the part of the [[body ]] from which the subject must [[separate ]] in order to [[exist]]?

A new conception of [[repetition]] comes into play, whose functionning stems from two forces: automatism on the side of the signifier and the missed yet desired [[encounter ]] on the side of the drive, where ‘’objet a’’ refers to the "[[impossible]]" Real (that as such cannot be assimilated).

If transference is the enactment (‘’la mise en acte’’) of the reality of the unconscious - what Lacan's [[deconstruction ]] of the drive wants to bring to light - if desire is the nodal point where the motion of the unconscious, an untenable sexual reality, is also at [[work]], what is to be done?

The analyst's [[role ]] is to allow the drive "to be made [[present ]] in the reality of the unconscious": he must fall from the idealized position so as to become the upholder of ‘’objet a’’, the separating object.

[[French]]: (texte établi par Jacques-[[Alain ]] [[Miller]]), [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1973.[[English]]: Book XI: [[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis ]] (edited by [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]), New York: Norton, 1978.