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1966-1967
[[Lacan]] stresses the importance of the signifying [[structure]] in [[fantasy]]. He takes as his starting point the [[matheme]] <img src="lacansem1b1.gif" valign="bottom" height="11" width="12"><><i>a</i>, which is the [[logical]] articulation of fantasy. The matheme was already introduced in <i>Les [[formations]] de l'[[inconscient]]</i>, in the [[graphs]] of [[desire]], and was later developed in 1960 in "The [[subversion]] of the [[subject]] and the [[dialectic]] of desire in the [[Freudian]] [[unconscious]]" (<i>[[Écrits]]: A Selection</i>) as the first [[topology]] of [[The Subject|the subject]].<br>
<img src="lacansem1b1.gif" valign="bottom" height="11" width="12"> represents the [[division]] of [[The Subject|the subject ]] [[barred]] by the [[signifier]] that constitutes him. The [[sign]] <> enunciates the relation either of inclusion/implication, or of [[exclusion]] between the two [[terms]]. It's a binary [[system]] where the verb as such [[disappears]] to leave room for the [[algebraic]] sign of a pure relation. Definitions of <i>[[objet]] a</i> will vary over the years; to [[understand]] it here, one should go back to the part [[object]] of <i>[[La relation d'objet]] et les [[structures]] freudiennes</i>, and then address its [[analysis]] in <i>L'[[angoisse]]</i> and <i>L'objet de la [[psychanalyse]]</i>. In 1960, however, Lacan mentions the [[fascination]] of the fantasy in which "the subject becomes [[The Cut|the cut]] that makes shine in its inexpressible oscillation".<br>
The <i>[[objet a]]</i> would be the [[primal]] object, forever lost, the [[remainder]] or the product, which cannot be assimilated because it is [[real]], of [[The Cut|the cut ]] operated by the primal signifier engendering the subject when it repeats itself in absolute [[difference]] (<i>L'[[identification]]</i>). "If <i>a</i> is the [[frame]] of the subject, this frame falls at the level of the most fundamental act of [[life]], [[The Act|the act]] in which the subject as such is engendered, i.e the [[repetition]] of the signifier." This is the [[symbolic]] paternal mark or the [[phallic]] mark since there is no signifier of [[sexual]] difference: "The [[phallus]] alone is the sex-[[unity]]." The <i>objet a</i> creates a [[hole]] constantly filled, in the [[partial]] frives, by the different <i>objets a</i>, the [[breast]], [[feces]], the [[penis]], the [[gaze]] or the [[voice]], [[objects]] that are in themselves caught in [[imaginary]] substitutions. To understand fantasy, one should try to determine the logical status of <i>objet a</i>, which can only be accomplished by way of a topology dealing with gemetrical [[figures]]. Is <i>objet a</i> situated on the side of the [[drive]] or of desire of which it is the [[cause]]? Is it [[born]] out of the [[separation]] from the placenta as a part of the [[body]] proper or from the division from oneself from the signifier, the cost that the [[speaking]] [[being]] has to pay to become a subject? Is there really an alternative? Lacan talks of a surface where "desire and [[reality]]" are "the [[right]] and the wrong sides"; however, the passage from one side to the [[other]] is unnoticeable, as if there were only one side, because "the relation of [[texture]] does not entail any break." Might the fantasy allow oneself to go from the drive to desire and from desire to the drive, to link [[them]] or to disjoint them?<br>
Lacan oscillates between exaltation and bouts of [[anxiety:]] "The [[logic]] of fantasy is the most fundamental [[principle]] of any logic that deals with [[formalizing]] defiles," and at the same [[time]] defers his presentation of "[[alienation]] in terms logical calculation" because its formulation is not yet ready. The [[reason]] might have been that "[[truth]] is related to [[desire,]]" which "creates difficulties for handling it like logicians do." His aim is to define "a logic that is not a logic, an entirely new logic that I have not named yet, for it [[needs]] to be instituted first." Using the [[character]] of Diotima from <i>The [[Symposium]]</i>, he mentions academic Penia (the [[lack]]) before [[psychoanalytic]] Poros ([[male]] resource) and wonders "up to what point, between the two, he could let the obscurity go."<br>
Lacan elaborates on the [[notion]] of "unbeing," <i>désêtre</i>, which would become the mark of the [[end of analysis]]. He elaborates on puns: the unconscious desire is "pure desire," <i>dés-être</i> like <i>dés-espoir</i>, despair, is an <i>irpas</i>, from the Latin <i>ire</i>, to go and the [[negation]] <i>pas</i>, not, which is an <i>impassé</i>, something that had not gone through, linked to the desire of the Other, but also an <i>[[impasse]]</i>, a [[dead]] end, due to repetition. The [[interpretation]] does not entail any solution, <i>issue</i>, to the [[interpreted]] desire because there is no solution, <i>issue</i>, to the unconscious desire that "will always remain a <i>désirpas</i> (desirenot)." For lacan, is this [[knowledge]] of the truth of the unconscious desire really the solution, <i>issue</i> to be offered in analysis, the solution to the unfulfilled desire" of [[hysteria]], to the "prevented desire" of [[phobia]], or to the "impossible desire" of [[obsession]]? By itself, the <i>objet a</i> upholds "the truth of alienation"; to discover this truth is to discover that "there is no [[universe]] of [[discourse]]" because something real (something impossible because not symbolizable) eludes it.<br>
"The big [[secret]] of [[psychoanalysis]] is that there is no sexual act," all there is is [[sexuality]], a very different [[thing]]. [[The Act|The act ]] has a specific definition: it provokes a signifying doubling that allows for an insertion of the subject in a [[chain]] in which he inscribes himself. Or it raises the institution of the signifier. But there is no signifier of [[sexual difference]] and none of the [[feminine]] sex either. Between man and [[woman]] "there is this [[third]] object, <i>objet a</i>, whose always sliding function of [[substitution]] makes it impossible to keep them opposed in whatever eternal [[essence]]. It is impossible then to posit a subject inscribing himself as sexed in the act of conjunction to the subject of what is called the opposite sex." At [[the symbolic]] level, "[[there is no sexual rapport]]": there is merely (a + 1) and (a - 1), where a term marks the difference as a plus or a a minus. The phallus is "the sex-unity": the 1 symbolizes the incommensurable.<br>
Lacan uses [[Marx]]'s [[analyses]] of use [[value]] and [[exchange]] value, and starts his [[theory]] of "man-he" (<i>l'[[homme]]-il</i>). The "man-he" is also the man-standard and the man-stallion (<i>l'homme-étalon</i>), as well as the bull and the poor bearer of the [[symbol]] of sex, doomed to symbolic [[castration]]. He does not [[know]] how to live since there is no Other to [[guarantee]] him, not even if he were God, marked as he is by castration. The only safeguard is the [[construction]] of a protective [[society]] based on [[masculine]] [[homosexuality]]. The [[Father]] of Freud's primal [[horde]], because he supposedly <i>jouis</i> all [[women]], sees "his <i>jouissance</i> killed." Then, if the almighty phallus circulates, it is due to women. "Woman represents the phallus as an exchange value among men; and, if the [[power]] of the penis bears the mark of castration, it is because fictitiously she becomes what is enjoyed, <i>ce dont on jouit</i>, and circulates as an object of <i>jouissance</i>: she is the locus of [[transference]] of this <i>jouissance</i> value" represented by the phallus. Through her identification to the [[use value]] embodied in the phallus, woman transforms herself into an object-[[good]]. Yet, she does not lack resouirces, such as [[masquerade]], to act as "man-she," <i>l'homme-elle</i>. "She is inexpugnable as a woman precisely [[outside]] the system of the sexual act," or "she has a different use of her own <i>jouissance</i> outside this [[ideology]]." Thus, Lacan establishes "the radical [[heterogeneity]]" of the <i>jouissance</i> of the two [[sexes]] whose rapport could only be problematic. He begins here a [[reflection]] that will lead him to <i>[[Encore]]</i>, the twentieth seminar.
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