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* [[Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Of Structure as an Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever]]. Talk at John Hopkins University, Baltimore. 1966.<http://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm>
Somebody spent some time this afternoon trying to convince me that it would surely not be a [[pleasure]] for an English-speaking audience to listen to my bad accent and that for me to speak in [[English]] would constitute a risk for what one might call the transmission of my [[message]]. Truly, for me it is a great case of [[conscience]], because to do otherwise would be absolutely contrary to my own concept of the [[message]]: of the [[message]] as I will explain it to you, of the [[linguistic]] [[message]]. Many people talk nowadays about messages everywhere, inside the organism a hormone is a message, a beam of light to obtain teleguidance to a plane or from a satellite is a message, and so on; but the [[message]] in [[language]] is absolutely different. The message, our message, in all cases comes from the [[Other]] by which I understand "from the place of the Other." It certainly is not the common [[little other|other]], the [[little other| other]] with a lower-case <i>o</i>, and this is why I have given a capital <i>O</i> as the initial letter to the [[Other]] of whom I am now speaking. Since in this case, here in Baltimore, it would seam that the [[Other]] is naturally [[English]]-speaking, it would really be doing myself [[violence]] to speak [[French]]. But the question that this person raised, that it would perhaps be difficult and even a little ridiculous for me to speak [[English]], is an important argument and I also know that there are many French-speaking people present that do not understand English at all; for these my choice of English would be a security, but perhaps I would not wish them to be so secure and in this case I shall speak a little French as well.
The question that the nature of the [[unconscious]] puts before us is in a few words, that something always [[think]]s. [[Freud]] told us that the [[unconscious]] is above all [[thought]]s, and that which [[think]]s is [[bar]]red from [[consciousness]]. This [[bar]] has many applications, many possibilities with regard to meaning. The main one is that it is really a [[bar]]rier, a [[bar]]rier which it is necessary to jump over or to pass through. This is important because if I don't emphasize this [[bar]]rier all is well for you. As we say in [[French]], ''ça vous arrange'', because if something thinks in the floor below or underground things are simple; [[thought]] is always there and all one needs is a little [[consciousness]] on the [[thought]] that the living being is naturally thinking and all is well. If such were the case, [[thought]] would be prepared by [[life]], [[naturally]], such as [[instinct]] for instance. If [[thought]] is a [[natural]] process, then the [[unconscious]] is without difficulty. But the [[unconscious]] has nothing to do with [[instinct]] or primitive [[knowledge]] or preparation of [[thought]] in some underground. It is a [[thinking]] with [[word]]s, with [[thought]]s that escape your vigilance, your state of watchfulness. The question of vigilance is important. It is as if a demon plays a game with your watchfulness. The question is to find a precise status for this [[other]] [[subject]] which is exactly the sort of [[subject]] that we can determine taking our point of departure in [[language]].
When I prepared this little talk for you, it was early in the morning. I could see Baltimore through the window and it was a very interesting moment because it was not quite daylight and a neon sign indicated to me every minute the change of time, and naturally there was heavy traffic and I remarked to myself that exactly all that I could see, except for some trees in the distance, was the result of thoughts [[thought]]s actively [[thinking thoughts]] [[thought]]s, where the function played by the subjects was not completely obvious. In any case the so-called <i>[[Dasein]]</i> as a definition of the [[subject]], was there in this rather intermittent or fading [[spectator]]. The best [[image ]] to sum up the [[unconscious ]] is Baltimore in the early morning.
Where is the [[subject]]? It is necessary to find the [[subject]] as a [[lost object]]. More precisely this [[lost object]] is the support of the [[subject]] and in many cases is a more abject thing than you may care to consider — in some cases it is something done, as all [[psychoanalyst]]s and many people who have been psychoanalyzed know perfectly well. That is why many [[psychoanalyst]]s prefer to return to a general [[psychology]], as the President of the New York Psychoanalytical Society tells us we ought to do. But I cannot change things, I am a [[psychoanalyst]] and if someone prefers to address himself to a professor of [[psychology]] that is his affair. The question of the [[structure]], since we are talking of [[psychology]], is not a term that only I use. For a long time thinkers, searchers, and even inventors who were concerned with the question of the [[mind]], have over the years put forward the idea of [[unity]] as the most important and characteristic trait of [[structure]]. Conceived as something which is already in the [[reality]] of the organism it is obvious. The organism when it is mature is a unit and functions as a unit. The question becomes more difficult when this idea of [[unity]] is applied to the function of the [[mind]], because the [[mind]] is not a totality in itself, but these ideas in the form of the intentional [[unity]] were the basis; as you know, of all of the so-called [[phenomenological]] movement. The same was also true in [[physics]] and [[psychology]] with the so-called [[Gestalt]] school and the [[notion]] of <i>bonne forme</i> whose function was to join, for instance, a drop of water and more complicated ideas, and great [[psychologist]]s, and even the [[psychoanalyst]]s are full of the idea of "total personality." At any rate, it is always the [[unifying]] [[unity]] which is in the foreground. I have never understood this, for if I am a [[psychoanalyst]] I am also a man, and as a man my experience has shown me that the principal characteristic of my own [[human]] [[life]] and, I am sure, that of the people who are here — and if anybody is not of this opinion I hope that he will raise his hand — is that [[life]] is something which goes, as we say in [[French]],<i> á la dérive</i>. [[Life]] goes down the river, from time to time touching a bank; staying for a while here and there, without understanding anything — and it is the principle of [[analysis]] that nobody understands anything of what happens. The idea of the [[unifying]] [[unity]] of the [[human]] condition has always had on me the effect of a scandalous [[lie]].
I suggest you consider the unity in another light. Not a <i>unifying</i> unity but the countable unity one, two, three. After fifteen years I have taught my pupils to count at most up to five which is difficult (four is easier) and they have understood that much. But for tonight permit me to stay at two. Of course what we are dealing with here is the question of the integer, and the question of integers is not a simple one as I think many people here know. To count, of course, is not difficult. It is only necessary to have, for instance, a certain number of sets and a one to-one correspondence. It is true for example that there are exactly as many people sitting in this room as there are seats. But it is necessary to have a collection composed of integers to constitute an integer, or what is called a natural number. It is, of course, in part natural but only in the sense that we do not understand why it exists. Counting is not an empirical fact and it is impossible to deduce the act of counting from empirical data alone. Hume tried but Frege demonstrated perfectly the ineptitude of the attempt. The real difficulty lies in the fact that every integer is in itself a unit. If I take two as a unit, things are very enjoyable, men and women for instance — love plus unity! But after a while it is finished, after these two there is nobody, perhaps a child, but that is another level and to generate three is another affair. When you try to read the theories of mathematicians regarding numbers you find the formula "n plus 1 (n + 1)" as the basis of all the theories. It is this question of the "one more" that is the key to the genesis of numbers and instead of this unifying unity that constitutes two in the first case I propose that you consider the real numerical genesis of two.
