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"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."
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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 Russell Grigg, unpublished draft.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
* being overwhelmed when one’s own preoccupations and the preoccupation of the other person cross paths and are expressed in speech (i.e. Lacan’s anecdote)
- the theme for the seminar: psychoanalysis upside down
* 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
* What is knowledge? Lacan refers to it as the jouissance of the Other
* 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 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)
* 2) Ecole Normale Superieure (1963-1969)
* 3) Ecole des Hautes Etudes (Seminar XVII - )
* different interpretations of what Lacan was doing (ENS – Lacan’s course as a
* teaching, finally; SAH - amusement)
* 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).
* knowledge: 1) the articulated aspect 2) the know-how aspect; the former is seized by the master
* the episteme – the slave’s or craftsman’s knowledge that becomes the knowledge of the master
* 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)
* jouissance may not be the privilege of the master, as is commonly thought
* (historically) philosophy as cheating the slave out of his knowledge and transferring it to the master (p. 8)
* Aristotle – the master’s knowledge = the theoretical knowledge; v. Descartes’ renunciation of this kind of knowledge and the birth of science (and the subject)
* Desire for knowledge v. what generates knowledge; the latter is the discourse of the hysteric (p. 9); the master does not desire to know, only that “it work.”
Session 2, Complement, December 10, 1969
* Lacan and the discourse of political agitation; observing it from the discourse of the analyst
* Lacan says that his discourse has always been viewed suspiciously by “the authorities” (either psychoanalytic or political / administrative); he makes fun of those who in the early 1950s expected his teaching to be “medical”
* Lacan’s audience always made the authorities uncomfortable
* Lacan’s lecture is prematurely cut off by a university official
Session 3, December 24, 1969
* 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.
* discourse of the analyst – enabling the transformation of a given discourse into the discourse of the hysteric (“the hysterization of discourse,” p. 15).
* 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
Session 4, January 1970
* 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
* The position of the analyst as the object a; the object a – opaque or mis-recognized but essential; the object a position as “the dominant” in the discourse of the analyst (p. 25)
* S1 – the master signifier – laws are inscribed in the master’s discourse; S1 is the symptom of the hysteric (p. 25); what is produced is the a as surplus-value (Marx’s term) or surplus-enjoyment
* 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)
* the pleasure principle is the principle of the least tension; and the limit to jouissance
* 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
* entropy, loss but also surplus-enjoyment (Mehrlust) at the same structural junction
* human subject – a pun, “the humus of language,” p. 33
* work, knowledge, enjoyment, truth; the work of the slave – the truth of the master
* the evocation of truth – only a half-saying (mi-dire), because “beyond the half there is nothing to say,” p. 33; the key elements of interpretation – the enigma and the citation
* 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
