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[[dialectic]] ([[Fr]].''{{Top}}[[dialectique]]'') {{Bottom}}

==Philosophy==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]].

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

However, just as [[Socrates ]] then proceeds to draw out the [[truth ]] from the confused statements of his interlocutor, so also the [[analyst ]] proceeds to draw out the [[truth ]] from the [[analysand]]'s [[free associationsassociation]]s.<ref>{{S8}} p.140</ref>

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 illusions [[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 dialectics 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 post-Kantian idealists Fichte and For [[Hegel]], who conceived of the [[dialectic as ]] is both a triad method of thesis, antithesis exposition and synthesisthe [[structure]] of [[Historical Progress|historical progress]] itself.

For Thus in ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]'' (1807), [[Hegel, the ]] shows how [[consciousness]] [[progress]]es towards [[dialectic is both |absolute knowledge]] by means of a method series of exposition and the structure of historical progress itselfconfrontations between opposing elements.

Thus Each confrontation is resolved by an operation called the ''[[Aufhebung]]'' (usually translated as "[[sublation]]") in which a new [[Phenomenology of Spiritidea]] (1807the [[dialectic|synthesis]])is [[born]] from the opposition between [[dialectic|thesis]] and [[dialectic|antithesis]]; the [[dialectic|synthesis]] simultaneously annuls, Hegel shows how consciousness progresses towards absolute knowledge by means of preserves and raises this opposition to a series of confrontations between opposing elementshigher level.

Each confrontation is resolved by an operation called the ''==Alexandre Kojève==The [[Aufhebung]]'' (usually translated as '[[sublation]]') in which a new idea (the [[synthesis]]) is born from the opposition between [[thesis]] and [[antithesisparticular]]; the [[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 KojeveKojève]], whose lectures on [[Hegel]] [[Lacan]] attended in Paris in the 1930s. Following [[Kojeve]] [[Lacan]] puts great emphasis on the particular stage of the [[dialecticParis]] 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>Lacan 1951a.</ref> [[Lacan]] also makes use of a concept of ''[[Aufhebung]]'' to show hwo the [[symbolic]] [[order]] can simultaneously annul, preserve and raise an [[imaginary]] [[object]] (the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]]) to the status of a [[signfiier]] (the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]]); the [[phallus]] then becomes "the signifier of this ''[Aufhebund]]'' itself, which it inaugurates by its disappearance."<ref>{{E}} p1930s.288</ref>

For [[Lacan]], there is no such [[thing ]] as a final [[dialectic|synthesis ]] such as is represented by Hegel's concept of absolut eknowledge; 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 ; the [[philosophyirreducibility]]."<ref>{{S20}} p.79</ref> This denial of a final synthesis subverts the very concept of [[progressunconscious]] itself. Thus [[Lacan]] contrasts his own version of represents the ''[[Aufhebungimpossibility]]'' with that of any such [[Hegeldialectic|absolute knowledge]], arguing that it repalces [[Hegel]]'s idea of [[progress]] with"the avatars of a lack."<ref>{{Ec}} p.837</ref>