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The [[French]] term ''[[point de capiton]]'' is variously translated in [[English]] editions of [[Lacan]]'s work as '[[quilting point]]' or '[[anchoring point]]'.
The [[upholstery button]] is an [[anchoring point]] on a quilt which "prevents a shapeless mass of stuffing from moving too freely about.<ref>Bowie, Malcolm. 1991. p.74</ref>
In the same way, the ''[[point de capiton]] '' is a point ([[signifier]]) that fixes the [[meaning]] inside an [[ideological]] field, stops the [[meaning]] from sliding about.
In the same way, the ''[[point de capiton]] '' is a point at which "signified and signifier are knotted together."<ref>{{S3}} p.268</ref>
The [[signifiers]] or [[signifying chain]] are unstable and liable to [[slippage]]s of [[meaning]].
This helps to explain how it is that in the [[psychotic]] experience, "the signifier and the signified present themselves in a completely divided form."<ref>{{S3}} p.268</ref>.
The ''[[point de capiton]] '' is thus the point in the [[signifying chain]] at which "the signifier stops the otherwise endless movement of the signification" and produces the necessary [[illusion]] of a fixed [[meaning]].<ref>{{E}} p.303</ref>
For [[Lacan]] the link between [[signifier]] and signified is so precarious that whereas [[Saussure]] saw the whole [[system]] as more or less grounded, [[Lacan]] sees only occasional points of [[stability]].
==Diachrony and Synchrony==
Since the [[signifying chain]] has both a [[diachronic]] and a [[synchronic]] dimension, so also does the ''[[point de capiton]]'':
===Diachrony===
1. The [[diachronic]] dimension of the ''[[point de capiton]] '' lies in the fact that [[communication]] is always a [[retroactive]] effect of [[punctuation]].
It is only when the sentence is completed that the sense of the first words is determined [[retroactively]].
This function is illustrated in the elementary cell of the [[graph of desire]], in which the ''[[point de capiton]] '' is the leftmost point of intersection between the vector S-S' and the vector A-S.
===Synchrony===
2. The [[synchronic]] aspect is [[metaphor]], by which the [[signifier]] crosses the [[bar]] into the [[signified]].
"The [[synchronic]] [[structure]] (of the ''[[point de capiton]]'') is more hidden, and it is this [[structure]] that takes us to the source. It is [[metaphor]]."<ref>{{E}} p.303</ref>.
==Ideology==
How does an [[ideology]] maintain its consistency?
What keeps of [[ideological]] field of [[meaning]] consistent?
Any given [[ideological]] field is "quilted" by the ''[[point de capiton]]''
A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity.
What is at issue in the conflict of [[ideologies]] is precisely the ''[[point de capiton]]''.
[[Signifiers]] such as "[[freedom]]", "[[democracy]]", "[[human rights]]," etc. are open-ended.
For example, a [[right-wing]] [[interpretation]] of the word "[[freedom]]" might use it to designate the [[freedom]] to speculate on the [[market]], whereas a [[left-wing]] [[interpretation]] of it might use it designate [[freedom]] from the inequalities of the [[market]].
The word "[[freedom]]" therefore does not mean the same thing in all possible worlds: what pins its [[meaning]] down is the ''[[point de capiton]]''.
==Imaginary==
Perhaps the most important feature of the ''[[point de capiton]] '' is that the [[stability]] it provides is, however necessary, an [[illusion]].
The ''[[point de capiton]] '' is an instance of [[imaginary]] [[identification]] disrupting the integrity and [[rationality]] of the [[symbolic]] [[order]] itself.
Though these disruptions are strictly speaking inimical to the [[symbolic]] [[order]], they are also vital to its [[existence]] as a field for producing [[meaning]], for such disruptions serve to anchor the [[signifying chain]] and keep it from devolving into a [[psychotic]] process of pure [[linguistic]] [[self-referentiality]] without even the [[illusion]] of [[external]] reference.
