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− | [[Lacan]]'s discussion of "the Thing" constitutes one of the central themes in the seminar of 1959-60 (‘’L'éthique de la psychanalyse’’ – “[[The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]]”), where he uses the French term ‘’la Chose’’ interchangeably with the German term ‘’das Ding’’.
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− | There are two main contexts in which this term operates.
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− | The distinction between 'word-presentations' (‘’Wort- vorstellungen’’) and 'thing-presentations' (‘’Sachvorstellungen’’) is prominent in Freud's metapsychological writings, in which he argues that the two types of presentation are bound together in the preconscious-conscious system, whereas in the unconscious system only thing-presentations are found.<ref>{{F}} 19l5e</ref>
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− | This seemed to some of Lacan's contemporaries to offer an objection to Lacan's theories about the linguistic nature of the unconscious.
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− | Lacan counters such objections by pointing out that there are two words in German for 'thing': ‘’das Ding’’ and ‘’die Sache’’.<ref>{{S7}} p.62-3, 44-5</ref>
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− | It is the latter term which Freud usually employs to refer to the thing-presentations in the unconscious, and Lacan argues that although on one level ‘’Sachvorstellungen’’ and ‘’Wortvorstellungen’’ are opposed, in the symbolic level 'they go together'.
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− | Thus ‘’die Sache’’ is the representation of a thing in the [[symbolic]] [[order]], as opposed to ‘’das Ding’’, which is the thing in its “dumb reality”,<ref>7, 55</ref> the thing in the [[real]], which is “the beyond-of-the-signified.”<ref>{{S7}} p.54</ref>
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− | The thing-presentations found in the unconscious are thus still linguistic phenomena, as opposed to ‘’das Ding’’ which is entirely outside [[language]], and outside the [[unconscious]].
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− | “The Thing is characterised by the fact that it is impossible for us to imagine it.”<ref>{{S7}} p.12</ref>
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− | Lacan's concept of the Thing as an unknowable x, beyond symbolisation, has clear affinities with the Kantian 'thing-in-itself'.
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− | In his seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis, Lacan sought to clarify Freud’s definition of the unconscious and especially the question of what is repressed.
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− | For Freud there can be no unconscious without repression, but what exactly is it that is repressed: words, images, feelings?
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− | For Lacan, what is repressed is not iamges, words or emotions but something much more fundamental.
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− | Freud hit upon this when, in ‘’[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]’’, he suggested that there was a hard impenetrable core of the dream – what he called the ‘navel’ of the dream – that is beyond interpretation.
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− | What is repressed, argues Lacan, is this hard impenetrable core.
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− | This is always a core of the real that is missing from the symbolic and all other representations, images and signifiers are no more than attempts to fill this gap.
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− | In seminar VII Lacan identified this repressed element as ‘’the representative of the representation’’, or ‘’dad Ding’’ (the Thing).
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− | The Thing is the beyond of the signified – that which is unknowable in itself.
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− | It is something beyond symbolization, and therefore associated with the real, or as Lacan puts it, “the thing in its dumb reality.”<ref>1992: 55</ref>
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− | The Thing is a lost object that must be continually refound.
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− | However, it is more importantly an ‘object that is nowhere articulated, it is a lost object, but paradoxically an object that was never there in the first place to be lost.”<ref>1992: 58</ref>
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− | As well as the object of [[language]], ‘’das Ding’’ is the [[object of desire]].
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− | It is the lost object which must be continually refound, it is the prehistoric, unforgettable Other<ref>S7, 53</ref> - in other words, the forbidden object of incestuous desire, the mother.<ref>{{S7}} p.67</ref>
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− | The [[pleasure principle]] is the law which maintains the [[subject]] at a certain distance from the Thing,<ref>S7, 58, 63</ref> making the subject circle round it without ever attaining it.<ref>{{S7}} p.95</ref>
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− | The Thing is thus presented to the subject as his Sovereign Good, but if the subject transgresses the pleasure principle and attains this Good, it is experienced as suffering/evil,<ref>Lacan plays on the French term mal, which can mean both suffering and evil, see S7, 179</ref> because the subject “cannot stand the extreme good that ‘’das Ding’’ may bring to him.”<ref>{{S7}} p.73</ref>
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− | It is fortunate, then, that the Thing is usually inaccessible.<
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− | ref>{{S7}} p.59</ref>
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− | After the seminar of 1959-60, the term ‘’das Ding’’ disappears almost entirely from Lacan's work.
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− | However, the ideas associated with it provide the essential features of the new developments in the concept of the ‘’[[objet petit a]]’’ as Lacan develops it from 1963 onwards.
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− | For example the ‘’objet petit a’’ is circled by the [[drive]]<ref>{{S11}} p.168</ref> and is seen as the cause of desire just as ‘’das Ding’’ is seen as “the cause of the most fundamental human passion.”<ref>{{S7}} p.97</ref>
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− | Also, the fact that the Thing is not the imaginary object but firmly in the register of the real, <ref>{{S2}} p.112</ref> and yet is “that which in the real suffers from the signifier,”<ref>{{S7}} p.125</ref> anticipates the transition in Lacan's thought towards locating objet petit a mcreasingly in the register of the real from 1963 on.
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