Discourse

discourse (discours)

Whenever Lacan uses the term 'discourse' (discours) (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 Lacanian formula, 'the unconscious is the discourse of the other' (which first appears in 1953, and later becomes '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).

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' (S20, 21). Lacan identifies four possible types of social bond, four possible articulations of the symbolic network which regulates 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 symbols: Si = the master signifier S2 = knowledge (le savoir) S = the subject a = surplus enjoyment

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 in Figure 2; Lacan gives different names to these positions at different points in his work, and this figure is taken from the 1972-3 seminar.

the agent the other truth production Figure 2 The structure of the four discourses Source: Jacques Lacan, Le SÈminaire. Livre XX. Encore, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1975.

Each discourse is defined by writing the four algebraic symbols in a different position. The symbols always remain in the same order, so each discourse is simply the result of rotating the symbols a quarter turn. The top-left position ('the agent') is the dominant position which defines the discourse. In addition to the four symbols, each algorithm also contains an arrow going from the agent to the other.

In 1971, Lacan proposes that the position of the agent is also the position of the seblance. In 1972, Lacan inscribes two arrows in the formulas instead of one; one arrow (which Lacan labels 'impossibility') goes from the agent to the other, and the other arrow (which is labelled 'powerlessness') goes from production to truth.

The discourse of the master is the basic discourse from which the other three discourses are derived. The dominant position is occupied by the master signifier (Si), which represents the subject (S) for another signifier or, more precisely, for all other signifiers (S2); however, in this signifying operation there is always a surplus, namely, objet petit a. The point is that all attempts at totalisation are doomed to failure. The discourse of the master 'masks the division of the subject' (Sl7, 118). The discourse also illustrates clearly the structure of the dialectic of the master and the slave. The master (S,) is the agent who puts the slave (S2) (O WOrk; the result of this work is a surplus (a) that the master attempts to appropriate.

        Discourse of the master                                 Discourse of the university

             SiaS2                                                             S24a

         Discourse of the hysteric                               Discourse of the analyst

             SMS,                                                              a->S

             a      S2                                                          S2    Si

Figure 3 The four discourses

  Source: Jacques Lacan, Le SÈminaire. Livre XVIL L'envers de la psychanalyse, ed. Jacques-Alain

  Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1975.

The discourse of the university is produced by a quarter turn of the discourse of the master (anticlockwise). The dominant position is occupied by knowledge (savoir). This illustrates the fact that behind all attempts to impart an apparently 'neutral' knowledge to the other can always be located an attempt at mastery (mastery of knowledge, and domination of the other to whom this knowledge is imparted). The discourse of the university represents the hegemony of knowledge, particularly visible in modernity in the form of the hegemony of science.

The discourse of the hysteric is also produced by a quarter turn of the discourse of the master, but in a clockwise direction. It is not simply 'that which is uttered by a hysteric', but a certain kind of social bond in which any subject may be inscribed. The dominant position is occupied by the divided subject, the symptom. This discourse is that which points the way towards knowledge.. Psychoanalytic treatment involves 'the structural intro- duction of the discourse of the hysteric by means of artificial conditions'; in other words, the analyst 'hystericises' the patient's discourse.

The fact that this discourse is the inverse of the discourse of the master emphasises that, for Lacan, psychoanalysis is an essentially subversive practice which undermines all attempts at domination and mastery.