The term '[[death]]' ([[French]]: ''mort'') occurs in various contexts in Lacan's work.
DEATH AND THE SYMBOLIC
===Murder===
The [[symbol]], by standing in place of the [[thing]] which it [[symbolization|symbolizes]], implies the [[death]] of that [[thing]].
<blockquote>"The [[symbol]] is the murder of the [[thing]]."<ref>{{E}} p.104</ref></blockquote>
===Mortality===
It is only by virtue of the [[signifier]] that the [[subject]] has access to and can conceive of his own [[death]]:
<blockquote>"It is in the signifier and insofar as the subject articulates a signifying chain that he comes up against the fact that he may disappear from the chain of what he is."<ref>{{S7}} p.295</ref></blockquote>
===Immortality===
The [[signifier]] also puts the [[subject]] beyond [[death]], because "the [[signifier]] already considers him [[dead]], by nature it [[immortalise]]s him."<ref>{{S3}} 180).
===Father===
Death in the symbolic order is related to the death of the Father (i.e. the murder of the father of the horde in Totem and Taboo; Freud, 1912-13); the symbolic father is always a dead father.
==SECOND DEATH==
In the [[seminar]], '[[The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]]' (1959-60),
[[Lacan]] talks about the "[[second death]]."<ref>{{S7}} p.211</ref>
The first [[death]] is the [[materialism|physical]] [[death]] of the [[body]].
The first death ends one human life but which does not put an end to the cycles of corruption and regeneration.
The second death is that which prevents the regeneration of the dead body, 'the point at which the very cycles of the transformations of nature are annihilated."<ref>{{S7}} p.248</ref>
The concept of the [[second death]] is used by [[Lacan]] to formulate ideas on various themes:
* beauty - "It is the function of beauty to reveal man's relationship to his own death."<ref>{{S7}} p.260, 299</ref>
* the direct relationship to being;<ref>{{S7}} p.285</ref> and
* the [[sadistic]] [[fantasy]] of inflicting perpetual [[pain]]<ref>{{S7}} p.295</ref>
===Between the two deaths==
The phrase 'zone between-two-deaths' (l'''espace de l'entre-deux-morts'') designates "the zone in which tragedy is played out."<ref>{{S8}} p.120</ref>
==Death and Philosophy==
3. Death plays an important role in the philosophical systems of Hegel and Heidegger, and Lacan draws on both of these in his theorisation of the role of death in psychoanalysis.
From Hegel (via KojËve), Lacan takes the idea that death is both constitutive of man's freedom and 'the absolute Master' (KojËve, 1947: 21).
Death plays a crucial part in the Hegelian dialectic of the [[master]] and the slave where it is intimately linked with desire, since the master only affirms himself for others by means of a desire for death (E, 105).
From Heidegger, Lacan takes the idea that human existence only takes on meaning by virtue of the finite limit set by death, so that the human subject is properly a 'being-for-death'.
This corresponds to Lacan's view that the analysand should come, via the analytic process, to assume his own mortality.<ref>{{E}} p.104-5</ref>
==Death and Psychoanalytic Treatment==
In his comparison between psychoanalytic treatment and the game of bridge, Lacan describes the analyst as playing the position of the 'dummy' (in French, le mort; literally, 'the dead person').
'The analyst intervenes concretely in the dialectic of analysis by pretending that he is dead . . . he makes death present' (E, 140).
The analyst 'cadaverises' himself (se corpsifiat).
==Death and Obsessional Neurosis==
The question which constitutes the [[structure]] of [[obsessional neurosis]] concerns [[death]].
It is the question 'Am I dead or alive?"<ref>{{S3}} p.179-80</ref>
