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    364 THE SILENT PARTNERS inadmissible jowissance. This is why we get s0-c lity 4 Dehn ns mig ala elon thc on pide LIL, See Selected Writings p. 85, Pe nga ouisen doesnot itll purtacpats inthe Area wil eerie contin o cl ran bole 16 Lacan and the Dialectic: A Fragment Fredric Jameson | would have liked in what fllows, to accomplish three or maybe even four things, in no special order. I want to try to read Lacan generically, that i, t0 look atthe text ofthe Seminar as a special ind of gente, one wich may of ‘may not have is Kinship with immense fragmentary wninshed books like Benjamin's Avades Project, Grams''s Prison Norebooks, Pascal's Pens, and ‘even Pound's Cantos The generic focus means in particular that I will not be trying to reconstruct a system of thought, to be summarized in some more ‘sable conceptual form, Tes certainly with Lacan's thinking that we will be concerned here; but lyin so fat a8 that thinking i spoken or expressed, That isto say the traditional lationship between language and thought isto be reversed here: not language as an instrument ora vehicle for conceptuality, bt, eather, the sey in thich the conditions and form of representation (speaking and writing) determine the concepts themselves, and constitute at fone and the same time their conditions of possbiliy an also their limits, infecting their shape and development. Ido not want to prejudge the results for forcast the succes ofthe generic invention itself, except to say that it seems to me desirable to abandon (or atleast, to bracket) loaded terms like unfinished, fragmentary, interminable, and the ike “Asif tht isnot enough, I would also like to use Lacan's work na dferent vay a8 atest casein the constrction of theory a8 such, This word, which «ame into its distinctive ~ shall we ay post-contemporary ~acceptation the 1960s and the era of strucuralism, designates something not only quite sitferent from traditional philosophy, bt also from that modern philosophy (Heidegger, say, or pragmatism, or Wittgenstein) that sought to break with traditional philosophizing. This is, no doubt, to degrade Lacan tothe status oF 1 mere example, but ina Father diferent way feom that proposed by generic analysis Het, the example i reconstructed for historical purposes, in order to ilastrate the logic ofa historical period, or atthe very last ahistorical tendency. Noris the procedue necessrily redeemed by the conviction that of 366, THE SILENT PARTNERS al the writing called thors Lacan’ isthe vchesty and in many ways ways that hate not heen explo or documented) the sour of ach that went on around it net an that was published then or at bre snes Nor ithe question ofthe tract and dari of that hd of ‘tg led theory ite the sane athe question of whether Lacan wa Or was nota tutta (a ucston we wl abo hve to del with lh his relationship tothe Freudian text fon wich the Seana purports te be one immense commentary scat st dance to ofr peculiar nt inet within many other "cortical tet (although Altus’ analogous tlaonshi to Mars dente enon he A thd reso nr sce even ore sent to thse ist concerns, and even es elevnt tothe drctions in which ey might ad Ths wah ineet in wht for want of beter ord wile aca’ eit, an ier that canbe thot tangent ote very dere to which we belive thse moments of Mery segs to be theme tangential "o Lacan's own work. For al of then are make in one way or another at cxample ofthe theory: an inl east tar sch es ean be does tnented as matters of ther accident othe seg random ssodatin of ideas. The allegorical reading of "The Purine late’ as long since een sopra eng in lge pat othe igual poston Laan 0m foritin Beri but ihe even sore stunning eating of Fes orn des trina has not atrated mc atetion Indeed, the cet place af eam analysis in Feud ought ove postonel the ue of marae ner ton in some space elt osc Soe Iierry ea en ‘nara et A th sane tne, he cal central readings of Hae iu oer an tnd of gusto ie ald one about Fea ivy erin ands radon vltonship tothe Oedipus comple. severally. The ese of Antigone has aed much comment bl and new, Inn prt of a hear kind. Rly the most extaordinary of lavas commentaries, on Plo’ Spstu as sare een adresse at si This ty of exemplary interpretation, Gin bath se) the, ought tbe int in determining. onthe ome hand, wheter thi ja od aioned rf fe aps Lac sn aon woo thse dial tata and onthe other whether the concept a ale thes ot fer some more pci, ad in general undead: tet a aly and notion of stractre thon the conde overused “ch naps, woe populary can np be ted Tan Finally. a i this were not enough, the question should be raised of the sects nature of Lacan’s thought, a question which presupposes the LACAN AND THE DIALECHIC 367 perennial one of the mature of dialectical thinking isl. Is a question which Certainly inches but greatly transcends that of the role and influence of Hegel in Lacan's development, about which it isso often sid hatin the early years he was palpably stimulated by Kojéve’s reading of the master-slave Uialectie, most notably inthe hypothesis ofthe mirror sage, and of Sartre's {equally Hegelian) notion of the Look and the relations with the Other; but that the mature, as well af the ate, Lacan Jet both Hegel and Hegelian cistentilism behind — first for structuralism, and then for his own {nimitable formulations onthe impossible, on jouisance and the objet petit a and on gendet, "Bat pethaps tis i to neglect an important principle of precisely that late ‘thinking: namely, the lessons of the Tour discourses and, in particular, the Aectine ofthe discourse ofthe University The latter posits, indeed, thatthe triving force ofthis particular discourse (or structural permutation) les fn the tification of the Other into a proper name. Thus, the discourse of, the University alvays wishes to identify a given thought or truth with that proper names and fs ceaseless concerned with the alliation ofa thought {ecich may or may not include the problems of influence origin, orientation, ideology, and the like) a+ Hegelian, Lacanian, Satrean, structuralis (which wwe may take as shorthand for Léi-Staussian, Freudian, or whatever. Those Df ur targeted as “ecketi’ pose a worrisome peoblem for this kind of dis Course inasmuch asthe later abserves the various named concepts floating ‘downstteam one after the other, pil-mell like so many unburied corpses, and Searches in vain forthe reassuring unity of family resemblance, Yet ihistory isa reconstructed narrative, maybe the problem is nt an interesting one, and 4 given body of thought might well be followed in its development without uch a compulsive flurry of attributions. Or perhaps, onthe other hand, dhe introduction of the name in question is to be reconnected to the generic problem we began with, ad 19 be seen a a specific generic set pice or sb- form, a regulated digression designed to adorn or to advance the argument in ways that need to be determined. There are certainly a number ofthese hhames tha recur ftefully thoughout the Seminar: Plato fs one (the Meno): [Aistot’s ethics another; Descartes regularly re-emerges at these moments ‘which the fale problem of consciousness (Lacan dit) reappears and there tre specific minor roles of cameo appearances assigned 10 Merleau-Ponty, te Wittgenstein, to Lévi-Strauss himself, not to speak of Saint Anselm, Kant, Bentham the mystics or Saint Augustine. Many of the references can be ‘explained by the kind of materialist analysis that focuses on the shifting publics of the Seminar, their gradual displacement or augmentation of a public initially constituted by younger analysts in training by the arrival of 368 ine SILENT PaRTWERS 4 philosophical (Athuserin-Maois) group of stant centred in the Eck stom bat errant eed edo sl hat tbe mad onder to generate a roser type oo iidon' Thus the elrences wo Marx pay ter ole a the construction 2 ‘ew paychoanalytic theory of vale; but ao serve a signals and connota tions, well a isting anew hind of theoreti imperalim and ommivrousness Tete are as, obese, the enemies, named or unnamed go psbology, the objections school, the eo. Fraany and the ‘mein, Sri Bonaparte, Hartmann and Kes, butpresmably thei frre manta asamevie ie one fr thsi Kind of inquiry ould nt bea seston of Lacan's eens but ahr ofthe ply thie tug gece one dcrlopment of dnt thought tell In wht flows [vl ogoize my theertions sound the fllowing topics the function of absence andthe paradoxes of estan, ncommensurbls the dacs of semantic p= Pesan fly rationality el oly ‘ne ofthe etal ss in Laces lec tun on sence and on Sow anc in arta th mot scandens one ofa The ‘ovr the sea casa and one my sy tha ti oy scandy in two isnt wap Clery enna the hypothesis of estan and {isan compl Feud himself was aya stumbling oc: ou cold Vota te socy or myth othe Oadpur campos wits recast ties of ese, so cel anced ah AU that pln ey ‘fv that cltng sony genre out metaphyal,s0 ‘cmon iit det sn oso mango Tenthment, or een oar Rguratly, a cae to te cis pele nun ade sure ef er whch wl cope the ue ter st the aseton ofthe et wid a dete fr the mother tens ‘svi ik nthe rl ae fh Sa oF a et of ae Wet yin = and lays remaining within the context of Freud's own wt cca ebjetny or compli ae Uh Tobe confronted. The Ince the get so many of ws hve atone neo another ihe pc nha we may orto Fea ray etc the “ln compl of tmerpreatonacoding fo analy deen Ime omic co hse th redo the Ost heme LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC 369 «a whole range of classical tests fom Hamlet to The Brothers Karamazov, & scditabiity which certainly resurfaces in Lacan’ ‘Hterary criticism’, how- ler structurally disguised or modernized (the ‘Name-of the Father). The ‘Sbjetion has been most forcefully argued by Deleee and Guattar, whose ri Oatipa less and some may even sy; tresomely) protests against the reduction of everything tothe childhood ‘Mamma-Papa’ situation tis objection which is probably not redeemed by the admission (by almost ‘Nesyone) that Oedipus himself atleast, did not have an Oedipus comple. it arath must always be accompanied by the shock of defamiliaization and tcmysteaton, and of the revelation of repressed or forgotten realities, then ho doubt the omnipresence of Fread and the Oedipus complex everywhere re Salta Iiersey”todey has long since deprived this theme of its original dra tla, ih we woul have to go back o Studies in Hysteria to retrieve. Lacan cettainy does his it here, most notably in his insistence that the over tiveat of castration is infact more likely ro come from the mother rathet th the father and to constitute a response to the most infantile kinds of ‘masterbation. ut that ds not particlaty dignity castration asa properly philosophical senna indeed, to put it tat way is #9 approach the second and more formid- [ble abjection: namely that of sheer contingency. To endow a sheer biological fact ofthe human organs of generation (hich scence fiction at last might fd it perfectly plausible to imagine otherwise) with a determining power of this fund is to challenge the abstractions of philosophy with « kind of fhredusible content, which can never be abstracted and philosophically anceptualized without losing ts power and drifting into the worst type of ‘putslytes But perhaps thats also to challenge philosophy as such about inch it could be argued that its incompatible with the kind of unity-of- theory-and-practice “constituted by Freodianism (and, Marxitn alike). Sill even i this unusual (cond) context, the role conferred on a mere Duiliy organ may raise the issue of contingency in a different but no les problematical way: Th wil be said that Lacan eludes this objection by rethinking the matter of the bodily organ in a dramatic new way? asserting as is by now well own, tice Sbjct ofthe threat of castration isnot the bosily organ called the penis but rather, Gat quite different thing called the phallus, which, a6 the Mens in erections sno Tonge to be considered an organ uty rates, ome Ting close to an event (oF perhaps a power) and) which Lacan will now Ghatbeterie a signifier (or even asthe Signi, asthe privileged signin, caethe busi of the fat that itis the oa signifier without a signification or & Signed, a qualication which may well turn i back into something set 370 ‘THE SILENT PARTNERS coming oan si) 9h operation may eal coun) av yet one morn that sts of stucurlzaso of Hed tr shih Lacan's wl know, the teasaton int vga np eee the order of the revision of the Oedipal father into the ‘Name-ol-the-Father™ tmenoned above te sar een pla oh tna |i ven thio is everything thats most canals sou aca’ ing of Fed saan faced by overtamiariy.tha bccnenn is tenorced by the ovefaity of the Bata Pads hic a borcows and reverses: nae the eltonship between tagrean ke aw = cach one requiring te ote fr ie recpocal ety sind a anne hin of iaity herby the sean doped fs fe os fran ohn ngs But thin yon a a ate st al but ether vow ce op ste sill’ Lind of sani (which snot een a epedton in e's own non-dacl ee) a e anys thik tht he unt ieprcin of Laas seh Sonn he Bhs) in tems of Bale aad of tanspesion i mises misguided. a vaken and ‘Alot wich may perhaps be cred by returning tthe fist move in tis sang proces namely, Lacan's Instone onthe neces of canon Aving ot oft forthe moment he ovis aur tt the cision ty cession mow aati om) ney oe te gl Freud himl (who storm common ene ha ile enoge ee seth these pando) ancy tat the ovmal” development ofa tees the peiminry experienc, ste rght poment of ests if you prefer to avoid words like normal, thatthe worst kinds of psychic proms rom the nro ll the way to pao: res os os ps though the stage of aston (arty told) hiseny eons ink up pchologial ee anthropological equals for ths dec he ‘sy wish the death nse ieee rindi eagle he vcs ratifies de page hang and thee. B te ey wt the ka uh oF conceal foe Which Laan hme ene iw hough he hms a freuen ents aston se eae ‘watt ae such anbpologlel or peyehologal ppg "ai of station in Lacs sen and whan nie ty tome abolte metaphor, een whic endosing x ih Mat oda trative funtion Hobie has oes tee en on hy tui w the pesaty of Laci’ sss noton ot e tn san this ew ewer som ay tate toto Vin cise 4 the pens othe contingent aly nga, whch ens LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC a7 ‘he later into the phallus or, better stil, which generates that signifier which 's the phallus and enables the bodily organ to fulfil that signing function from time o time. The lesson isnot the empirical one, that there is such a thing as the phallus (and that the man has it wile the woman does not); rather, it is lesson about absence: namely, that no one has the phallus, ‘either man nor woman, but that they somehow, from time to time, par ticipate in this signi, if may try to ptt chastely. Lacan often remarks that there is always something ridiculous about masculine assurance, and that the stances of machismo, necessarily performative, are always threatened by the comie (this male performativity corresponding to that female mascarade ientiied by Helene Deutsch, which equally underscores the basis of the [acanian dactine that in that sense the ‘sexes of “gender are not only not natural, but meaningless and imposible). The point, for masculine develop- ment, i that itis the ‘experience’ of castration (ox, in other words, earning that no one ‘has the phallus in the sense of property) that allows the male Deing to function in the masculine way: ox, better sill ~ for I hope it will jradually become clear to what degre the negative formulations ae always ‘or faithful to Lacan's doctrine than any postive propositions ar assertions tha in the absence ofthat experience, al kinds of disorders happen tothe ‘male being. (One could then, from some clinical or developmental per spective, go onto talk about that privileged relationship co the mother which have already mentioned in connection with this ‘experience’: for the first discovery of the possibility of castration comes with he, with her bodily anatomy a8 well as with her threat, and aso the chil’s experience of hms lor herself asthe mother’s ibiinal substitute, otto speak ofthe innumerable and quite diferent situations in which the mother can seem to castrate, of ‘make absent or more distant, the father) ‘But here lam mainly intersted in underscoring the constitutive elaion- Ship to absence — not even necessarily to lack, although that is certainly avery ‘rucial category (derived from Sartre) ~ which is central to Lacan's thought, And which indeed documents is claim to daletical status, The phalls isa tbsence, and ths is what gies t potency as a signifier. Indeed, signifier: themselves are stuctuted dialecticaly, around absence: following what is probably more a Jakobsonisn than a Saussrean Hnguistics and certainly in @ Hegelian spirit f not a Mallarméan one, Lacan's examples show over and ‘over again that a signifier can come into being only by virtue of not being Present or at least not being present all the time; this is the deepest meaning Of the well-known fort- istration? And itis precisely ths dialectical requirement which will ace out the path and the strategy of Lacan's most fundamental polemic: the attack on a7 THE SILENT PARTNERS the objet-relations school (the offical theme of the fourth Seminar). The spirit ofthis polemic may be quickly formulated: it turns on the notion ofthe object of deste, to admit the existence of which i also to imply that the deste for it can be fll satisfied (and thereby to dictate a recipe for normality quite slferent from what is implicit in Lacan's structural accounts). Bat how do ‘we retain the fundamental emphasis on desire and, tthe same time, avoid the unwanted implications that the notion of an object brings with i? One «an, for example, insist on the metonymic notion of dsites ast follows 9 perpetual substitute of one objet for another, beginning not with any ‘original or primordial object, but with something that was alseady s kind ot substitution (the so-called Vorselhugsreprasertans!). Or one ean posit the enigmatic objet petir aa kind of residue which undergoes all kinds of trans formations throughout the Seminar (even if one dacs not acknowledge its ‘origins inthe small of the mieror stage). The fundamental insistence on esire brings with it an equally fundamental insistence. that desire i ‘never satisted (the proofs that its moments of disappearance ~aphaniss’ ae catastophic), But this will gradually determine «shift away from the language of the abject in two directions frst, the object (objet pit a) will henceforth be given its value by its postion within that larger narrative 'mierocosm which isthe fantasm: this means that itis henceforth izlevant to try to evoke the “object of desire’ in purely abjectl terms. ‘On the other hand, this refinement can lead to new dffrentiations within the very notion of deste iselE and it i at this point thatthe notion of juissance omnipresent in the later Seminars) separates itself off from that of pleasure (leaving the ‘pleasure principle’ itself out ofthe matter), and indeed Frecomes specifically defined as being “distinct from pleasure in so far a8 't constitutes the latter's beyond’ This dsstisfiction of joueace with tere pleasure its constant movement beyond the simple satisfactions and ashievements of pleasure as such, certainly scems to have something 10 do ith the most famous version ofthe syntactical forma (beyond or jensets) ‘w tcl, namely the death instinet or Thanos, alo determines a whole new ehetorical development in Lacan himself, ‘siete the fitful notion oF a dimension ‘beyond? will colonize a whole speces + isl jensets in the form of wl or tempting coverings ofall kinds, which slike not sv much because they have an object behind them as, rather Incase they deamatize the absence ofan object and ae signs and substitutes fon ust sich a absent object, about whose centrality Lacan will invoke the lest kl premonitory docttine of early unpublished Freud's Project? (The ‘er vis analogue, in Seminar XI the famous anamorphosi, rather 0 bbe rraspes as representing the peculiar nature ofthe phallus) Here a whole LACAN AND THLE DIALECTIC a7 acsthetic opens up ~architetute as the setting in place ofthe void, as shaped bsence; and a whole wealth ofcltural and literary examples becomes aviil- ble! Courtly love can thus now be grasped asa very peculiar experiment in keeping the absence atthe heart of dese live; while the mystics then allow ‘us to grasp the way in which absence and negativity extend all the way to the fundamental big Other of God, who, like Freud's primal father, must neces- sarily be dea in order to fantion, Butts essential ~ or 0 lwo age and insist ~ that all of these materials be grasped not as some slippage by Lacan towards religion or mysticism so much as instances within his estntaly sialectical use of absence. The examples hecome symptoms of idealism only i ‘we graxp them in postvstic or empirical fashion they canals, however, be appropriate dialectical. 2 1 docs ao says sem to be andrtood thatthe mos ting evidence for thedictil chractr of Lacs thought es ins sent of ncn tnesurabty. This term boro rom mates even hog Lacan Wim cain deploys rational mnbers and thir problems in some of Wa as analog omen we wl tara). ene the ger ene sf aa neompatity Between various exlaatory sens or des Something ke an untranalatblty between stem. To wich we mst Snoms betwen wich oe cannot cote ifr a thatthe sand aot Sb mck th incompty but rather, the conviction that one needs bth Ct so an) aon dhe seine, ot pot the topeer in any aptematic wny~ eno, tn eber wad, eon stn ‘coherent machine outa hl very diflerenes. Put this my, the nation of incommensrblity ight be Nowe spy orl! he astations of an ‘Caden eclectic, ch cannetbortow fom various dine philsophies fr thores without longing for thr sythesiIneed the ery ue ‘ncept of incommensuray which has ao pone content, But ery regis and domentcats the neceiy of fle) may ab though xyes sch 3 longing, which may wel be the bad yet indispensible motor fee ofthe pilowophiel prot ar atch.” Thc one universe, igaymthee thes thee so rany ame fr that comet sgatied ‘tse butwho to sa thatso many ingenios post contemporary theoretic imechansmafor keeping iin chck, oven epsing ite ny seen Sl, marngs they do the imepreablty eth unin imple lke the Law nd ts tumsgresion in another fair paradigm)? a ‘THD SILENT PARTNERS All this may be so: but the stakes become considerably augmented ‘when one decides to read the incommensurabiity of the codes and theories 85 s0 many signs and symptoms of some deeper ontological incommen surabilty if T'may improperly put it that way. Then it is reality self which isa coexistence of incompatible, about which no doubt all kinds of "unjusttied hopes persist that eventually some “unified field theory” can tnite them. But the hope seems immediately to positon us Back inside the hhuman mind, and to accuse its theories, rather than reality, of just such incommensarabiltis, ‘This would be the moment to say something about Lacan’s conception of science, a status he wants to atibute to psychoanalysis atthe same time as he participates in that rater tized and conventional critique of modernity and ‘of modern scence along the lines of Huser’ Criss ofthe European Scenes Dreven Heidegger's essay on world-pictures, But it shouldbe sai (in Lacan's defence?) that his critique of scent secularty is nok nostalgic for some revival of the big Other, and merely seeks (in an tninteresting way | believe) {o mark the diference between the traditional = the status of the psyche and the Other in religious periods ~ and the psychi dilemmas faced by 4 secular and scien period. The defence of sence on the other hand, on the bass of which the scientficity of psychoanalysis is caimed, does Wot scem to imply the same kinds of hstricism and larger peviodiving cule tural critiques but, rates, to serve as a weapon against psychology and Philosophy: not so much to mark the specificity of Freud in other words, 4 to refute those conceptions of coherent system implicit in psychology in Particular and philosophy in general. Lacan's formalizations ~ not merely the graphs, bur the later mathemes and topologies, including the knots and ‘the rings ~ have been thought to be motivated by a desire fora rigour, an efott fo avoid the humanism and metaphysics of so mach ‘orthodox Fudan’, as well as an attempt to pass on a legacy of Lacan's own, ‘uma tothe revisonisms to which Feud was subjected." That may well ‘ne tg but T think we cannot neglect the spatial passion involved nthe Ipwvsit ofthese concentrated hieroglyphs of ‘characters nor can we avoid ‘ans; in them a specific kind of desire, the desire calle formalization, I would seem to me to be something quite distinc from sientifiity "thw claims made for that. That allthis takes place within the age of ‘ons it an adltional or supplementary historical connotation: but ‘is tonwulizations cannot be reduced to that particular posttructuralst Monat vither 5 swommensurability, whether grasped scientielly or not, [also ook 161 smpotant to claim that the dialectic comes into being as an LACAN AND THE DIALEETIC 375, acknoiedgement of pry hit ems, bth int subjective andi a hj forme feat there en Hoge thon come crac st th thee only ons ic heen of soa Ase Spi = Stopping point 5 enigma that al Kino of ioen netstat ave tour propos tht sary one Hees cm hubris Hegel hms ts the phsopiea equal of Napolen she Pun tate thee of Rison or simply» nsw hist vw ofthe wot and the moment Ia ‘ich the whole human past comes aval t thought (not to speak of ther etingsas pany re niyo hoy mn-pactac tr communism, or wiser) or the met part, kasi ds the foal problem of tinal" moment (and ofthe pono the ening which Propose at imply atthe gat Peace poses the problem of bxpaning Geli, Hogs contradicts are very precy inormensbair which, Ek behind by htoy none way conn sat ad ep Sih “Thr is nonealngugey rune one of acs betray ae hsp gas wig Hegsanism certainly aKind of etalanginge Hut ihe dale not oro Tague hee ~and whatever one chow fo Cal, tet tome ind of guage which tees to regite Inco ‘measrabiies without inpng ny sation tothe y sme ae nating them, or the ftening-ot of thi or that unified phsophicl coe 1k povinaliy whith i smetines cll efx ten whi i Suge the language of conscouney, ako not satstrys and two, mete; be meh to ty To dings fom tat her mare on {Einporay ngs suey en fen all sory amething Il 9 ry todoter) For he moment, what cn beset as sty for desing ith ‘ncommenrabli oy to wet hem oto the concep ea (i shih they scm to cost any dnt cots) ano gap thm Projections and intimation spt of dsp ontlgiclpape and i ntiswmething whith peas odo whew me move ot ofthe aes af the natural scenes ands ite ost to the soled human one. Here it secs minimally poset gasp an Incominensabiity such a that teoven Mare and Feud sy both sbjetiely and objectives incon publ Deore what the same tine Beton some dpe income $erbityin the tora socl worl se, To hl hse wo perspec the abjetne one andthe jee one together no to clin to soe them back ts singe ster pera doe na fee and eerie Shon to sme incense begins and Twat to arge hat whatever te later modifeatons (and the 376 THEE SILENT paRTERS. cons such ttf oun odie which ee sa some angle wiih fs to acknowledge incr aaa ay ‘ctl incomptiy oins omhontand ees deed dag icra eae ag mio tte thin to indents saa ce Igugemi wal en as wang Me he Toric dt hin dtnton etch nai nd Smbotic the Real ams lrking dimly inthe nekeer ae an “psc to draatize a ncommennabiliy ofthc hind we ace dncesteg + indeed, vitally the primary one in Lacan’s view of human reality’-Or~ to path nama) "sti and philosophy (chen theater of «thea of ane i ss fo ena ese Hee ae sen of icon i esa ea ete ates ttt bythe new fenton aahencd by he wine ae ies e aay ae which cna pre pose oa notably all those which accumu around the ef ood he i ene {jc andthe jc). imaginary lan ca te se many Posie or ema ae nant gr be sched into cabeent sens, whether: eisereionttY areca ince ore Tea merase eee ome iis ins dnensn (nosh "anton he mio saps naeo ee inne del mde hee ee oF since ih hemi age heat ane ae iin hr hanes inners adh ee so iin mst) at oe a "cis Regan, ie he lt nel ede aa ae ian en fra cnc a Tso he thing of mea rin at ‘eg sande lth spprtion othe Thi (an it Amer fone Ce et rw hn hid ta thane cea dee cress "bn a nay Glaeser kann Hts at coe eSpace mth en hc A ey ts fe Ha ems ty ect nema ate nn) a the tee LACAN AND THEE DiaLECrtC a7 A strange new dialectic set in at tis point in which the two dimensions can neither be separated nor reduced to one another, nor translated into a unified Imetalanguage. Thus fom a genetic or developmeatal point of view, itis dificult not to think of stages which would make it posible to distinguish between the onset of the Symbolic and language, andthe experience of the ror stage that presumably inaugurates the Imaginary Lacan certaialy uses stages, particulary in the analysis ofthe various neuroses and psychoses but his san implacable critique of such developmental “istoricism’ and be is very reluctant to deploy notions lke ‘regression’ which seem indissocable from some kind of historiist perspective. His solution isthe classical ~abeit perhaps not altogether satisfactory — one developed by structural, in Wich the ostensible historical or developmental narrative isin fact simply a ‘emporal projection of the possibilities of variation within the "imeless structure ite There i thus no normal psyche, there are elements and rela- tionships whose inflection, distortion, suppression, produce so many types of maladjustment’ (to use as neutral a tem as possible). The (sometimes madiening) typologies of neuroses, perversions, psychoses, then, are not only essential othe strategies ofthe cure and ofthe moment of intervention; they are intimately related to the structural hypotheses themselves. (Is worth noting, however, thatthe structuralist disjunction between the synchronic and the diachronic not only generates such diachronic illusions or projections ‘of development, but returns with a vengeance when the ‘stracturaist docs finally decide to take temporality into account. Here we encounter Lacan's logical temporaities, along with ilusttations like that ofthe problem of the ‘three prisoners which ate so distinct fom the structural’ analyses that they sometimes strike one as a kind of ‘etuin of the repressed’ ofthe exclded oF ‘foreclose’ temporality isl) ‘Impossible, then, to differentiate the Imaginary from the Sprabolic in any ‘way that makes it possible to inspect one dimension in isolation from the ‘other (or from the third dimension ofthe Real, which cannot even be defined ‘or circumscribed in the way in which we have heen able to characterize the ‘other to). The fimous Borromean rings of the lst years emblematize ‘the interelationship in which ll rings must somehow be interlocked forthe Ihuman animal to function even in the way i “normally does.” Ths, we can only speak of a predominance of one dimension over another, and of Stmations in which a single dimension usurps the function of the others ors, ‘on the contrary, seriously underdeveloped. This would seem at leas to secure fone fundamental philosophical (or, if you prefer, anti-philosophica) remiss: namely, that we will never be able to have a theory of any ofthese ‘dimensions in isolation. Yet the Symbolic would seem to present an exception igi es ee “natic and internally contradictory than the layman hoe phenomenon that can neve (since deition is negation) be decd so thes app Tats 4 tence, (ology offer abs «mer hype and out own ‘idiotismes’ that spills well beyond ; which any self-respecting linguistics en we nent: namely, a specification of all dual or ships, and thereby somehow ‘wrong? conc ma eae ira Sa ergs Hhsroiable, well-nigh ontological Eon, that Vértand sec ne icgelian system: the point is that such a peculiar status, of Eror secures te permite tac ctyenugtiny preexisting 7 of error oF illusion, but also to posit the latter's reali, a i necessity in at least the structural organization of human Wught and experience; and thus to ensure the © of truth “the prychoanalytie training session wou ‘ak {ssl ann particule in visual, a the ior ae Peet ‘al position among ‘tructuralis gunge as such, and there are surly ty, a8 the mirror stage would seera LACAN AND THE DIALEETIC 379 privileged form of immediacy (not least bythe empiricists), thos offer ai Feld for demystifying the Imaginary; and no doubt also account for the paradoxical complication ofthis sense in Lacan's accoant ofthe gaze a8 part abject in Seminar XI (where, in eect, what we lose take to be the visual s reanalysed and decomposed from the standpoint ofthe Symbolic) But clearly enough my presentation has been somewhat perverse here, fo have kept what efor Lacan the strongest form of Imaginary méconnaissance "until lst inthis expositions it s none other than the ego isl, asthe most ‘enduring and incradcable product of the mirvor sage, The polemic against the ego Begins at once, in the rst Seminar, and may be scen asthe source of the most fundamental of ll he now familia structralst dos: namely, what is ten termed the “decentering’of the subject (os, more improperly, the ‘death ofthe subject, along with the death ofthe author, anti-humanise, and the like). This polemic in ten ~ and for some no doubt most suspiciously revives # much older theological tradition in which the sn of pride is tactic ally denounced, and the self strategically and therapeutically reduced (le mot ‘st haisabe’) «doctrine ada lore to be fod in one form or another in the history of most ofthe great religions. In sociological terms, what we confront here is undoubtedly the waning of that entrepreneurial individualism cele- brated by the triumphant bourgeoisie, ambiguously enshrined in its juridical system and its politcal and socal ideologies. In that sense, the vogue of the decentred subject reflects the realities of an increasingly corporate system oF economic institutions, and finds is frst (more positive) realization in the oeporate-collectivist spirit of the 1930s, in fascism, Soviet communism, and the New Deal alike, And no doubt Freud's own ‘Copernican revolution” (nlike Kane's which expresies the pride and bureaucratic achievements of & post-feudal Prosi, foretelling the French Revolution) has something to do bot only with the emergence of hysteria as a socially accredited disorder, but alko with the decline of Ausra 2 a great power, whose energetic and ‘mod- fm citizenry no Tonger find flslment in the appropriate industrial and Imperial tas." "The degeneration ofthe Freudian doctrine ofthe unconscious into the “ego therapy” ofhis followers (dst Lacan) certainly postions such concepts ofthe ego and the self squarely for the Lacanian onslaught. Our inital question, hhomover, must be that of tanslaablty, oF in other words, the possiblity of substituting a dimension like the Imaginary for a kind of pseudo object tke the ego. Freud certainly drew a picture ofthis protuberance (a litle like the Vision of Europe as tiny promentory of the vast Asian continent), picture Lacan allows himself to mock, for its event that 2 formula lke the famous Wo es war, sll ich werden ~ whatever it does mean ~ ison most readings @ 380 “Ti SILENT PARTNERS. sigs thet to his on eterpis and ois cam fr Pres patron Reclaiming the wap ofthe unconscious and turing ino consciousness anderen sf consciousness: his ea cpo-enzed an Enlightenment recom Imendation ss the old Socratic “know tye at Tent on ft rein ‘wt bent fe corny th wh sais and iterative formations try desperatly to reapproprat (most ian dayeadrosn, nny TopPrenete& (ne mow Shit scms clear hat ch pctre-hinkng a8 he second the second pique which creas hr en pap che xy he Ha wihose very deployment of spatity can be insractivly contated with Tas own ater topologies = tendo ret anction called the eg and to sug that ite therapeutic treatment i something onthe order ofthe Shrinkage of a tumour On the oer hand, models ke that ofthe mior ‘age tend fatal to sues that the eg is someting ke a iso, which neste emp apo an Be dn vy wh age Bt an sion ora mirage, a mere projection or image, the ego fs none the et Sening at ovmton ihes O hot ts misleading a representation a the ol deth ofthe subject is pera Sh rata peice whch damn one of Lacan's most complicated early demonstration: the optical experiment, ivoling the itason ofthe inverted bouquet” which i edlent ofthe whole raion of perspectival assy, very much incuding the camera obscura and ft times along. with ther various phitsophical and metaphorical ‘npropriatons forthe theory of ideology) However one wishes to restge i IR compl hin the cern engl at 3 etal coneqoence, namely hat the projection, the image he bowie Uy ssulaed rights up and in he empty vases nonetheles el innge Ib not an ay nothingness, eventhough ff sheer llsion If ou toa hat ti fet ti ee ee a fr Has vt appeatance~ the opposite of cence alo neeeary and objective (iu ica ighteope to walk representation can lt elher way: towards “yawn one ea magne doling alter or towards 3 relied mental ‘int that baal he onolgieal sell of the boy. shin tha the val ofthe more consequent eandational shi tom sy goa magia nen eicing or "iva othe ext aI ete ater thao some ried picture af he Stet Tn tna Vented might imagine WK alo vents distal Soha te cere of the ans tasmich as we cannot think the hgmary without at ance ealclating i gana the dimensions of the Salt Re from which i aspera, And thi is mental LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC 381 operation very different from the kind of frestanding autonomy projected by ‘he noun tha claims to name the ego or the sel ‘But this i perhaps also the moment to sty something about an issue that has been touched on only lighly in passing here, but that one would Dedinarly that isto say, fom the standpoint of philosophy or common Saino take t be central and that i consciousness a such. I the ego so often SRoms to be accompanied by the “property of consciousness ani indeed, ‘Mtmsosable from it the same cannot be sad forthe cslectical combination ifthe Imaginary let us sy for shorthand, perception ~ and the Symbolic — hich can alo for shorthand, be identified as language. Whereis conscious TNs here Iris clear thatthe introduction of langage must subvert any TMaditional view of consciousness, in so far as thinking in words means TGhculting am externally derived system of some kind ~ a system which, Jealitom chretens the purity and immediacy of perception itself (as in Tevi-Strauay’ famous color sfstems, in which the nomenclature ofa given Fngunge inlets our exploration of what we se). Putting i the other way ound. We may ask whether this scheme adequately offers us any kind of new theory of consciousness (or indeed, whether psychoanalysis, and the work of Freud himself, does so successfully). To put this question is then to understand that Lacan decisively refuses its premises (and claims that Freud does as well, We might summarize th poston as follows: paychoanalsis asa science i predicated onthe pre- liminary bracketing o suspension ofthe alleged ‘problem of consciousness. ‘The ater is excluded ffom the problematic of psychoanalysis; and on Lacan’ view this is @ postion Freud himself already reaches in the unpublished “Ennwurfot 1898" which abandons the attempt and turns in a new direction. Tein this important move, in tur, which explain the centrality of the debate vith Descartes that runs through the seminars (and hat incdes, implicitly Sr caplet, a less significant debate with his followers in Husseian ‘Dhenomenology) Perhaps we can formulate the sense ofthis move as follows Ii he phillmophica tradition, the data of consciousness, its existential expe tices ad the like were appealed to in an effort somehow t0 define the self oF fhe subject consciousness was ek be the most immediate and realy Mise eatity to be consulted, whereas it was the self the thinking subject, the ego ofthe I, which remained obscure and enigmatic, or unformulable. ‘The Cartesian cogito then assembles and concentrates the materials of com sssnes in onder to sage the moment of appearance of the subject in its Sconces tn Lacan (for we cannot rally attribute such speculation to Freud Fmt tis the reverse the subject is perfectly tangible and readily avilable ALianply the grammatical subject. The ego is meanwhile also quite distinct sianiciccn na ohare ine iy es hcl tt a tg Be Sisal een me onc re ronger seem necessary or even relevant: consciousness wane id wance, rowing its feeblest degree in the consciousness we hs reams (not 1 pak ert nin coe a a ‘sso decon othe og coment eon ‘imtoo naareharsl aro fen ‘oh mons aa ken ih sepia ie xis ein ‘ccd une int oon en ae ease example, of the stunning gesture whereby Ca ine tomization of a specific field, namely psychoanalysis, 7 7 phenomenological idea of : cute deen Mae irmatic governed by the problem of consciousness to one ponetrod be ‘icon of dit dc tec bn oe ey Inet, few Kinds of problems faced by any theory of deste ne - '« question of sublimation sill others captured by the realy of Ws ind fetuming in the form of syntactical us more generally 1m ings problems (sch asthe very problem of the saber LACAN AND THE DIALECELE 383 Yet it sems best to conclude this discussion of incommensurabilty with the kind of representational question that has dogged us throughout (and will continue todo so): whether to name an unthinkable phenomenoa such :sincommensurabilty is pot somehow ether to clude the problem altogether ignoring the fact that cannot even be named, vetally in advance and by definition) or else to have represented i, afterall, by the very concept which ‘was supposed to have named the impossibility ofits representation. Pethaps what Ihave called Lacan's literary criticism can be briefly invoked here, at least to lay some firmer basis forthe problem, Indeed, we remember thatthe idea ofthe sinthome developed for Joyce in the 1975-1976 Seminar) ‘was conceived precisely asa kind of supplementary ring that hed the three incommensurable Borvomean rings together in a situation in which they right otherwise have fon apt, leaving the subject in a state of madnes ‘The idea of art asa kind of heightened therapy isnot unfamiliar, 0 be sure, ‘but this one atleast suggests that art as to have something to do with all three dimensions and yt, ast were, also to stand ouside them, holding them together ~ jus as in abstract language, the very term incommensurable sought toda, From this, the notion of allegory is not far; and everyone has grasped, swith varying degrees of admiration or irtaion, the allegorical nature ofthe reading of "The Purloined Letter’ But most readings of this reading are incomplete, since they see it merely as an allegory of the Symbolic, the ‘wiparite sytem of postions, and remark on its doubles only to accuse Lacan ‘of leaving that level of stracture out.” In fact, however, the rectification of thie ‘omission restores the larger meaning, of Lacan's own allegorical inter- prctation, which can be deseribed as the surmounting of the Imaginary (the ‘doubles) bythe Symbolic as such the triangular structure). ‘Buta this example i overly familias, we would! do wel to consult another ‘namely, te reading of Irma's dream in the first Seminar. Biographical inter pretations of this fist ofall dreams to be analysed have ustully enlarge a personal context Freud was none too eager to disclose in public: thus we [know thatthe gilt Preua fle about his favty treatment af Irma (and, behind Ihr his own father) goes along way towards explaining the kind of wish of ‘which this was fulslment. More recently it hasbeen sugested that the guilt ‘was in realty that of Flies, so that Fre’ own wishful finds itslt enlarged to include a virtual alter ego (analysts have never quite been sare ‘whether t clasiythis as an ego-ieal or an ideal ego), Lacan takes a om pletely diffrent tac here by enumerating the proliferation of triads in the ‘ream, from the ancillary male figures to the female ones, and finally the trimethalyne (whose odour of sexuality ‘emergence ofthe enigmatic form 384 THE SILENT PaRtwe} be sao the ist o point out For Lacan, such wpa stings =e SRI m th amp: mathe se hh es a ae {nsallaon ofthe Symbolic onder and its hegemony ove acs ‘thi point he, the algory has come o ten ot ace a a ens whichis confirmed theextaonnay ding eee bolic as such Ths the ew “ ba ch Te ‘on graven images “ints the lneion se inunction on the Sath create that cra eens which ae webav sen, keene othe emtrntoneys Sake ith whi Lacan caclues his entmeraion {the commence supposed to bring itint being), In any cha tne at oder rexracuration of algry ftom some mere june of ene ‘nes comple nw wy of hing an eet whe ac eae meena ttre pene natn Smetana tacks mcarboy ne ilabry Scan ie a ef fe tt ft "It2+0y aif yOu pref, the problem ofthe multiplication afer ee ‘AN oe ofthe fundamental determinants the \yiettul iletication ofthe problem ef modes of pariocene get ison cae ects Rew hsv conten ore ‘where that he following fat mark by Renee om rescaling designation ofthe linguistic poo wey lest cannes ait problems from LACAN AND THE DIALEETIC 385, {ve noticed gsi and again that tempol in wating lengthy work to tse the same words ays the sme see. There no language rch enovgh to supply terms and expressions sufficient for the maifatons of our Wess. ‘Thenmetod of defining every term and constanly sbatituting the deinen of the term defined looks wel bat itis mprcticble, For how ean we eae from bur vicious ce? Definitions would be all very wal we dd not use words in {he making of Gem. ln spte of tis Iam cavingd that even in our Poot language we ean make ur meaning le, not by always sing words athe same sense, bury taking are that every ime we usa word the sens in which we se iti sufficiently indicated by the sense of the conten, hat each sentence in ‘which the word ours acta or of definition Sometimes [say ciren ate Incapable of reasoning. Sometimes [say they reason clever. T must adi that ry wots ar often contradictory, but | do ok think thee f any contradiction inmy ideas? ove can one st of words mean several different things at once, in a kind of ‘semantic punning whic, far from disintegrating into an idiosyncratic bubble (lalangue), systematically opens up several distint fields all at once, and serves as the operator for thir relationship? Lacan's discesion of metaphor and mietoaymy ~ symptom and deste, condensation and displacement ~ has seemed to offer some critics a handle capable of turning the theory around and reading it as the simple example or subset of an entirely diffrent problem, that of textualty. Thus in a now classical work" Lacoue-Labarthe land Naney generalize the Lacanian ‘system’ as kind of unacknowledged Niewschean metaphoricity which serves to assert she urgency and privity of its own ostensible content above the (for them) more fundamental question of the distintion between philosophy and literature. But the slippage of Signifieds which isthe principal exhibit here is for Lacan a characteristic ‘of metonyny rather than of metaphor, meant to designate the infinite sub- stitution of new objects of deste, and indeed the movement of jouisance itself beyond this or that thematized pleasure and on into the always-absent realm of that ‘beyond! which is Thanatos. Nor is metaphor ~ the symptomatic collapse of sigifieds into the body itself ~ the proper Lacanan designation for whatisatiemed here asthe space of th literary a problem which ison my view not the centeal one, but one which would certainly presuppose some preliminary attention to that related enigma of sublimation. “Tpikes mare recent example: one a the major critical poles i Judith Butler's Antigone’ Cain ie based on her premise that i Lacan the Sym- bolic & radically separated from the socal: this means that (leaving Freud aside) Lacan’s structural psychoanalysis will always be implicily or explicitly historical and thus anti-political ~ something that has frequently been 386 THE SILENT Pane ined the context of rac vision in Lacan, and soon the bass of Ssormega panacea eri Be hoon scaly ce re ht texan wmer core siento ofl Tie deers awl Baers plein iii jaws meanings of big (the ig Other throudion hee ial let th dew ee scomes the very nodal point of Butler's case. “indo it ert aol ‘Saar te ange an he ch dat tc oe he "hea 120-Steat fusion and identification with one another ‘e ERR se Ines of Kship which, or Le Surin ae nen ae Cg aa a eign nage Wi eae cia a n/a ah cde al ae lan Synblic carries ats heart. So one wants to cide Reg Lacan feunite them into a different strategy: to affirm the hig Awe penn isla igmmntci iicenean hana bk in te saci ico oo dea a 7 erin otms of the family, let alone Lévi-Strauss’s ca re, Hutler’s feeling that any affirmation of this po ti “ vn ae con the Law stands as c IDsr sce nape oa hr ha sr i. eer eb a ta rl gh eae a neh tle tm simply to denounce Li tt aon “si i i at ait Sr ori ee bance “ota iat ‘er onctThe things arth same and Ws ea a eee | | LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC 387 that they appear distinguishable, inthe form of physical individuals on the fone hand and articulated language on the other. Language appears outside, tnd s0 does individuality (which, forthe self, serves only atthe moment of the mirror stage, and the formation of the ego). But this sso fer merely an empirical or developmental account, which takes no notice of what is dis Fino, unigue and incommensurable about A (or the Symbolic order). Nor dacs it provide ws with any description of how conflation or differentiation, identification and separation, between these various realms ate to. be theorize For Ais not only the murmur we have evoked: it is among other things, an Otherness quite beyond the Imaginary dualism ofthe mother’s body, oF the other adults of whatever sx wh hold the infint. This Otherness then cxytallze ito the Father; but aso into God, or the Master, oF the ‘subject supposed to know’. So it isthe place of knowledge filly as much as that of language, and power and authority as well (but in Lacan, does that turn fon the phallus or on the los and the theat of loss, the castration, of the phallus). Meanwhile, is there anything theret Oris big A dead long since, And the space of the Symbolic somehow permanently vacant: an empty yet Indispensable function, lke Hegel's monarchy? These levels, their content, And their teansatailty into one another are, of couse the substance ofthe ‘doctrine itsel ‘What I am more interested in for the moment is the mechanics of the movement from ane level to another: not only the rules oftheir trans latabilty ut the process itself (and only after that, perhaps its philosophical legitimacy). That we have to do here with something rather diferent from Jakabsonian metaphor and metonymy can be quickly shown, The siting of gears whereby big A ceases tobe some kind of distant yt anthropomorphic (Other and gets identified as Language isnot the metonymie movement from fone object of desire to another which gets substituted for the fist. There is certainly a proces of substitution here, in which one discussion and, indeed, fone whole code takes the place of another, withthe assurance thai we ate somehow still king about the same ching; but this is not a movement of ‘desire, nor do we leave behind the previous object with some renewed sense fof wellnigh Romantic longing, and of the infinite beyond and nom: satisfaction of all desire. Rather, this particular substitution is ako an identif- ation which isan enlargement of the previous theme that changes its focus altogether: more like the Abschatungen of the phenomenologss, by which fone aspect and then a radically different one ~ the elephants hide, and then its tall and tsks~ are oncutivelyeeeaed to us, ‘Gan ther, someon pak of he presen terms of 9 many level of ‘We can, for example o Sauare operates by taking om the o serve the way in which the Gcimasan sem poss of is own sony hehe itis not exacy correct fo dene oes impiy moving om one esse a yhamism necessary to set 2 whole eal satan nemies of my friends, This why 4 translation proces, for we are Inert and without the dy that tis some kind ct cmp tet the firma sry of eld ofthe othr in Kind of concer Pelion, Nor sit altogether prope ear e Fe thot of as the ' the metaphy ‘wel whereas the alg ‘nies the dving principles ical process with wh “el bose with which we have to do hee topes ina temp ss Shonthtole aching vat nttens come ofthe tem sie ort anethes wee sitar yhewmnin, The movement ines ee MEY Unt sre gh ol kms with hae forename ice ee Terese is pase on top A are ee LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC 389 With ite a (or the Imaginary) atthe sme time a it opens up an unrelated and rather more metaphysical dimension in the opposition between the Symbolic andthe Rel For it seems to me thatthe latter (which can seemingly never be looked at directly et alone theorized — bat only glimpsed laterally, out ofthe comer of the eye) is best understood in terms ofthe ld Satrean eno, being in-iself beyond all consciousness (the pour so), about which only three meagre pro- positions can be affirmed! i i itis what it i i is in itslE This massive ‘undifferentiated Real is then somehow impacted by language in such a way that we can call any differentiation within ta linguistic oF ‘symbolic’ one, Anything that sts up a rift within the being ofthe Real is thereby in advance and virtually by definition the Symbolic; and it fllows thatthe frst form of, ‘the Symbolie wil probably be arithmetical. The very word ‘one’ then tigers an immediate fsion throughout Being isl atthe same time asitbrings the primal dilemmas of philosophy and metaphysics into existence. But perhaps, tren in that example, the word has to precede and incude the number: for finally itis nomenclature itself which marks the colonization of the Real by the Symbolic, Names offer the fst and the ultimate difeentiations and this is abo why it scems unduly restrictive for Judith Butler to identify the Lacanian Symbolic with the Lévi-Strauss kinship systems alone (although they certainly offered a decisive lesson in its theorization). For surely any kind of relational nomenclature, however it functions and whatever social ‘order or disorder i gives rise to, exemplifies the Symbolic: only the absence of nomenclature (or the return to purely Imaginary or dual relationships) ‘would permit escape from i, but by way of what one can only think 3s 3 traumatic Verwesfung or forecusion. At any eat, it is clear from this local discussion that even within the chain of slipped sigifieds there will bbe aditional shits within each term depending on how its relationship defines it “Meanwhile the proces its can yield a clue to the overall Seminar form, otherwise thought ofa a rlatively aimless oral delivery in which (a in the classic serials) the point is never reached but always deferred, and whose famndamental category ~ alongside the summary of pest lessons ~ seems to be the digression, Buti such dgresions are now understood to bea shifting of eats predicated on this very ‘chain or ladder of signifieds’ we have been tliscusting here, then it becomes clearer that they are enlargements rathet than deviations or extraneous incidents, movements up or dove into ether versions ofthe sane space. Th whole seminar then, with its obligatory new dea or new matheme each yea, its Jocal returns and its proeptic topics designs @ unique and massive trajectory across time and acros the years one 390 me sity whose kinship with the ve ‘temporality ofthe analytic session Lacan himself has Novare thse aca Nor ane hese aso of th dec me seein mitt fe Ta ine ety the omer wherein weno wo be dine rm nario mth of what is ant-lectcal ody should have Bees neers one those German Romanti My ce Romans who made a of ony agg eS insistence on th 1 impos ot any ont Subs has onthe ther han, come ok a 2 huts (fom Dears to Bese) oe ‘een incommen- rion aon im) a atta fa ‘rather metaphysical affirmation, one would: think) 7 calc ees fl ng edt feta ot Mw co LACAN AND THE DIALECTIC 39

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