Difference between revisions of "Need"

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[[Lacan]] develops an important distinction between three terms: [[need]], [[demand]] and [[desire]].
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"[[Need]]" (''[[besoin]]'')
  
In the context of this distinction, 'need' (''besoin'') comes close to what [[Freud]] referred to as [[instinct]] (''Instinkt''); that is, a purely [[biology|biological]] concept opposed to the realm of the [[drive]] (''Trieb'').
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Around 1958, [[Lacan]] develops an important distinction between three terms:
 
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* [[need]],  
The [[child]], in order to satisfy his or her [[need]]s, must articulate his or her [[need]]s in [[language]]; in other words, the [[child]] must articulate his or her [[need]]s in a '[[demand]]'.
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* [[demand]] and  
 
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* [[desire]].
However, every [[demand]] is not only an articulation of [[need]] but also an (unconditional) [[demand]] for [[love]].
 
 
 
The [[other]] to whom the [[demand]] is addressed (the [[mother]]) can and may supply the [[object]] which [[satisfaction|satisfies]] the [[child]]'s [[need]], she is never in a position to answer the [[demand]] for [[love]] unconditionally, because she too is [[division|divided]].
 
 
 
The result of this [[split]] between [[need]] and [[demand]] is an insatiable leftover, which is [[desire]] itself.
 
 
 
 
 
[[Need]] is thus an intermittent tension which arises for purely organic reasons and which is discharged entirely by the specific action corresponding ot the particular [[need]] in question.
 
[[Desire]], on the other hand, is a constant force which can never be satisfied, the constant 'pressure' which underlies the [[drive]]s.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
--
 
It is not the case that there first exists a subject of pur eneed which then attempts to articulate that need in language, since the distinction between pure need and its articulation in demand only exists from the moment of its articulation, by which time it is impossible ot determine what that pure need could have been.
 
The concept of a pre-linguistic need is thus merely a hypothesis, and the subject of this pure need is a mythicla subject.
 
 
 
==See Also==
 
* [[Demand]]
 
* [[Desire]]
 
* [[Drive]]
 
 
 
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
 
[[Category:Concepts]]
 

Revision as of 23:36, 29 July 2006

"Need" (besoin)

Around 1958, Lacan develops an important distinction between three terms: