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→The real father
==The real father==
While Lacan is quite clear in defining what he means by the imaginary father and the symbolic father, his remarks on the real father are quite obscure.<ref>{{S4}} p.220</ref>
Lacan's only unequivocal formulation is that the real father is the agent of castration, the one who performs the operation of symbolic castration.<ref>{{Sl7S17}} p.149; {{S7}} p.307</ref>
Apart from this, Lacan gives few other clues about what he means by the phrase.
In 1960, he describes the real father as the one who 'effectively occupies' the mother, the 'Great Fucker',<ref>{{S7}} p.307</ref> and even goes on to say, in 1970, that the real father is the spermatozoon, though he immediately qualifies this statement with the remark that nobody has ever thought of himself as the son of a spermatozoon.<ref>{{Sl7S17}} p.148</ref>
On the basis of these comments, it seems possible to argue that the real father is the biological father of the subject.
However, since a degree of uncertainty always surrounds the question of who the biological father really is ('"pater semper incertus est", while the mother is "certissima"'; <ref>Freud, {{F}} 1909c: . [[SE ]] IX, 239<ref> it would be more precise to say that the real father is the man who is said to be the subject's biological father.
The real father is thus an effect of language, and it is in this sense that the adjective real is to be understood here: the real of language, rather than the real of biology.<ref>{{Sl7S17}} p.147-8</ref>
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The intervention of the real father as agent of castration is not simply equivalent to his physical presence in the family.
As the case of Little Hans indicates,<ref>Freud{{F}} 1909c. [[SE]] IX, 1909b239</ref> the real father may be physically present and yet fail to intervene as agent of castration.<ref>{{S4, }} p. 212, 221</ref>
Conversely, the intervention of the real father may well be felt by the child even when the father is physically absent.
==See Also==
