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{{Top}}[[dialectique]]{{Bottom}}

The term "[[dialectic]]" originated with the [[Greeks]], for whom it denoted (among other things) a discursive procedure in which an opponent in a debate is questioned in such a way as to bring out the contradictions in his [[discourse]].

This is the tactic which [[Plato]] ascribes to [[Socrates]], who is shown as beginning most dialogues by first reducing his interlocutor to a [[state ]] of confusion and [[helplessness]].

[[Lacan]] compares this to the first [[stage ]] of [[psychoanalytic treatment]], when the [[analyst]] forces the [[analysand]] to confront the contradictions and [[gap]]s in his [[narrative]].

Thus [[Lacan]] argues that "[[psychoanalysis ]] is a dialectical [[experience]]"<ref>{{Ec}} p. 216</ref>, since the analyst must engage the analysand in 'a dialectical operation."<ref>{{S1}} p. 278</ref>

It is only by means of "an endless dialectical [[process]]" that the [[analyst]] can subvert the [[ego]]'s disabling [[illusion]]s of permanence and [[stability]], in a manner identical to the Socratic Dialogue.<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Some Reflections on the Ego]]," ''Int. J. [[Psycho]]-[[Anal]].'', vol. 34, 1953 [1951b]. p. 12</ref>

Although the origin of [[dialectic]]s goes back to the Greek [[philosophers]], its dominance in modern philosophy is due to the revival of the [[concept ]] in the eighteenth century by the [[Kant|post-Kantian]] [[idealism|idealists]] [[Fichte ]] and [[Hegel]], who conceived of the [[dialectic]] as a [[triad]] of [[dialectic|thesis]], [[dialectic|antithesis]] and [[dialectic|synthesis]].

For [[Hegel]], the [[dialectic]] is both a method of exposition and the [[structure]] of [[Historical Progress|historical progress ]] itself.

Each confrontation is resolved by an operation called the ''[[Aufhebung]]'' (usually translated as "[[sublation]]") in which a new [[idea ]] (the [[dialectic|synthesis]]) is [[born ]] from the opposition between [[dialectic|thesis]] and [[dialectic|antithesis]]; the [[dialectic|synthesis]] simultaneously annuls, preserves and raises this opposition to a higher level.

The [[particular ]] way in which the [[Hegelian]] [[dialectic]] is appropriated by [[Lacan]] owes much to [[Alexandre Kojève]], whose lectures on [[Hegel]] [[Lacan]] attended in [[Paris ]] in the 1930s.

Following [[Kojève]] [[Lacan]] puts great emphasis on the particular stage of the [[dialectic]] in which the [[master]] confronts the [[slave]], and on the way that [[desire]] is constituted [[dialectically]] by a [[relationship ]] with the [[desire]] of the [[Other]].

Using the [[Dora]] [[case ]] to illustrate his point, [[Lacan]] shows how [[psychoanalytic treatment]] [[progress]]es towards [[truth]] by a series of [[dialectical]] reversals.<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Intervention sur le transfert]]", in {{Ec}} pp. 215-26 ["[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Intervention on the Transference]]", trans. [[Jacqueline Rose]], in Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose (eds), ''[[Feminine ]] [[Sexuality]]: [[Jacques Lacan ]] and the École Freudienne'', [[London]]: Macmillan, 1982 [1951a]. pp. 61-73</ref>

[[Lacan]] also makes use of a concept of ''[[Aufhebung]]'' to show how the [[symbolic]] [[order]] can simultaneously annul, preserve and raise an [[imaginary]] [[object]] (the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]]) to the status of a [[signifier]] (the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]]); the [[phallus]] then becomes "the signifier of this ''[[Aufhebung]]'' itself, which it inaugurates by its [[disappearance]]."<ref>{{E}} p. 288</ref>

For [[Lacan]], there is no such [[thing ]] as a final [[dialectic|synthesis]] such as is represented by Hegel's concept of [[dialectic|absolute knowledge]]; the [[irreducibility ]] of the [[unconscious]] represents the [[impossibility ]] of any such [[dialectic|absolute knowledge]].

For [[Lacan]], then, "the ''[[Aufhebung]]'' is one of those sweet [[dreams ]] of [[philosophy]]."<ref>{{S20}} p. 79</ref>