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When I prepared this little talk for you, it was early in the morning. I could see Baltimore through the window and it was a very interesting moment because it was not quite daylight and a neon sign indicated to me every minute the change of time, and naturally there was heavy traffic and I remarked to myself that exactly all that I could see, except for some trees in the distance, was the result of [[thought]]s actively [[thinking]] [[thought]]s, where the function played by the subjects was not completely obvious. In any case the so-called <i>[[Dasein]]</i> as a definition of the [[subject]], was there in this rather intermittent or fading [[spectator]]. The best [[image]] to sum up the [[unconscious]] is Baltimore in the early morning.
Where is the [[subject]]? It is necessary to find the [[subject]] as a [[lost object]]. More precisely this [[lost object]] is the support of the [[subject]] and in many cases is a more abject thing than you may care to consider&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;in some cases it is something done, as all [[psychoanalyst]]s and many people who have been psychoanalyzed know perfectly well. That is why many [[psychoanalyst]]s prefer to return to a general [[psychology]], as the President of the New York Psychoanalytical Society tells us we ought to do. But I cannot change things, I am a [[psychoanalyst]] and if someone prefers to address himself to a professor of [[psychology]] that is his affair. The question of the [[structure]], since we are talking of [[psychology]], is not a term that only I use. For a long time thinkers, searchers, and even inventors who were concerned with the question of the [[mind]], have over the years put forward the idea of [[unity]] as the most important and characteristic trait of [[structure]]. Conceived as something which is already in the [[reality]] of the organism it is obvious. The organism when it is mature is a unit and functions as a unit. The question becomes more difficult when this idea of [[unity]] is applied to the function of the [[mind]], because the [[mind]] is not a totality in itself, but these ideas in the form of the intentional [[unity]] were the basis; as you know, of all of the so-called [[phenomenological]] movement. The same was also true in [[physics]] and [[psychology]] with the so-called [[Gestalt]] school and the [[notion]] of <i>bonne forme</i> whose function was to join, for instance, a drop of water and more complicated ideas, and great [[psychologist]]s, and even the [[psychoanalyst]]s are full of the idea of &quot;total personality.&quot; At any rate, it is always the [[unifying]] [[unity]] which is in the foreground. I have never understood this, for if I am a [[psychoanalyst]] I am also a man, and as a man my experience has shown me that the principal characteristic of my own [[human]] [[life]] and, I am sure, that of the people who are here&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;and if anybody is not of this opinion I hope that he will raise his hand&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;is that [[life]] is something which goes, as we say in [[French]],<i> á la dérivedérive</i>. [[Life]] goes down the river, from time to time touching a bank; staying for a while here and there, without understanding anything&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;and it is the principle of [[analysis]] that nobody understands anything of what happens. The idea of the [[unifying]] [[unity]] of the [[human]] condition has always had on me the effect of a scandalous [[lie]].
We may try to introduce another principle to [[understand]] these things. If we rarely try to [[understand]] things from the point of view of the [[unconscious]], it is because the [[unconscious]] tells us something articulated in [[word]]s and perhaps we could try to search for their principle.
I suggest you consider the [[unity]] in another light. Not a <i>unifying</i> [[unity]] but the countable unity one, two, three. After fifteen years I have taught my pupils to count at most up to five which is difficult (four is easier) and they have [[understood]] that much. But for tonight permit me to stay at two. Of course what we are dealing with here is the question of the integer, and the question of integers is not a simple one as I think many people here know. To count, of course, is not difficult. It is only necessary to have, for instance, a certain number of sets and a one to-one correspondence. It is true for example that there are exactly as many people sitting in this room as there are seats. But it is necessary to have a collection composed of integers to constitute an integer, or what is called a natural number. It is, of course, in part natural but only in the sense that we do not understand why it exists. Counting is not an empirical fact and it is impossible to deduce the act of counting from empirical data alone. [[Hume]] tried but Frege demonstrated perfectly the ineptitude of the attempt. The real difficulty lies in the fact that every integer is in itself a unit. If I take two as a unit, things are very enjoyable, [[men]] and [[women]] for instance&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;[[love]] plus [[unity]]! But after a while it is finished, after these two there is nobody, perhaps a [[child]], but that is another level and to generate three is another affair. When you try to read the theories of [[mathematicians]] regarding numbers you find the formula &quot;n plus 1 (n + 1)&quot; as the basis of all the theories. It is this question of the &quot;one more&quot; that is the key to the genesis of numbers and instead of this [[unifying]] [[unity]] that constitutes two in the first case I propose that you consider the real numerical genesis of two.
It is necessary that this two constitute the first integer which is not yet born as a number before the two appears. You have made this possible because the two is here to grant existence to the first one: put <i>two</i> in the place of <i>one</i> and consequently in the place of the <i>two</i> you see <i>three</i> appear. What we have here is something which I can call the <i>mark</i>. You already have something which is marked or something which is not marked. It is with the first mark that we have the status of the thing. It is exactly in this fashion that Frege explains the genesis of the number; the class which is characterized by no elements is the first class; you have one at the place of zero and afterward it is easy to understand how the place of one becomes the second place which makes place for two, three, and so on. The question of the two is for us the question of the subject. and here we reach a fact of psychoanalytical experience in as much as the two does not complete the one to make two, but must repeat the one to permit the one to exist. This first repetition is the only one necessary to explain the genesis of the number, and only one repetition is necessary to constitute the status of the subject. The unconscious subject is something that tends to repeat itself, but only one such repetition is necessary to constitute it. However, let us look more precisely at what is necessary for the second to repeat the first in order that we may have a repetition. This question cannot be answered too quickly. If you answer too quickly, you will answer that it is necessary that they are the same. In this case the principle of the two should be that of twins&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;and why not triplets or quintuplets? In my day we used to teach children that they must not add, for instance, microphones with dictionaries; but this is absolutely absurd, because we would not have addition if we were not able to add microphones with dictionaries or as [[Lewis Carroll]] says, cabbages with kings. The sameness is not in things but in the <i>mark</i> which makes it possible to add things with no consideration as to their differences. The mark has the effect of rubbing out the difference, and this is the key to what happens to the subject, the unconscious subject in the repetition; because you know that this subject repeats something peculiarly significant, the subject is here, for instance, in this obscure thing that we call in some cases trauma, or exquisite pleasure. What happens? If the &quot;thing&quot; exists in this symbolic structure, if this unitary trait is decisive, the trait of the sameness is here. In order that the &quot;thing&quot; which is sought be here in you, it is necessary that the first trait be rubbed out because the trait itself is a modification. It is the taking away of all difference, and in this case, without the trait, the first &quot;thing:&quot; is simply lost. The key to this insistence in repetition is that in its essence repetition as repetition of the symbolical sameness is impossible. In any case, the subject is the effect of this repetition in as much as it necessitates the &quot;fading,&quot; the obliteration, of the first foundation of the subject, which is why the subject, by status, is always presented as a divided essence. The trait, I insist, is identical, but it assures the difference only of identity&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;not by effect of sameness or difference but by the difference of identity. This is easy to understand: as we say in French, <i>je vous numérottenumérotte</i>, I give you each a number; and this assures the fact that you are numerically different but nothing more than that.
What can we propose to intuition in order to show that the trait be found in something which is at the same time one or two? Consider the following diagram which I call an inverted eight, after a well-known figure:
The question of [[desire]] is that the [[fading]] [[subject]] yearns to find itself again by means of some sort of encounter with this miraculous thing defined by the [[phantasm]]. In its endeavor it is sustained by that which I call the [[lost object]] that I evoked in the beginning&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;which is such a terrible thing for the imagination. That which is produced and maintained here, and which in my vocabulary I call the [[object]], lower-case, [[a]], is well known by all [[psychoanalyst]]s as all [[psychoanalysis]] is founded on the [[existence]] of this peculiar [[object]]. But the relation between this [[bar]]red [[subject]] with this [[object]] (<i>[[a]]</i>) is the [[structure]] which is always found in the [[phantasm]] which supports [[desire]] in as much as [[desire]] is only that which I have called the [[metonomy]] of all [[signification]].
In this brief presentation I have tried to show you what the question of the [[structure]] is inside the [[psychoanalytical]] [[reality]]. I have not, however, said anything about such dimensions as the [[imaginary]] and the [[symbolical]]. It is, of course, absolutely essential to understand how the [[symbolic]] [[order]] can enter inside the<i>vécuvécu</i>, lived experienced, of [[mental]] [[life]], but I cannot tonight put forth such an explanation. Consider, however, that which is at the same time the least known and the most certain fact about this [[mythical]] [[subject]] which is the sensible phase of the [[living]] [[being]]: this fathomless thing capable of experiencing something between [[birth]] and [[death]], capable of covering the whole spectrum of [[pain]] and [[pleasure]] in a [[word]], what in [[French]] we call the <i>[[sujet]] de la [[jouissance]]</i>. When I came here this evening I saw on the little neon sign the motto &quot;Enjoy Coca-Cola.&quot; It reminded me that in [[English]], I think, there is no term to designate precisely this enormous weight of [[meaning]] which is in the [[French]] [[word]] <i>[[jouissance]]</i>&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp; or in the [[Latin]] <i>[[fruor]]</i>. In the dictionary I looked up <i>[[jouir]]</i> and found &quot;to possess, to use&quot; but it is not that at all. If the [[living]] [[being]] is something at all thinkable, it will be above all as [[subject]] of the <i>[[jouissance]]</i>; but this [[psychological]] [[law]] that we call the [[pleasure principle]] (and which is only the [[principle]] of [[displeasure]]) is very soon to create a [[barrier]] to all <i>jouissance</i>. If I am enjoying myself a little too much, I begin to feel [[pain]] and I moderate my [[pleasure]]s. The organism seems made to avoid too much <i>[[jouissance]]</i>. Probably we would all be as quiet as oysters if it were not for this curious organization which forces us to disrupt the [[barrier]] of [[pleasure]] or perhaps only makes us [[dream]] of forcing and disrupting this barrier. All that is elaborated by the [[subjective]] [[construction]] on the scale of the [[signifier]] in its relation to the [[Other]] and which has its root in [[language]] is only there to permit the full spectrum of [[desire]] to allow us to approach, to test, this sort of [[forbidden]] <i>[[jouissance]]</i> which is the only valuable [[meaning]] that is offered to our [[life]].
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
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