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"[[gap]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[béance]]'')
The [[French]] term ''béance'' is an antiquated literary term which means a "large hole or opening."
It is also a [[scientific]] term used in medicine to denote the opening of the larynx.
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The term is used in several ways in [[Lacan]]'s work.
In 1946, he speaks of an "interrogative gap" which opens up in [[madness]], when the [[subject]] is perplexed by the phenomenona which he experiences ([[hallucinations]], etc)
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In the early 1950s, the term comes to refer to the fundamental rupture between [[man]] and [[nature]], which is due to the fact that "in man, the imaginary relation has deviated, in so far as that is where the gap is produced whereby death makes itself felt."<ref>{{S2}} p.210</ref>
This gap between [[man]] and [[nature]] is evident in the [[mirror stage]]:
<blockquote>"One has to assume a certain biological gap in him [man], which I try to define when I talk to you about the mirror stage.... The human being has a special relation with his own image - a relation of gap, of alienating tension.<ref>{{S2}} p.323</ref></blockquote>
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The function of the [[imaginary]] is precisely to fill this [[gap]], thus covering over the [[subject]]'s [[division]] and presenting an [[imagianry]] sense of unity and wholeness.
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In 1957 the term is used in the context of the relationship between the sexes; "in the relation between man and woman... a gap always remains open.<ref>{{S4}} p.374; {{S4}} p.408</ref>
This anticipates [[Lacan]]'s later remarkes on the non-[[existence]] of the [[sexual relationship]].
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In 1964, [[Lacan]] argues that "the relation of the subject to the Other is entirely produced in a process of gap,"<ref>{{S11}} p.206</ref> and states that the [[subject]] is constituted by a [[gap]], since the [[subject]] is essentially [[divided]].
He also argues that the concept of [[causality]] is essentially problematic because there is always a mysterious, inexplicable [[gap]] betwen cause and effect.<ref>{{S11}} p.21-2</ref>
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[[Lacan]] also uses the term "[[gap|dehiscence]]" in a way that makes it practically synonymous, in his [[discourse]], with the term "gap".
[[Dehiscence]] is a botanical term which designates the bursting open of mature seed-pots; [[Lacan]] uses the term to refer to the [[split]] which is constitutive of the [[subject]]: there is "a vital dehiscence that is constitutive of man."<ref>{{E}} p.21</ref>
This [[split]] is also the [[division]] between [[culture]] and [[nature]] which means that [[man]]'s relation to the latter "is altered by a certain dehiscence at the heart of the organism, a primordial Discord."<ref>{{E}} p.4</ref>
==See Also==
* [[Nature]]
* [[Split]]
* [[Sexual relationship]]
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
