24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
"[[Discourse]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[discours]]'')
==Jacques Lacan==
Whenever [[Lacan]] uses the term "[[discourse]]" (rather than, say, "[[speech]]") it is in order to stress the transindividual nature of [[language]], the fact that [speech]] always implies another [[subject]], an interlocutor.
Thus the famous [[Lacan|Lacanian formula]], "the unconscious is the discourse of the Other" designates the [[unconscious]] as the effects on the [[subject]] of [[speech]] that is addressed to him from elsewhere; by another [[subject]] who has been forgotten, by another psychic locality (the other scene).
===Four Discourses===
In 1969, [[Lacan]] begins to use the term "[[discourse]]" in a slightly different way, though one that still carries with it the stress on [[intersubjectivity]].
From this point on the term designates "a social bond, founded in language."<ref>{{S20}} p.21</ref>
[[Lacan]] identifies four possible types of social bond, four possible articulations of the [[symbolic order|symbolic network]] which regulates [[intersubjectivity|intersubjective relations]].
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]].
[[Lacan]] represents each of the [[four discourses]] by an algorithm: each algorithm contains the following four [[algebraic]] [[symbol]]s:
[[Image:Lacan-fourdiscourseletters.jpg|right]]
What distinguishes the [[four discourses]] from one another is the positions of these four symbols.
There are four positions in the algorithms of the [[four discourses]], each of which is designated by a different name.
The names of the four positions are shown below; [[Lacan]] gives different names to these positions at different points in his work, and this figure is taken from the 1972-3 seminar.<ref>{{S20}} p.21</ref>
[[Image:Lacan-structurefourdiscourses.jpg|thumb|right|The structure of the four discourses]]
Each [[discourse]] is defined by writing the four [[algebraic]] [[symbol]]s in a different position.
The [[symbol]]s always remain in the same order, so each [[discourse]] is simply the result of rotating the [[symbol]]s a quarter turn.
The top-left position ("the agent") is the dominant position which defines the [[disocurse]].
In addition to the four [[symbol]]s, each algorithm also contains an arrow going from the agent to the other.
The [[four discourses]] are shown in the figure below.
---
In 1971, [[Lacan]] proposes that the position of the agent is also the position of the [[semblance]].
In 1972, [[Lacan]] inscribes two arrows in the formulas isntead of one; one arrows (which [[Lacan]] labels "impossibility") goes from the agent to the other, and the other arrow (which is labelled "powerlessness") goes from production to truth.<ref>{{S20}} p.21</ref>
[[Image:Lacan-fourdiscourses.jpg|thumb|right|The four discourses]]
