Talk:Seminar XVIII

Jacques Lacan's Seminars : I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII I. Freud's technical writings II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis III. The Psychoses IV. The Object Relations V. The Formations of the Unconscious VI. Desire and its Interpretation VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis VIII. Transference IX. Identification The Names of the Father X. Anxiety XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis XII. Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis XIII. The Object of Psychoanalysis XIV. The Logic of Fantasy XV. The Psychoanalytic Act XVI. From One Other to the Other XVII. The Reverse of Psychoanalysis XVIII. On a Discourse That Would Not Be Semblance XIX. Or Worse XX. Encore XXV. The Moment of Concluding XXVII. Dissolution ← Seminar XVII Seminar XIX →

On a Discourse that Would Not Be of the Semblant
Seminar XVIII
On a Discourse that Would Not Be of the Semblant Cover associated with the French edition of Seminar XVIII.
French Title	Le Séminaire, Livre XVIII: D'un discours qui ne serait pas du semblant
English Title	The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XVIII: On a Discourse that Would Not Be of the Semblant
Seminar Information
Seminar Date(s)	1971–1972 (academic year)
Session Count	c. 24–26 sessions
Location	École Normale Supérieure (Paris) / École Freudienne de Paris context
Psychoanalytic Content
Key Concepts	Semblant • Discourse • Real • Truth • Four discourses • Objet petit a • S1 • S2 • Sexual difference • Matheme
Notable Themes	Discourse and semblance; truth and knowledge; formalization and mathematics; sexual non-rapport; the status of the analyst; extension of discourse theory
Freud Texts	The Interpretation of Dreams • Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality • Totem and Taboo
Theoretical Context
Period	Middle/late period (discourse and Real)
Register	Symbolic/Real (semblance and impossibility)
Chronology
Preceded by	Seminar XVII
Followed by	Seminar XIX

On a Discourse that Would Not Be of the Semblant (French: Le Séminaire, Livre XVIII: D'un discours qui ne serait pas du semblant) is the eighteenth annual seminar of Jacques Lacan, delivered during the 1971–1972 academic year in Paris, in the institutional framework of the École Freudienne de Paris. It develops and complicates the theory of the Four discourses first introduced in Seminar XVII: L'envers de la psychanalyse, focusing on the notion of semblant (French: semblant, often translated as “semblance” or “seeming”).

Lacan asks whether there could be a discourse “that would not be of the semblant,” that is, a social bond not founded on semblance or on the play of signifiers that stand in the place of truth. His answer, elaborated throughout the seminar, repeatedly returns to the Real as what resists all semblance, to the status of mathematics and science, and to the specificity of psychoanalysis as a discourse founded on the objet petit a and surplus-jouissance.

Seminar XVIII is often read as a bridge between the discourse-theoretical concerns of Seminar XVII and the explicit treatment of sexual difference and “Other jouissance” in Seminar XX: Encore. It consolidates Lacan’s shift from a purely structural linguistics towards a concern with formalization, mathemes, and the possibility of a writing that would touch the Real.

Historical and institutional context

After May 1968 and Seminar XVII

Seminar XVIII follows directly on L'envers de la psychanalyse (1969–1970), where Lacan introduced the four fundamental discourses (of the master, the university, the hysteric, and the analyst) as distinct forms of social bond. These seminars were delivered in a climate still marked by the social and political upheavals of May 1968 in France, and by continuing debates about the university and institutional power.

Where Seminar XVII focused on how discourses organize the relation between knowledge, power, and jouissance, Seminar XVIII turns to the question of what sustains these discourses: the function of semblant—the way signifiers act as “as-if” supports for social ties, authority, truth, and desire.

The École Freudienne de Paris and the question of formalization

By 1971, Lacan had consolidated the activities of the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP), founded in 1964. The “middle-late” seminars are marked by an increasing concern with formalization, the status of the matheme, and the limits of verbal interpretation. Seminar XVIII belongs to this phase: it interrogates whether psychoanalytic discourse can be formalized in a way comparable to mathematical or logical systems, and what is lost or gained when analytic concepts are written.

The title’s reference to a discourse “that would not be of the semblant” is often understood as an allusion to the status of scientific discourse, particularly mathematics, which for Lacan appears as a discourse capable of writing the Real in a way that escapes the ordinary play of semblance, while nonetheless remaining bound to it.

Textual establishment and translations

Like several of the later seminars, the text of Seminar XVIII was established posthumously by Jacques-Alain Miller from stenographic notes and internal documents, and published by Éditions du Seuil in the Champ freudien series. There is, at present, no officially published, book-length English translation comparable to the Norton editions of earlier seminars; instead, partial or provisional translations circulate in study groups and online. Scholarly work in English therefore often cites the French edition alongside such working translations.

Conceptual framework and methodology

Semblant (semblance)

The key term of Seminar XVIII is semblant (semblant), which Lacan uses to designate the “as-if” character of the signifier’s relation to being. A semblant is neither mere illusion nor simple appearance: it is that by which a signifier functions as if it were being itself, thereby sustaining a social bond or identity.

Lacan had already spoken of the phallus as a “signifier of lack in the Other” and as a kind of “semblance” in earlier work (notably in “The Signification of the Phallus” in Écrits). In Seminar XVIII this idea is generalized: the master, the father, the analyst, even “man” and “woman” as sexual positions are treated as semblants—symbolic functions that cover over the impossibility of writing a full relationship between the sexes, or of fully presenting the Real.

Lacan’s guiding methodological thesis can be summed up in a formulation he reprises in different forms:

“There is no social bond except by semblant.”

Discourse is thus a machine for producing, circulating, and organizing semblants.

Discourse and Real

Seminar XVIII extends the discourse theory of Seminar XVII by asking whether there could be a discourse that would not be of semblant—one that would relate directly to the Real rather than to symbolic fiction. For Lacan, the Real is “the impossible,” what does not cease not to be written; it is what resists symbolization and escapes the nets of representation.

The seminar therefore oscillates between two theses:

• All human discourses (including science) rely on semblants;
• Certain forms of writing—above all mathematics—touch the Real more directly by virtue of their formalization.

Lacan explores this tension by examining the status of truth in relation to discourse: truth can only be “half-said” (mi-dit), and whatever is enunciated is necessarily caught in semblance, yet the Real insists as what makes discourse non-all (pas-tout).

Formalization, mathemes, and mathematics

Methodologically, Seminar XVIII continues Lacan’s effort to formalize psychoanalytic concepts through mathemes—minimal algebraic inscriptions (e.g. S1, S2, $, a) intended to allow for transmission of structure without reliance on imaginary understanding or personal authority. Lacan juxtaposes this project with the formalization of modern logic and set theory (drawing on Frege, Russell, Gödel), suggesting that mathematics provides a model for a discourse that approaches the Real by writing its impossibility (for example, through undecidability or incompleteness).

Yet he remains cautious: even mathematical writing is not free from semblant; it is inserted into discourses (of the university, of science) that are themselves organized by semblants of mastery and knowledge. The matheme is a tool inside discourse, not a pure Real.

Key themes and concepts

Extension of the four discourses

Seminar XVIII presupposes familiarity with the four discourses introduced in Seminar XVII: the Discourse of the Master, the Discourse of the University, the Discourse of the Hysteric, and the Discourse of the Analyst. Each discourse is defined by the placing of four terms—S1, S2, $, a—in four positions (agent, Other, truth, product).

In Seminar XVIII, Lacan revisits these discourses from the standpoint of semblant:

• In the **master’s discourse**, S1 functions as a master-signifier that appears to embody being (the “Name-of-the-Father”, the leader, the cause), but is in fact a semblant sustained by the knowledge (S2) it commands.
• In the **university discourse**, S2 appears as neutral knowledge, but this neutrality is itself a semblant masking the underlying master-signifiers (S1) that organize curricula, norms, and evaluations.
• In the **hysteric’s discourse**, the subject ($) exposes the semblant character of S1 by demanding that the master produce knowledge about the subject’s desire and sexual difference.
• In the **analyst’s discourse**, the analyst occupies the position of a, the object-cause of desire, taking on a semblant (e.g. of the “subject supposed to know”) in order to destabilize other semblants and allow truth to emerge.

Lacan thus underscores that there is no “pure” discourse without semblant—even the analyst must “play” semblant in order to operate, but in a way that aims at dislodging fixed semblants rather than reinforcing them.

Truth, knowledge, and half-saying

A recurrent theme in Seminar XVIII is the relation between truth (vérité) and knowledge (savoir). Lacan had previously argued that truth can only be “half-said” and that the unconscious is structured like a language. In Seminar XVIII he adds a new nuance: truth, when spoken, always takes the form of a semblant. It appears clothed in signifiers that “pretend” to capture it, but never fully succeed.

This has implications for the status of analytic interpretation:

“Whatever we say in analysis is always of the semblant; but this semblant can make something of the Real resonate.”

Knowledge (S2) is the articulation of signifiers that can be systematized and taught. Truth, by contrast, is linked to the subject’s division ($) and to the Real of jouissance. The analytic discourse works at their intersection: the analyst’s speech is a knowledge effect that aims at touching the Real of the subject’s symptom, by playing on the semblant quality of signifiers.

Sexual difference and non-rapport (prelude to Encore)

Although the full development of Lacan’s formulas of sexual difference belongs to Seminar XX: Encore, Seminar XVIII already sets up a crucial thesis: there is no pre-given sexual relationship (rapport sexuel) that can be written in terms of a complementary function between “man” and “woman.”

In the language of semblant, this means:

• The figures of “man” and “woman” are organized by semblants (e.g. the phallus as signifier of male position, the “feminine mystique” as semblant).
• Attempts to articulate a complete sexual relationship are efforts to cover over an impossibility in the Real.

Seminar XVIII begins to articulate the idea that woman’s relation to jouissance is “not-all” (pas-tout) captured by the phallic function, and that the very markers of sexed identity in discourse function as semblants. These ideas will be formalized in the later formulas of sexuation.

The status of the analyst and the subject supposed to know

Lacan’s reflection on semblant leads him to revisit the figure of the analyst. The analyst must assume a semblant—being taken as the “subject supposed to know” by the analysand in the transference—in order for analysis to begin. Yet analytic ethics requires that this semblant be undone: the analyst must bring about the fall of the subject supposed to know, leaving the analysand confronted with the Real of their own symptom and desire.

In terms of discourse, the analyst’s place as a in the Discourse of the Analyst is itself a semblant: the analyst is not “really” the object-cause of the analysand’s desire, but occupies that position structurally to provoke the analysand’s speech and the emergence of new signifiers. Seminar XVIII stresses this paradoxical status: the analyst is a semblant that works on semblants.

Science, capitalism, and semblant

Following themes already present in Seminar XVII, Lacan in Seminar XVIII analyzes modern science and capitalism as discourses saturated with semblants:

• Scientific discourse claims access to the Real through formalization and experiment, but is embedded in institutional structures (universities, laboratories, industries) that deploy knowledge as a form of power.
• Capitalist discourse generates new semblants (commodities, consumer identities, “needs”) as vehicles of surplus-jouissance, encouraging an endless pursuit of enjoyment that never quite satisfies.

The notion of semblant allows Lacan to critique both naive faith in science and simplistic anti-scientific positions: the issue is not science “versus” illusion, but the ways in which scientific signifiers themselves function as semblants organizing jouissance.

Relation to Freud and classical psychoanalysis

Returning to Freud on dream and sexuality

Seminar XVIII revisits key Freudian themes, particularly those of The Interpretation of Dreams and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Lacan emphasizes that Freud’s account of dream-work (condensation, displacement, dramatization) already presupposes that unconscious desire and jouissance appear in the guise of semblants—images and narratives that must be read as signifying structures rather than literal contents.

He also invokes Freud’s insistence on the polymorphous and conflictual character of sexuality to argue against any naturalized or harmonious concept of sexual relation. The Freudian symptom is already a “solution” built of semblants to manage an impasse of jouissance.

Totem, taboo, and the father as semblant

Lacan continues his engagement with Freud’s myth in Totem and Taboo of the murder of the primordial Father. In Seminar XVII he had distinguished the “real father,” who embodies unrestrained jouissance, from the symbolic Name-of-the-Father that emerges after the murder. In Seminar XVIII this becomes an example of how a semblant (the dead father as law-giving ancestor) takes the place of an inaccessible Real (the primordial enjoyment).

The “father” in contemporary discourses—whether legal, familial, or institutional—is thus treated as a bundle of semblants: functions that can be assumed by different subjects, rather than an essential figure.

Theoretical significance and clinical implications

Semblant and the ethics of interpretation

One of the seminar’s enduring contributions is to refine the ethical status of psychoanalytic interpretation. If all speech in analysis is of the semblant, then the question becomes: which semblants does the analyst mobilize, and with what effects?

Rather than aiming to provide a “true” narrative of the analysand’s past or an adaptation to reality, interpretation in the Lacanian sense cuts into the chain of signifiers, producing a shift in the subject’s relation to their symptom and to jouissance. The analyst must be cautious not to reinforce master-signifiers (S1) that would solidify identity or ideology, but instead deploy equivocations, puns, and pointed interventions that reveal the semblant character of such identifications.

The impossibility of a discourse without semblant

Despite the seminar’s title, Lacan ultimately suggests that there is no human discourse that is not “of the semblant.” Even a discourse that would most closely approximate the Real—such as mathematics—is articulated in signifiers and inserted into social bonds. The analyst’s task is therefore not to abolish semblant but to make it function differently: to use semblant “against itself” in order to produce effects of truth and encounters with the Real.

As Lacan puts it in a formulation echoed by later commentators, the unconscious itself is “knowledge that is real only when presented as impossible.” In this sense, the unconscious can be described as a kind of “real discourse” sustained only insofar as its full articulation remains impossible.

Clinical orientation: symptom, fantasy, and semblant

Clinically, Seminar XVIII contributes to a rethinking of the symptom and fantasy as semblants that organize a subject’s relation to the Real. The symptom is not simply a “distortion” of reality but a mode of jouissance, a way of inhabiting the impossible. The fantasy ($ ◊ a) is a narrative semblant that frames the subject’s relation to the object-cause of desire.

By reading symptoms and fantasies as semblants, the analyst can avoid both literalizing them (as if they were direct expressions of the Real) and dismissing them as mere illusions. Instead, they become the privileged sites where the Real makes itself felt, and where discourse can be modified.

Reception and legacy

Within Lacanian psychoanalysis

Within Lacanian circles, Seminar XVIII is considered a key text in the trajectory from discourse theory to the late seminars on the Real and on knot theory (e.g. Seminar XX, Les non-dupes errent). Its elaboration of semblant informs later discussions of symptom as ”sinthome" in Le sinthome, where Joyce’s writing is analyzed as a singular arrangement of semblants that knot the subject’s Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.

Many Lacanian training institutions use Seminar XVIII to teach the ethics of the analyst’s position: the analyst must accept playing a semblant (subject supposed to know, object a) without believing in it, and must facilitate the analysand’s traversal of fundamental semblants rather than offering new ideals.

In philosophy, theory, and cultural studies

Outside clinical psychoanalysis, Seminar XVIII has influenced continental philosophy, political theory, and cultural studies through its analyses of discourse, semblant, and science. The notion that contemporary societies are organized by semblants—ideological, scientific, media-driven—has been adopted and reworked by various theorists to analyze phenomena ranging from consumerism to the digital image.

The seminar is often read alongside Seminar XVII and Seminar XX in discussions of ideology, gender, and the critique of scientific rationality. Its insistence on the inevitability of semblant has been invoked against both naïve realism and simplistic relativism: the Real exists, but we only approach it through semblants that must be critically interrogated.

Criticisms and debates

Critics have sometimes faulted Seminar XVIII for its increasing abstraction and density, arguing that the emphasis on formalization risks distancing psychoanalysis from clinical practice. Others have questioned the adequacy of the concept of semblant for describing the concrete operations of power and ideology in contemporary societies.

Supporters counter that the seminar provides a powerful toolkit for thinking the links between discourse, subjectivity, and enjoyment, and that its concepts have been fruitfully applied in clinical work and in cultural analysis. The very difficulty of the text is taken by some as a consequence of Lacan’s attempt to think beyond familiar categories of subject, object, and representation.

See also

• Jacques Lacan
• Seminar XVII
• Seminar XIX
• Four discourses
• Semblant
• Real
• Truth
• Objet petit a
• Surplus-jouissance
• Sexual difference
• Matheme
• Psychoanalytic act
• École Freudienne de Paris

Further reading

• Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire, Livre XVIII: D'un discours qui ne serait pas du semblant (1971–1972). Text established by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, Champ freudien.
• Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London/New York: Routledge, 1996 (entries “Semblant”, “Discourse”, “Real”).
• Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

• Roudinesco, Élisabeth. Jacques Lacan. Trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
• Rabaté, Jean-Michel (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Lacan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 (chapters on discourse, Real, and late Lacan).
• Secondary seminar commentaries and reading guides on Seminar XVIII produced within Lacanian schools and study groups.