Discourse
French: discours |
Discourse of the Other
The term "discourse" is used by Lacan to emphasize the transindividual nature of language, the fact that speech always implies another subject, an interlocutor.
The unconscious is the "discourse of the Other", the effect on the subject of speech that is addressed to that subject from elsewhere, by another subject (who has been forgotten), by an other scene or psychic locality.
Social Bond
In 1969, Lacan begins to use the term "discourse" to denote a "social bond, founded in language."
He identifies four types of social bonds, four articulations of the symbolic network which regulates intersubjective relations.
Four Discourses
These "four discourses" are
- the discourse of the master,
- the discourse of the university,
- the discourse of the hysteric, and
- the discourse of the analyst.
Four Algorithms
Each of the four discourses is represented by an algorithm which contains four algebraic symbols.
The names of these four symbols are shown to the right.
Four Symbols
The four symbols correspond to four different positions in each algorithm of the four discourses.
Each algorithm of the four discourses has four different positions with which the four symbols correspond.
Four Positions
The four discourses are distinguished from one another by the positions of these four symbols in each algorithm.
The four discourses are defined by the positions of these four symbols.
Each of the four discourses is defined by the position of the four symbols in its algorithm.
The four discourses are defined by the position of the four symbols in each algorithm.
Each of the four discourses are defined by the positions of these four symbols in its algorithm.
The positions of these four symbols in each algorithm is what distinguishes the four discourses from one another.
Each discourse has four positions, which stand in a fixed relationship to one another.
Four Names
The first position (with which each discourse starts) is called the agent.
The second position is called the other.
The third position is called the product.
The four position is called the truth.
The names of the four positions are shown below.[1]
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 21