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1969-1970 Le séminaire, Livre XVII: L'envers de la [[psychanalyse]].[[French]]: (texte établi par Jacques-[[Alain ]] [[Miller]]), [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1991.[[English]]: unpublished.

[[Lacan ]] [[identifies ]] four viables types of [[social ]] bond which regulate [[intersubjective ]] relations. Articulations of the [[symbolic ]] network, the Four [[Discourses ]] get [[structured ]] throughout dramatic [[reflection]]: plus-de-[[jouir ]] and jouisance; the [[master ]] and the [[slave]]; [[Marx]]; [[knowledge]], [[truth ]] and [[jouissance]]; the [[Father ]] of [[Totem ]] and [[Taboo ]] who is all [[love ]] - or all jouissance - and whose [[murder ]] generates the love of the [[Dead ]] Father, a father to whom Lacan opposes both the Father presiding over the first [[idealization ]] - the one deserving love - and the Father who enters the [[discourse ]] of the Master and is thereby [[castrated ]] ab initio. For Lacan "the [[death ]] of the father is the key to supreme jouissance, later [[identified ]] with the [[mother ]] as aim of [[incest]]." Psychoanalyis "is not constructed on the proposition 'to [[sleep ]] with the mother' but on the death of the father as [[primal ]] jouissance." The [[real ]] father is not the father of [[biological ]] [[reality]], be he who upholds "[[the Real ]] as [[impossible]]." From the [[Oedipus ]] [[complex ]] Lacan only saves the paternal [[metaphor ]] and the [[Name]]-of-the-Father which "is positioned where knowledge [[acts ]] as truth. [[Psychoanalysis ]] consolidates the law."The novelty in this [[seminar ]] is the [[return ]] of the [[hysteric]], with [[Dora ]] and la Belle Bouche erre - the Beautiful Mouth wanders - an allusion to the [[dream ]] of the beautiful butcher's wife [[analyzed ]] by [[Freud ]] and carried on in "The direction of the [[treatment ]] and the principles of [[power]]" ([[Écrits]]: A Selection). [[Three ]] questions: the rapport between jouissance and the [[desire ]] for unfulfilled desire; the hysteric who makes man - fait l'[[homme ]] or the Master - she constructs him as "a man prompted by the desire to [[know]]"; a new conception of the [[cure ]] as a "hystericizaton of dicourse," which the [[analyst ]] introduces at the [[structural ]] level. This leaves untouched [[hysteria ]] as attributed to [[woman ]] - the only discourse where [[sexual ]] [[difference ]] comes openly into play. [[Castration ]] is "the [[deprivation ]] of woman," insofar as "she would fulfill herself in the smallest [[signifier]]." Woman is [[absent ]] from the field of the signifier.As to the [[mathemes ]] "a fundamental starting relation" functions as a postulate:

S1 refers to "the marked circle of the field of the [[Other]]," it is the [[Master-Signifier]]. S2 is the "battery of [[signifiers]], already there" at the [[place ]] where "one wants to determine the status of a discourse as status of [[statement]]," that is knowledge - [[savoir]]. S1 comes into play in a signifying battery conforming the network of knowledge. is the [[subject]], marked by the unbroken line - [[trait ]] [[unaire ]] - which represents it and is different from the [[living ]] [[individual ]] who is not the locus of this subject. Add the [[objet ]] a, the [[object]]-waste or the [[loss ]] of the object that ocurred when the originary [[division ]] of the subject took place - the object that is the [[cause ]] of desire: the [[plus-de-jouir]].

[[Discourse of the Master]]:

It is the basic discourse from which the other three derive. The dominant [[position ]] is occupied by the [[master signifier]], S1, which represents the subject, S, for all other signifiers: S2. In this signifying operation there is a [[surplus]]: [[objet a]]. All attempts at totalisation are doomed to fail. This discourse masks the division of the subject, it illustrates the [[structure ]] of the [[dialectic ]] of the master and the slave. The master, S1, is the [[agent ]] who puts the slave, S2, to [[work]]: the result is a surplus, objet a, that the master struggles to appropriate.

Discourse of the [[University]]:

It is caused by a anticlockwise quarter turn of the previous discourse. The dominant position is occupied by knowledge - savoir. An attempt to [[mastery ]] can be traced behind the endeavors to impart neutral knowledge: domination of the other to whom knowledge is transmitted. This [[hegemony ]] is [[visible ]] in [[modernity ]] with [[science]].

[[Discourse of the Hysteric]]:

It is effected by a clockwise quarter turn of the discourse of the master. It is not simply "that which is uttered by the hysteric," but a certain kind of articulation in which any subject may be inscribed. The [[divided ]] subject, S, the [[symptom]], is in the pole position. This discourse points toward knowledge. "The cure involves the structural introduction of the discourse of the hysteric by way of artificial [[conditions]]": the analyst hystericizes the [[analysand]]'s discourse.

[[Discourse of the Analyst]]:

It is produced by a quarter turn of the discourse of the hysteric in the same way as Freud develops psychoanalysis by giving an interpretative turn to the discourse of his [[hysterical ]] [[patients]]. The position of the agent - the analyst - is occipied by objet a: the analyst becomes the cause of the analysand's desire. This discourse [[being ]] the reverse of the discourse of the master, does it make psychoanalysis an essentially subversive [[practice ]] which undermines attempts at domination and mastery?

In any [[case]], this [[algebra ]] is concerned with the positions which are fixed:

A the end of the seminar Lacan adds the opposition between '[[impossibility]]' and '[[impotence]]' - impuissance: "the impossible is the real where [[speech]], as objet a, functions like a carrion" and "impotence protects truth." He states in his new [[translation ]] of Wo Es War, soll Ich werden, work is for the analyst and "plus-de-jouir is for you": "Where plus-de-jouir was, the plus-de-jouir of the other, me, insofar as I utter the [[psychoanalytic ]] act, I must come."There is the story of the three Congolese, analyzed by Lacan after WWII: "Their [[unconscious ]] functioned according to the rules of the [[Oedipus complex]], it was the unconscious that had been sold to [[them ]] at the same [[time ]] as the laws of colonization, an exotic [[form ]] of the discourse of the Master, a [[regression ]] before imperialist [[capitalism]]." Are the capitalistic or imperialistic discourses mentioned only metamorphoses of the discourse of the Master?As to the envers of psychoanalysis, sometimes it is the discourse of the Master when it functions as a foil. Sometimes it is unconscious discourse as the knowledge located where wrong and [[right ]] sides ([[analytic ]] discourse) cannot be separated, following the Moebius [[strip]]. "The envers is assonant with truth; one moves to the envers, but the envers does not explain any right side."

"[[Radiophonie]]" (Autres écrits) is an interview recorded while L'envers... is taking place. In it Lacan declares that if "[[language ]] is the condition of the unconscious, the unconscious is the condition of [[linguistics]]." Freud anticipates [[Saussure ]] and the Prague Circle when he sticks to the [[patient]]'s [[words]], [[jokes]], [[slips of the tongue]], and brings to light the importance of [[condensation ]] and [[displacement ]] in the production of [[dreams]]. The unconscious is the fact "that the subject is not the one who [[knows ]] what he says. Whoever articulates the unconscious says that it is either that or [[nothing]]." Linguistics has no hold on the unconscious since it leaves as a blank that which produces effects on the unconscious, the objet a, the focus of the analytic act - of any act. "Only the discourse that defines itself in [[terms ]] given by psychoanalysis manifests the subject as other, whereas science, by making the subject a master, conceals him, so the desire that gives way to him bars the subject for me without remedy." There is only one [[myth ]] in Lacan's discourse: the [[Freudian ]] Oedipus complex. "In psychoanalysis, as well as in the unconscious, man knows nothing of woman, and woman nothing of man. The [[phallus ]] epitomizes the point in myth where the sexual becomes the [[passion ]] of the signifier." There is, however, no [[algebraic ]] [[formula ]] for the unconscious discourse: "...the unconscious is only the [[metaphorical ]] term designating the knowledge only sustained when presented as impossible, so that it can conform by being real - real discourse."

Lecture [[Notes]], Lacan’s [[Seminar XVII]], Dr. Kovacevic.

[[Lacan, Jacques]]. [[The Seminar ]] of [[Jacques Lacan]], Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, 1969-1970, Trans. Russell Grigg, unpublished draft.

[[Session ]] 1, November 26, 1969

* discourse as a necessary structure beyond speech, even “without words;” composed of fundamental and [[stable ]] relations; “primordial statements” within which one can inscribe [[human ]] actions, established in relation to the [[super-ego ]] (p. 2) * a relation of one signifier to [[another ]] that leads to the emergence of the subject (counts as a fundamental relation); one signifier represents the subject for another one

* S1 as the signifier that intervenes; S2 as the collection of signifiers on which S1 is going to act (the field of the Other) – eventually the field of knowledge; the [[existence ]] of the subject supposes the existence of this field; the subject is equivalent to the living individual, though the latter is its reference point

* Lacan draws the discourse of the master & the discourse of the hysteric (without naming these [[structures ]] as yet); a 90 degree turn from one to the other (a reference to “Kant “[[Kant]] with [[Sade]],” the overturning of the master)* all together, four discourse structures; already inscribed in the [[world]], making it appear as it is

* the [[intervention ]] of S1 in the field of S2 leads to the emergence of $ (the divided subject) and also the emergence of something that is [[split ]] off the subject, which is the (lost) [[object a]]; the [[formation ]] of the relation of [[repetition ]]

* “a thirst for [[sense]],” not in the various systems of [[thought]], but in human beings

* What is an [[instinct ]] (not Freud’s [[Trieb]])? It is something that already “knows,” and that is supposed to make the continuation of [[life ]] possible. Yet Freud comes up with the death [[drive]], beyond the [[pleasure ]] [[principle ]] that keeps tension at the minimum. He uncovers that the analytic [[experience ]] is a discourse structure.

* Different places in which Lacan taught his [[seminars]]:- 1) [[Sainte-Anne ]] Hospital (1953-1963)

* 3) Ecole des Hautes [[Etudes ]] (Seminar XVII - )* different [[interpretations ]] of what Lacan was doing (ENS – Lacan’s course as a

* this time, a “juridical” [[interpretation]]; laws – how discourse affects reality (p. 5)

* Freud’s discovery – a return to the inanimate (life returns to death through detours); detours = knowledge, [[instincts]]; knowledge as that which “causes life to stop at a certain [[limit ]] on the way to jouissance,” p. 6. Jouissance = the path to death; a fundamental link between knowledge and jouissance

* The object a – “surplus enjoyment” – the dialectic of [[frustration]]; the loss = the emergence of a gap or a [[hole ]] that connotes the [[birth ]] of desire; this “surplus enjoyment” is immanent (not transcendent, not a [[transgression]]); comparison with Marx and his [[theory ]] of surplus [[value ]] (paying the work, having this additional value)

* The discourse of the master and [[philosophy]]: this discourse leads to the [[development ]] of philosophy (the initial discourse in Lacan’s theory)

* Examining the discourse of the master: S1 – the master signifier; S2 – the slave’s knowledge (ancient [[political ]] systems – Aristotle’s [[Politics]]); the slave makes the existence of this knowledge possible (its function within the [[family ]] or households as the one who has savoir-faire). The master exploits this knowledge of the slave (stealing or forcibly claiming it).

* Meno – showing that the slave knows but at the same time concealing the fact that he is a creator of this knowledge and appropriating the knowledge for the master (note that in Kojeve’s formulation the master has no direct access to [[knowing ]] & work only to fighting)

* [[Aristotle ]] – the master’s knowledge = the [[theoretical ]] knowledge; v. Descartes’ [[renunciation ]] of this kind of knowledge and the birth of science (and the subject)

* Lacan and the discourse of political agitation; observing it from the [[discourse of the analyst]]

* Lacan’s lecture is prematurely cut off by a university [[official]]

* the formulaic presentation of all the discourses for the [[first time]]* in Lacan’s axiom – “a signifier represents a subject for another signifier” what is in question is not [[representation ]] but the [[representative ]] (that is, the signifier which is representing a subject). * The [[discussion ]] of the discourse of the master: no knowledge of what the master will [[want ]] (S1); the kind of knowledge that [[links ]] S1 and S2 is savoir, not [[connaissance ]] (acquaintance) or representation; not all knowledge is known (the ego “the little master” v. the unconscious – slips, dreams, accidents)* In the [[Hegelian ]] [[schema]], the slave’s work is in fact analogous to the unconscious knowledge. No [[absolute knowledge ]] possible, no closure. The contrary assumption, according to Lacan, is “immanent to the political as such,” p. 13. – the [[body ]] politic ([[organic ]] [[ideal]]), the [[community ]] (see for [[instance ]] Rousseau); perfect jouissance (topologically represented, as a sphere); a program of political or any other manipulation will include “the collusion of the [body] [[image ]] with the [[idea ]] of [[satisfaction]],” p. 14. * The master discourse continues under the guise of the [[university discourse ]] (the discourse of the [[obsessional]]); S2 which is the agent in this discourse can be represented as “all-knowledge” (tout-savoir) – the [[bureaucracy]]. * The classical v. modern master ([[capitalist]]) – appropriating something from the worker prior to property; what the worker receives in the case of a successful [[revolution ]] is the knowledge of the master (but this preserves the relations of [[master-slave]])* The essential aspect of the master’s discourse is that the master’s [[ignorance ]] of what he wants (p. 14); but the slave knows it and that’s the crux of their relation. * Changes: S2 (all-knowledge) in the position of S1 is the master’s knowledge (“the tyranny of knowledge,” p. 15), but this outcome distorts the position of truth (found with those who nowadays [[substitute ]] for the slave)

* knowledge that is not known is found in the Other in the position of S2; the treasury of the signifiers as the Other constitutes the [[fantasy ]] of knowledge as [[totality]]. But there is something that impacts on it “from the outside” – the [[unary ]] trait.

* signifier & speech; [[negative ]] impact on [[sexual relations ]] – no [[harmony ]] in sex, no [[wholeness ]] or topologically [[speaking ]] a sphere (pp. 15-16); [[hysterics ]] – men & [[women]];* the hysteric – the creation of a desire for knowledge (to know what she is); masters can be live without desire; a [[philosophical ]] discourse – a desire to know on the master’s part; what matters – the hysteric as a precious object; free [[associations ]] – knowledge that is not known (signifiers); no random links* the analyst – [[listening ]] to the subject, “a little encyclopedia,” p. 17; the analyst as the object a – not the same knowledge as the master’s; knowledge (S2) in the position of truth; [[Hegel ]] – “the most [[sublime ]] hysteric;” absolute knowledge – no motivation for knowledge any more, no [[enjoyment]]

* truth as knowledge; can we know without knowing? Truth – only “said by halves (mi-[[dire]]),” p. 19; Oedipus – the Sphynx (putting forth an enigma); [[utterance ]] (enonciation) – desire – enigma (but consequences if solved) v. statement (enonce) – citation, already within a discourse; citing Marx or Freud or Lacan – also the half-said; effects differ based on who is cited* interpretation takes place in the context provided by enigma and citation, p. 20; knowledge of the analysand – no [[need ]] for the analyst at the end; the object a as the analyst – the cause of the analysand’s desire

* circular permutation among discourses (all seminars would meet Wednesdays at 12:30); the prince or creator – an [[arbitrary]], free act; Lacan thinks that there is no enough contest of the [[authority ]] of knowledge* Anika Lemaire’s [[thesis]]: how does Lacan’s work fit in an academic context? The discourse of the [[psychoanalyst ]] has different rules than the university or academic discourse; for instance, language is “the condition of the unconscious,” p. 23; this statement is not reversible; what happens is only a translation from one discourse into the other; Lacan doesn’t want to [[identify ]] himself with a specific position, not even the position of a teacher* Other contexts analogous to what Lacan is doing (the driving [[school]]), p. 24

* Freud – 1) the unconscious – the [[situation ]] of [[desire, ]] 2) repetition is necessitated by jouissance (beyond the [[pleasure principle]], the [[death drive]]); the inanimate ([[machine]]-like)

* repetition – the return of enjoyment, but not [[complete]], something is [[missing]]; “a leakage of jouissance,” p. 28; there is a loss between what is repeated and what it repeats

* Lacan’s contribution: the [[unary trait ]] as the origin of knowledge (just a mark on the body); the subject of knowledge (philosophy) v. the subject of the signifier (it is “an underneath,” Aristotle’s hypokeimenon* the kind of knowledge found in modern, symbolic [[logic ]] similar to the knowledge that is created by [[analysis]]* knowledge as “a means of jouissance,” p. 30; [[beyond the pleasure principle]]; the object a is marking that loss of jouissance that happens in repetition; the unary trait – [[disorganization]], entropy (‘entropie’ and ‘anthropie’)* energetics, [[physics]], [[formulas ]] – the net of signifiers, not [[physical ]] reality

* the mark on the skin (flagellation) – the subject equals the object of enjoyment (“the gesture that marks and the body [marked]” are equivalent, p. 31; enjoyment or jouissance is how one distinguishes [[narcissism ]] and [[object-relation]]; the [[lost object ]] – the introduction of enjoyment – but also the support for the consistency of the ego

* love of truth is not in support of being; being equal [[forgetting]], the master’s discourse; the unconscious represents a [[lack ]] of forgetting (see Freud)

* love of weakness – the [[essence ]] of love; love in Lacan’s well-known definition – “giving something one does not have,” (p. 34) in [[order ]] to fix a “primordial” weakness in another

* the one who speaks (the analysand) is the one who should know that he or she is supposed to know; the analysand is invited to say whatever comes into his or her [[mind]]; this what grounds [[transference ]] – and the analyst should always hear askew; the point is to get the analysand’s knowledge to function as truth; the analyst – the position of the a