Lozenge

the lozenge between the subject and

object is first introduced, Lacan says that the lozenge simply implies [. . .] that what is at stake is commanded by the quadratic relation [. . .] that states that there is no conceivable barred subject [. . .] that is not sustained by the ternary relation A á á. (Seminar V, p. 316)

In other words, the lozenge stands for the fact that each subject is characterized by the whole of the L schema (Figure 1), by all four vertices of it, including both imaginary and symbolic axes. This is obviously but an early sketch, for just a few months later Lacan says, in a footnote to “Direction of the Treatment,” that “The sign ◊ registers the relations envelopment-development-conjunction-disjunction.” And in Seminar XI he indicates that the lozenge can be understood as referring to the operations of union and intersection in set theory and the psychoanalytic operations of alienation and separation. Nevertheless, the L Schema is still centrally involved in Lacan’s diagrams of the Sadian fantasy in “Kant with Sade,” written in 1962.