Real

Real (rÈel) Lacan's use of the term 'Real' as a substantive dates back to an

early paper, published in 1936. The term was popular among certain philos-

ophers at the time, and is the focus of a work by Emile Meyerson (which Lacan

refers to in the 1936 paper; Ec, 86). Meyerson defines the Real as 'an

ontological absolute, a true being-in-itself' (Meyerson, 1925: 79; quoted in

Roustang, 1986: 61). In speaking of 'the Real', then, Lacan is following a

common practice in one strand of early twentieth-century philosophy. How-

ever, while this may be Lacan's starting point, the term undergoes many shifts

in meaning and usage throughout his work.

    At first the Real is simply opposed to the Realm of the image, which seems to

locate it in the Realm of being, beyond appearances (Ec, 85). However, the fact

that even at this early point Lacan distinguishes between the Real and 'the true'

indicates that the Real is already prey to a certain ambiguity (Ec, 75).

    After appearing in 1936, the term disappears from Lacan's work until the

early 1950s, when Lacan invokes Hegel's view that 'everything which is Real is

rational (and vice versa)' (Ec, 226). It is not until 1953 that Lacan elevates the

Real to the status of a fundamental category of psychoanalytic theory; the Real

is henceforth one of the three ORDERs according to which all psychoanalytic

phenomena may be described, the other two being the Symbolic order and and

the Imaginary order. The Real is thus no longer simply opposed to the

Imaginary, but is also located beyond the Symbolic. Unlike the Symbolic,

which is constituted in terms of oppositions such as that between presence

and absence, 'there is no absence in the Real' (S2, 313). Whereas the Symbolic

opposition between presence and absence implies the permanent possibility

that something may be missing from the Symbolic order, the Real 'is always in

its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from

there' (Ec, 25; see Sll, 49).

    Whereas the Symbolic is a set of differentiated, discrete elements called

signifiers, the Real is, in itself, undifferentiated; 'the Real is absolutely without

fissure' (S2, 97). It is the Symbolic which introduces 'a cut in the Real' in the

process of signification: 'it is the world of words that creates the world of

things - things originally confused in the hic et nunc of the all in the process of

coming-into-being' (E, 65).

    In these formulations of the period 1953-5, the Real emerges as that which is

outside language and inassimilable to symbolisation. It is 'that which resists

symbolization absolutely' (Sl, 66); or, again, the Real is 'the domain of

whatever subsists outside symbolisation' (Ec, 388). This theme remains a

constant throughout the rest of Lacan's work, and leads Lacan to link the Real

with the concept of impossibility. The Real is 'the impossible' (Sl l, 167)

because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the Symbolic

order, and impossible to attain in any way. It is this character of impossibility

and of resistance to symbolisation which lends the Real its essentially traumatic

quality. Thus in his reading of the case of Little Hans (Freud, 1909b) in the

seminar of 1956-7, Lacan distinguishes two Real elements which intrude and

disrupt the child's Imaginary preoedipal harmony: the Real penis which begins

to make itself felt in infantile masturbation, and the newly born sister (S4,

308-9).

    The Real also has connotations of matter, implying          a material substrate

underlying the Imaginary and the Symbolic (see Materialism). The connota-

tions of matter also link the concept of the Real to the Realm of BIOLOGY and to

the body in its brute physicality (as opposed to the Imaginary and Symbolic

functions of the body). For example the Real father is the biological father, and

the Real phallus is the physical penis as opposed to the Symbolic and Imaginary

functions of this organ.

    Throughout his work, Lacan      uses the concept of the Real to elucidate a

number of clinical phenomena:

e Anxiety and trauma The Real is the object of anxiety; it lacks any

possible mediation, and is thus 'the essential object which isn't an object

any longer, but this something faced with which all words cease and all

categories fail, the object of anxiety par excellence' (S2, 164). It is the missed

encounter with this Real object which presents itself in the form of trauma (Sll,

55). It is the tyche which lies 'beyond the [[[Symbolic]]] automaton' (S11, 53) (see

CHANCE).

e HALLUCINATIONS When something cannot be integrated in the Symbolic

order, as in Psychosis, it may return in the Real in the form of a hallucination

(S3, 321).

    The preceding comments trace out some of the main uses to which Lacan

puts the category of the Real, but are far from covering all the complexities of

this term. In fact, Lacan takes pains to ensure that the Real remains the most

elusive and mysterious of the three orders, by speaking of it less than of the

other orders, and by making it the site of a radical indeterminacy. Thus it is

never completely clear whether the Real is external or internal, or whether it is

unknowable or amenable to reason.

e Externallinternal On the one hand, the term 'the Real' seems to imply a

simplistic notion of an objective, external Reality, a material substrate which

exists in itself, independently of any observer. On the other hand, such a

'naive' view of the Real is subverted by the fact that the Real also includes

such things as hallucinations and traumatic dreams. The Real is thus both inside

and outside (S7, 118; see EXTIMACY) (extimitÈ). This ambiguity reflects the

ambiguity inherent in Freud's own use of the two German terms for Reality

(Wirklichkeit and Realit‰t) and the distinction Freud draws between material

Reality and psychical Reality (Freud, 1900a: SE V, 620).

 e    Unknowable/rational       On the one hand, the Real cannot be known, since

it goes beyond both the Imaginary and the Symbolic; it is, like the Kantian

thing-in-itself, an unknowable x. On the other hand, Lacan quotes Hegel to the

effect that the Real is rational and the rational is Real, thus implying that it is

amenable to calculation and logic.

     It is possible to discern in Lacan's work, from the early 1970s on, an attempt

 to resolve this indeterminacy, by reference to a distinction between the Real

and 'Reality' (such as when Lacan defines Reality as 'the grimace of the Real' in

Lacan, 1973a: 17; see also Sl7, 148). In this opposition, the Real is placed

firmly on the side of the unknowable and unassimilable, while 'Reality' denotes

subjective representations which are a product of Symbolic and Imaginary

articulations (Freud's 'psychical Reality'). However, after this opposition is

introduced, Lacan does not maintain it in a consistent or systematic way, but

oscillates between moments when the opposition is clearly maintained and

moments when he reverts to his previous custom of using the terms 'Real' and

'Reality' interchangeably.

def

The state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Only as neo-natal children were we close to this state of nature, a state in which there is nothing but need. A baby needs and seeks to satisfy those needs with no sense for any separation between itself and the external world or the world of others. For this reason, Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language. The primordial animal need for copulation (for example, when animals are in heat) similarly corresponds to this state of nature. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as humans are concerned, however, "the real is impossible," as Lacan was fond of saying. It is impossible in so far as we cannot express it in language because the very entrance into language marks our irrevocable separation from the real. Still, the real continues to exert its influence throughout our adult lives since it is the rock against which all our fantasies and linguistic structures ultimately fail. The real for example continues to erupt whenever we are made to acknowledge the materiality of our existence, an acknowledgement that is usually perceived as traumatic (since it threatens our very "reality"), although it also drives Lacan's sense of jouissance. The Real works in tension with the imaginary order and the symbolic order. See the Lacan module on the structure of the psyche.

def

The Real is a term used by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in his theory of psychic structures. For Lacan, the Real is the irreducible surplus of the 'outside world' that resists being turned into language (as the Symbolic) or into spatial representation (as the Imaginary). This the First-Order Real.

In the later Lacan, a Second-Order Real is formulated which is not "outside of" or "underlying" the Symbolic Order but is in fact a structural feature of it -- its lack.

Kid A In Alphabet Land

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