Jouissance

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English: enjoyment


Translator's Note

There is no adequate translation in English of the word jouissance.[1] "Enjoyment" does convey the sense, contained in jouissance, of enjoyment of rights, of property, etc., but it lacks the sexual connotations of the French word. (Jouir is slang for "to come".)

"Pleasure", on the other hand, is pre-empted by "plaisir" -- and Lacan uses the two terms quite differently. "Pleasure" obeys the law of 'homeostasis that Freud evokes in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, whereby, through discharge, the psyche seeks the lowest possible level of tension. "Jouissance" transgresses this law and, in that respect, it is beyond the pleasure principle.


Translation

The French word jouissance means basically "enjoyment", but it has a sexual connotation (i.e. "orgasm") lacking in the English word, and is therefore left untranslated in most English editions of Lacan.

As Jane Gallop observes, whereas orgasm is a countable noun, the term jouissance is always used in the singular by Lacan and is always preceded by a definite article.[2]

Jacques Lacan

The term does not appear in Lacan's work until 1953, but even then it is not particularly salient.[3]

Master and Slave

In the seminars of 1953-4 and 1954-5 Lacan uses the term occasionally, usually in the context of the Hegelian dialectic of the master and the slave: the slave is forced to work to provide objects for the master's enjoyment (jouissance).[4]

Enjoyment

Upt to 1957, then, the term seems to mean no more than the enjoyable sensation that accompanies the satisfaction of a biological need such as hunger.[5]

Sexual Connotations

Soon after, the sexual connotations become more apparent; in 1957, Lacan uses the term to refer to the enjoyment of a sexual object,[6] and to the pleasures of masturbation.[7], and in 1958 he makes explicit sense of jouissance as orgasm.[8]

Jouissance and Pleasure

It is only in 1960 that Lacan develops his classic opposition between jouissance and pleasure, an opposition which alludes to the Hegelian/Kojevian distinction between Genuß (enjoyment) and List (pleasure).

Pleasure Principle

The pleasure principle functions as a limit to enjoyment; it is a law which commands the subject to "enjoy as little as possible."

At the same time, the subject constantly attempts to transgress the prohibitions imposed on his enjoyment, to go "beyond the pleasure principle."

Transgression

However, the result of transgressing the pleasure principle is not more pleasure, but pain, since there is only a certain amount of pleasure that the subject can bear.

Beyond this limit, pleasure becomes pain, and this "painful pleasure" is what Lacan calls jouissance.

"Jouissance is suffering."[9]

Symptom

The term jouissance thus nicely expresses the paradoxical satisfaction that the subject derives from his symptom, or, to put it another way, the suffering that he derives from his on satisfaction.

Prohibition

The prohibition of jouissance (the pleasure principle) is inherent in the symbolic structure of language, which is why "jouissance is forbidden to him who speaks, as such."[10]

The subject's entry into the symbolic is conditional upon a certain initial renunciation of jouissance in the castration complex, when the subject gives up his attempts to be the imaginary phallus for the mother.

"Castration means that jouissance musst be refused so that it can be reached on the inverted ladder (l'échelle renversée) of the Law of desire."[11]

The symbolic prohibition of enjoyment in the Oedipus complex (the incest taboo) is thus, paradoxically, the prohibition of something which is already impossible; its function is therefore to sustain the neurotic illusion that enjoyment would be attainable if it were not forbidden.

The very prohibiton creates the desire to transgress it, and jouissance is therefore fundamentally transgressive.[12]

Death Drive

The death drive is the name given to that constant desire in the subject to break through the pleasure principle towards the Thing and a certain excess jouissance; thus jouissanceis "the path towards death."[13]

Insofar as the drives are attempts to break through the pleasure principle in search of jouissance, every drive is a death drive.

Jouissance and Libido

There are strong affinitites between Lacan's concept of jouissance and Freud's concept of the libido, as is clear from Lacan's description of jouissance as a "bodily substance."[14]

In keeping with Freud's assertion that there is only one libido, which is masculine, Lacan states that jouissance is essentially phallic.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ It is therefore left untranslated in most English editions of Lacan.
  2. ↑ Gallop, Jane. Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter's Seduction, London: Macmillan, 1982.
  3. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 42, 87
  4. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p. 223; Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p. 269
  5. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 125
  6. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.453
  7. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.241
  8. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p. 727
  9. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.184
  10. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 319
  11. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 324
  12. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. ch.15
  13. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XVII. L'envers de la psychanalyse, 19669-70. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 17
  14. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 26


Index
  • Jouissance, 1-11, 24-25, 35, 50, 70, 71, 76, 97, 107, 111-16, 121, 126, 131, 137, 145
discourse and, 39, 51, 54, 58-63, 83, 105, 126-27
fantasy and, 86
of the idiot, 81, 94
law and, 2-3, 92
mother's, 35
the Other jouissance, 4, 7-8, 17, 24, 38, 39, 73, 74, 75, 76-77, 83-84, 87, 137, 144
phallic jouissance, 7-9, 24, 35, 59-60, 64, 73, 74, 81
surplus jouissance (plus-de-jouir), 16-17, 131
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