Name-of-the-Father

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"Name-of-the-Father (Fr. Nom-du-Père)

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.

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan introduced the concept of the Name-of-the-Father into psychoanalytic theory.


When the expression "the name of the father" first appeared in Lacan’s work, in the early 1950s, it is without capital letters and refers generally to the "prohibitive role" of the "symbolic father" as the one who lays down the incest taboo in the Oedipus complex.

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.[1]

The 'No" of the Father

From the beginning Lacan plays on the homophony of le nom du père (the name of the father) and le 'non' du père (the 'no' of the father), to emphasize the legislative and prohibitive function of the symbolic father -- the 'no' of the incest taboo.

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 term is a play on the near-homonyms non and nom.

The "Name-of-the-Father" (nom-du-père) can be read the "'No' of the Father" (non-du-père).

The 'No' refers to the symbolic prohibition

The 'No' of the Father to the desire of the child for incestuous relations with the mother.

The 'No' of the Father to the child's incestuous desire for the mother.


Fundamental Signifier

A few years later, in the seminar on the psychoses, the expression becomes capitalized and hyphenated and takes on a more precise meaning; the Name-of-the-Father is now the fundamental signifier which permits signification to proceed normally.

This fundamental signifier both confers identity on the subject (it names him, positions him within the symbolic order) and signifies the Oedipal prohibition, the 'no' of the incest taboo.

If this signifier is foreclosed (not included in the symbolic order), the result is psychosis.

In Lacan's 1955-6 seminar, The Psychoses, the name-of-the-father is described as the fundamental signifier that both confers identity on human subjects by situating them in a lineage and the symbolic order, and reiterates the prohibition on incest.


Other

In another work on psychosis, Lacan represents of the Oedipus complex as a metaphor (paternal metaphor), in which one signifier (the Name-of-the-Father) substitutes another (the desire of the mother).



Psychosis

The foreclosure of the name-of-the-father, or its expulsion from the subject's symbolic universe, is said by Lacan to be the mechanism that triggers psychosis.

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.


Outside Language

The phallus, as a representation of mastery, can never be reached.


The father is above or outside the structure of language.


Language relies on the absence of the phallus from the structure of signification.

Language would not make sense, or produce meaning, if the phallus were not 'outside'.


Nothing can be thought that is outside of language, but the phallus is there and therefore structures the whole system of thought accordingly.



Freud vs Lacan

In Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud

There was a father which the brothers killed.

The brothers felt guilty about killing their father.


See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.67
  • Lacan, Jacques. (2002). The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian subconscious. In Écrits: A selection (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: Norton.