Cause

cause (cause) The concept of causality forms an important thread that

runs throughout Lacan's entire úuvre. It first appears in the context of the

question of the cause of psychosis, which is a central concern of Lacan's

doctoral thesis (Lacan, 1932). Lacan returns to this question in 1946, where

the cause of madness becomes the very essence of all psychical causality. In

the 1946 paper he reiterates his earlier view that a specifically psychical cause

is needed to explain psychosis; however, he also questions the possibility of

defining 'psychical' in terms of a simple opposition to the concept of matter,

and this leads him, in 1955, to dispense with the simplistic notion of

'psychogenesis' (S3, 7).

In the 1950s Lacan begins to address the very concept of causality itself,

arguing that it is to be situated on the border between the symbolic and the

real; it implies 'a mediation between the chain of symbols and the real' (S2,

192). He argues that the concept of causality, which underpins all science, is

itself a non-scientific concept; 'the very notion of cause . . . is established on

the basis of an original wager' (S2, 192).

     In the seminar of 1962-3, Lacan argues that the true meaning of causality

should be looked for in the phenomenon of anxiety, for anxiety is the cause of

doubt. He then links this with the concept of OBJETPETITA, which is now defined

 as the cause of desire, rather than that towards which desire tends.

     In 1964, Lacan uses Aristotle's typology of causes to illustrate the difference

between the symbolic and the real (see cHANCE).

     Lacan returns to the subject of causality in his 1965-6 seminar, where he

distinguishes between magic, religion, science and psychoanalysis on the basis

to their relationship to truth as cause (see Lacan, 1965a).

     Lacan also plays on the ambiguity of the term, since besides being 'that

which provokes an effect', a cause is also 'that for which one fights, that which

 one defends'. Lacan clearly sees himself as fighting for 'the Freudian cause'

(the name he gave to the school he founded in 1980), although this fight can

only be won when one realises that the cause of the unconscious is always 'a

lost cause' (Sll, 128).