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| − | "[[Need]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[besoin]]'')
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| − | ==Need, Demand and Desire==
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| − | Around 1958, [[Lacan]] develops an important distinction between three terms:
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| − | * [[need]],
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| − | * [[demand]] and
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| − | * [[desire]].
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| − | ===Need and Instinct===
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| − | In the context of this distinction, "[[need]]" comes close to what [[Freud]] referred to as "[[instinct]]" (''[[Instinkt]]''); that is, a purely ''[[biological]]'' concept opposed to the realm of the [[drive]] (''[[Trieb]]'').
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| − | ===Need and Demand===
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| − | [[Lacan]] bases this distinction on the fact that in order to satisfy his [[needs]] the infant must articulate them in [[language]]; in other words, the infant must articulate his [[needs]] in a "[[demand]]".
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| − | However, in doing so, something else is introduced which causes a split between [[need]] and [[demand]]; this is the fact that every [[demand]] is not only an articulation of [[need]] but also an (unconditional) [[demand]] for [[love]].
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| − | Now, althought the other to whom the [[demand]] is addressed (in the first instance, the [[mother]]) can and may supply the [[object]] which satisfies the infant's [[need]], she is never in a position to answer the [[demand]] for [[love]] unconditionally, because she too is divided.
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| − | The result of this split between [[need]] and [[demand]] is an insatiable leftover, which is [[desire]] itself.
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| − | ===Need and Desire===
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| − | [[Need]] is thus an intermittent tension which arises for purely organic reasons and which is discharged entirely by the specific action corresponding to the particular [[need]] in question.
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| − | [[Desire]], on the other hand, is a constand force which can never be satisfied, the constant 'pressure' which underlies the [[drives]].
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| − | ===Hypothesis===
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| − | This account presents in chronological terms what is in fact a question of [[structure]].
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| − | In truth, it is not the case that there first exists a [[subject]] of pure [[need]] which then attempts to articulate that [[need]] in [[language]], since the distinction between pure [[need]] and its articulation in [[demand]] only exists from the moment of its articulation, by which time it is impossible to determine what that pure [[need]] could have been.
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| − | The concept of a pre-[[linguistic]] [[need]] is thus merely a hypothesis, and the [[subject]] of this pure [[need]] is a mythical [[subject]]; even the paradigmatic [[need]] of hunger never exists as a pure [[biological]] given, but is marked by the [[structure]] of [[desire]].
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| − | Nevertheless, this hypothesis is useful to [[Lacan]] for maintaining his theses about the radical divergence between human desire and all natural or biological categories.
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| − | ==See Also==
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| − | * [[Demand]]
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| − | * [[Desire]]
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| − | * [[Drive]]
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| | The concept of a pre-linguistic need is thus merely a hypothesis, and the subject of this pure need is a mythicla subject. | | The concept of a pre-linguistic need is thus merely a hypothesis, and the subject of this pure need is a mythicla subject. |
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| − | ==See Also==
| + | {{Encore}} |
| − | * [[Demand]]
| + | : [[Necessity]], 59, 94 |
| − | * [[Desire]]
| + | : [[Needs]], 51 |
| − | * [[Drive]]
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