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The '''Name of the Father''' refers to the [[Law|laws]] and restrictions that control both [[desire]] and the rules of [[communication]], according to [[Lacan]].
The Name-of-the-Father is closely bound up with the [[superego]], the [[phallus]], the [[symbolic]] [[order]], and the [[oedipus complex]].
The [[Name-of-the-Father]] has a [[shadow double]] in the [[Father-of-Enjoyment]].
The [[Name of the Father]]' (Fr. ‘’Nom du père’’) , is the [[signifier]] associated with the [[signified]] [[concept]] of the [[father]].
The name of the Father is a [[symbolic]] formation.
== Prohibitive Function of the Symbolic Father ==
The expression “the name of the father,” when it first appeared in Lacan’s work, in the early 1950s, referred generally to the “[[prohibition|prohibitive role]]” of the “[[symbolic]] [[father]]” as the one who lays down the [[incest]] [[taboo]] in the [[oedipus complex]].
<blockquote>“It is in the ‘name of the father’ that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law.”<ref>Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. p.67</ref></blockquote>
===The “No” of the Father===
In the French language, the expression “the name of the father” (“’’le nom du père’’”) is phonetically similar to the expression “the ‘no’ of the father” (“’’le ‘non’ du père’’”).
Lacan plays on this similarity to emphasize the prohibitive function of the symbolic father (the ‘no’ of the [[incest]] [[taboo]]).
==The Psychoses==
In ‘’[[The_psychoses|The Seminar, Book III: The Psychoses]]’’ the expression becomes capitalized and hyphenated.
The [[Name-of-the-Father]] is now the [[fundamental signifier]] which permtis [[signification]] to proceed normally.
This fundamental signifier both confers [[identity]] on the [[subject]] (insofar as it names him, positions him within the symbolic order, etc.) and signifies the [[oedipus complex|oedipal]] [[prohibition]], the ‘no’ of the [[incest]] [[taboo]].
If this signifier is foreclosed (not included in the symbolic order), the result is [[psychosis]].
Nevertheless, [[Jacques Lacan]] developed this concept with the ultimately unsuccessful aim of curing psychosis.
== Linguistics ==
French [[psychoanalyst]] [[Jacques Lacan]] revised the [[oedipus complex]] in line with his [[structuralism|structuralist]] attempt to combine [[psychoanalysis]] and [[linguistics]].
Lacan claimed that, although the [[infant]] must come to [[identification|identify]] with the [[father]] (in order to participate in [[sexual relations]]), the infant could never ‘become’ the father (as this would imply sexual relations with the [[mother]]).
The position of the [[father]] could never be held by the [[infant]].
Thus, through the dictates on the one hand to be the father and on the other not to, the father is elevated to an [[ideal]].
The [[father]] is no longer a [[biology|biological]] father, but a function of a father: the [[Name-of-the-Father]].
The same goes for the mother — Lacan no longer talks of a real mother, but simply of [[desire (Lacanian)|desire]], which is a desire to return to the undifferentiated state of ''being'' together with the mother, before the interference through the Name-of-the-Father. This desire necessarily lacks something, i.e. it is a desire of lack.
The father and accordingly the phallus (not a ''real'' penis, but a representation of [[master]]y) can never be reached, thus he is above or outside the language system and cannot be spoken about.
All language relies on this absence of the phallus from the system of [[signification]].
According to this theory, without a phallus ''outside'' of language, nothing ''in'' language would make sense or could be differentiated.
Thus Lacan remodels the linguistic theory of Swiss linguist [[Ferdinand de Saussure]].
It is this idea that forms the basis of much contemporary thought, especially [[poststructuralism]].
Nothing can be thought that is ''outside'' of language, but the phallus ''is'' there and therefore structures the whole system of thought accordingly.
Oedipus could also be thought of the theme of the story.
==Freud vs Lacan== In ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'', [[Sigmund Freud]] uses a theory of the French languagehistory, based on Darwin's [[theory of evolution]], in which there was first a terrible father that the expression “the name of brothers had to kill. Feeling guilty about it, the father” (“’’le nom du père’’”) is phonetically similar brothers began to pay homage to the expression “the ‘no’ father and founded [[monotheism]]. In Lacan's theory, the learning of [[language]] leads the father” (“’’le ‘non’ du père’’”)child to kill his father as a [[symbol]]. Lacan does not use any historical theory. This concept allows a new understanding of [[neurosis]]. [[category:Freudian psychology]][[Category:Psychoanalytic theory]][[Category:Lacan]][[Category:Terms]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
