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    Derrida or Lacan

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    Derrida or Lacan: The Revolutionary’s Choice On the “Plural Logic of the Aporia” in Deconstruction and Lacanian Psychoanalysis A thesis presented by Andrea Hurst to the Faculty of the Depastment of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Directed by Dr. John D. Caputo Villanova University Villanova, PA May 2006 UMI Number: 3211270 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality ilustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscrist and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized ‘copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion UMI UMI Microform 3211270 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 ‘Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 To Bert The wind in my sails ii CONTENTS Abstract Introduction, “For the Love of Lacan” Part One. From Transcendentals to Quasi-Transcendentals Chapter 1, Freud and the Transcendental Relation Introductory Remarks: Psychopathology and the Uinconscious, 1. Pleasure and the Drives, ‘The Precipitation of Subjective Agency (Id, Ego and Superego) The Development of Synthetic Processing 3.1. The “Id” and Primary Processing 3.2. The “Ego” and Secondary Processing, 3.3. The Question of Language 4. Libidinal Vicissitudes Concluding Remarks 2 3. Chapter 2. Derrida: Différance and the “Plural Logi Introductory Remarks: Questions of Interpretation 1. Rory’s Double Vision 2. Différance and the “Plural Logic of the Aporia” 2.1 Différance as Temporization and the Economie Aporia 2. Différance as Spacing and the Aneconomic Aporia 3. The Aporia of the Aporias: Paradoxical Articulation 3. The Analogy of the Gift Concluding Remarks: Deconstructive Reading Part Two. Derrida Reading Freud: The Paradoxes of Archivization of the Aporia” 2 Chapter 3. The Im-Possibility of the Psyche Introductory Remarks: Derrida’s First Thesis in Outline 1. The Project: Freud’s “Psyche” is Inreducible to Mniiné 1.1 A Reconstruction of Freud’s Model 1.2. Dertida’s Response 2. The “Interpretation of Dreams”: Freud's “Psyche” is Irreducible to Anamneésis 2.1 The Dream-Work 2.2 First Reading: The Feonomies of Anarnésis (Translation and Interpretation) 2.3 Second Reading: The Impossibility of Translation 2.4 Freud’s Economic Recapitulation to Metaphysics 3. The “Note Upon the ‘Mystic Writing Pad”; Freud’s “Psyche” and Hyponmesis Chapter 4, The Death Drive and the Im-Possibility of Psychoanalysis Introductory Remarks: The .Aporetic Complesity of the Death Drive 1. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”: Introducing the Death Drive 2. ‘The Constitution of the Psyche: Desrida’s Second Thesis 2.1 The Death Drive as Condition of the Possibility of the Archive iti 9 80 162 162 164 181 184, 2.2. The Death Drive as Ruin of the Archive 3. Psychoanalysis and the Death Drive 3.1 Resistance in Analysis/ Analysis as Economic 3.2. Resistance to Analysis/ Analysis as Polemic and Exotic 3.3 Resistance as Absolute/ Analysis as Synthesis Concluding Remarks Chapter 5. Institutional Psychoanalysis and the Paradoxes of Archivization Introductory Remarks: Dertida’s Third Thesis in Outline 1. Freud’ Insight into the Structure of the Archontie Circle LI Freud’s Myth of Patricide in Totem and Taboo 1.2 Frend’s Classical Articulation of the Oedipus Comples 1.3 The Masculine Oedipus Complex 14 The Feminine Oedipus Complex 2. Invention/Convention: Derrida’s Analysis of Freud’s Economic Recapitulation Concluding remarks Part 3, Lacan and the “Plural Logic of the Aporia” Chapter 6, The Lacanian Real Introductory Remarks 1. The Real as Trauma: A Reading of Ti and Automaton 1.1 The Automaton 1.2. The Tuché 121 Trauma 1.2.2 The Dream 1.23 Kierkegaard’s Repetition 1.24 “Fottda” 2. ‘The Real and Inventive Sublimation: The Lesson of Set Theory 2.1 Nominalism and the Aneconomic Aporia 2.2 Universalism and the Economic Aporia 2.3. Inventive Sublimation Chapter 7. Lacan's Transcendental Relation and the “Plural Logic of the Aporia” Introductory Remarks: Immortality 1. The Nebenmensch-Complex 1.1 The Primary Castration of the Other and the Lacking-I 2 The Masculine Death Drive: An Economic Reading 1.3. Feminine Suspicion 14 The Feminine Death Drive: An Aneconomic Reading 1.5. Feminine Sublimation: Aporia of Paradox The Fraternal-Complex: Narcissism, Self Sublimation, and Aggressivity 21 The Mirror Stage and Ager 2.2. The Masculine Libidinal Stele 2.3 The Feminine Libidinal Style 24 The Feminine Paradox sivity 3. ‘The Paternal-Comples: Law, Transgression and the Sex/Civilization Antinomy iv 188 193, 196 199 202 2u 24 214 216 216 226 234 239 246 249 261 261 262 262 263 265 a 274 284 287 288 289) 290 295 295 298 299 303 306 308 310) 313. Bit 320 324 326 328, Chapter 8. The Death Drive and Ethical Action Introductory Remarks 1. Hegel's Antigone and Ethical Fanaticism 2. The Lacanian/Derridean Challenge to Hegel's Resolution 3. Conventional Morality as Represented in Tie Sea Inside 4. Lacan and the Ethics of Psychoanalysis 4.1 The Masculine Death Drive and the Ideological Paranoia of the Priest 42. Feminine Transgression: Hysteria and Eretnal Irony 4.3. Feminine Inventive Sublimation: Rosa Concluding Remarks Chapter 9. The Talking Cure: Language and the “Analyst” Introductory Remarks 1. Synopsis of Poe's “The Purloined Letter” 2. The Real, Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter” 2.1 “The Drama” as Synonym for the “Impossible Real” 2.2 The Narration asa Function of the Imaginary Order 2.3. The Conditions of Nartation as Determined by the Symbolic Order 23.1 The Masculine Glance 2.3.2 The Feminine Glance 23.3. The Analytical Glance 3. ‘The Twist in the Tale: The Desire for Mastery and the Logic of Retrogression 3.1 The Retrogressive Slip from Transgressive Insight to Blindness 3.2. The Retrogressive Slip from Analytical Insight to Blindness 4. Psychoanalytical Intervention Concluding Remarks: The Analyst to Come Conclusion. To do Justice to Lacan Bibliography 304 3M 340) 345 349 351 337 360 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study grew out of an exchange of ideas with Bert Olivier, who was wrestling with Lacanian psychoanalytic theory while I was similarly engaged with Derrida’s quasi- transcendental thinking, It was he who first suggested to me that there were moments in Lacan’s writing that readily agreed with the logic of Derrida’s thinking, and that a deeper study of an accord between them held promise. There were, of course, many moments when I cursed him for ever having tempted me along this tortuous path, and perhaps many more when he cursed himself for having exchanged the patient ear of his understanding, interlocutor, lover, and hiking partner for the unsympathetic, selé-involved and distant creature ficing the computer screen. Nevertheless, through the inevitable ups and downs, he hhas heen, as always, the relentlessly persistent, if restless ~ being of romantic temperament ~ wwind in my sails. Ir is with my deepest thanks thar I have dedicated this text to Bert, without whom there would be for me the paralyzing bliss of a calm life. There are more people than it is possible to mention who deserve my thanks and appreciation, but first and foremost I am greatly honored to have had Dr. John Caputo, Dr. Joan Copjec and Dr. Thomas Busch as constant companions, although they may not always have been consciously aware of their extensive spectral travels to distant African shores. I am particularly grateful for the gift from both Jack Caputo and Joan Copjec of a fair, balanced and open-minded hearing, As lovers of Derrida and Lacan respectively they represent the antagonistic discourses that I have tried to bring into conversation; yet both have reaffirmed in their practice the quintessential philosophical attitude inscribed in Aristotle’s insistence that his love for philosophy supercedes his love for Plato. I would like to express my gratitude to the intellectual community at Villanova University, and particularly the Philosophy Department, for extending the gift of learning across international borders. Here I would specially like to thank a fellow graduate student and political philosopher, Farhang Erfani, not only for some illuminating discussions concerning politics, but also for his hospitality and continuing friendship. Finally, a special word of acknowledgement and thanks to my family and friends who have had to put up with egregious neglect for far too long. vi ABSTRACT Derrida emphasizes a political obligation to confront Lacan’s difficult thinking, since it rebels against normalization. Lacan in turn encourages such critical appropriation. Seemingly tied together by mutual respect and resistance, itis fair to expect a dynamic interchange of ideas berween Desrideans and Lacanians. Yet, for comples reasons, one is regularly confronted with mutual resentment and misconstruction and the interface berween deconstruction and psychoanalysis risks becoming a limiting border rather than a permeable space of generative cross-fertilization. Contrary to the adversarial trend in the Lacan/Dertida encounters, this study aims to justify the claim thar the logical structure underpinning Lacanian psychoanalytic theory is a complex, paradoxical selationality that precisely matches a key that Destida offers for gaining, access to his own quasi-transcendental thinking, namely the “plural logic of the aporia.” Derrida here formalizes the strictures imposed by three forms of aporia; namely the economic, the aneconomic, and the aporia of the aporias, or the double bind that arises because the first nwo aporias are joined together as a parados. Lacan theorizes the subject-other relation as a plural structure consisting of three articulated subject-other complexes. In turn, he finds that all three complexes are split benween opposing libidinal styles ~ associated with either side of the aporetic death drive, and divided along the lines of sexual difference — which one may call “masculine paranoia” and “feminine hysteria.” He names the logic of their articulation the “vel of alienation.” The Hegelian lose /lose proposed here is that in choosing one the other is lost; yet, because they are interdependent, this is also thereby to lose the original choice. Lacan, therefore, refuses the limitations of a choice berween these related aporias and (as does Derrida) prefers a third stance, which invokes the figure of parados. To establish an accord berween these two thinkers on the basis of this logical match has the value of dismantling misconstructions on both sides, and opening the way to a more productive theoretical interchange berween Derridean deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the significance which is tied to the importance for dealing with practical issues in everyday life, claimed for both discourses. Introduction “For the Love of Lacan” And it is with this event, this justly deserved and spectacular homage to Lacan, that I was happy to be asked to associate myself. Not only but also because, in our time — and I mean the time of culture and especially Parisian culture — I find a political significance in this homage. I consider it an act of cultural resistance to pay homage publicly to a difficult form of thought, discourse, ot writing, one which does not submit easily to normalization by the media, by academics, or by publishers, one which rebels against the restoration currently underway, against the philosophical or theoretical neo-conformism in general (let us not even mention literatnre) that flattens and levels everything around us, in an attempt to make one forget what the Lacan era was, along with the future and the promise of his thought, thereby erasing the nanre of Lacan, As you know, there are countless ways to do this, sometimes very paradoxical ways in his lifetime, Lacan underwent the experience dubbed “excommunication.” Some of those who claim to draw on Lacan’s name, and not just his legacy, can be not the least active or the least effective in this operation. Here, once again, the logic of the “service rendered” is highly tricky, and censorship, suturing, and defence of orthodoxy do not in the least exclucle ~ quite the contrary — a facade of cultural eclecticism, Whether one is talking about philosophy, psychoanalysis, or theory in general, what the flat-footed restoration underway attempts to recover, disavow, or censor is the fact that nothing of that which managed to transform the space of thought in the last decades would have been possible without some coming to terms swish Lacan, without the Lacanian provocation, however one receives it or discusses it and, I will add, without some coming to terms 2h Lacan in his coming to terms with the philosophers.‘ Iris as if it were precisely upon reaching the impasse to which my discourse is, designed to lead them that they considered their work done, declaring themselves ~ or rather declaring me, which amounts to the same thing given their conclusions confounded.” Dettida, it would seem, loves Lacan. Its, he insists, “for the love of Lacan” that he emphasizes the important political obligation to embrace a difficult thinking that rebels, against normalization, Lacan in turn is not enticely averse to being loved by Dezrideans. Concerning a certain deconstructive reading, Lacan is quoted as saying “I can say, in a way, if » Jacques Derrida, “For the Love of Lacan,” in Resin af Pachaanasins, te. Peggy Karmuf, Paseale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas (California: Stanford University Press, 1998), 46 2 Jacques Lacan, On Fevinne Sexnaliy, The Limit f Lave and Knowle Miller, t. Bruce Fink (New York: WW. Norton, 1998), 65-66. Encore, Seminar XX), ed, Jucques-Alain it is a question of reading, that I have never been read so well — with so much love.”* Narurally enough, Dertida’s love would not be unconditional: “As alwars, Lacan left me the greatest freedom of interpretation, and as always I would have taken it even if he had not left it to me, as it will have pleased me.” One must, of course, read Lacan’s tests with deconstructive vigilance, and, at least on the face of it, this is what Derrida aims to do. In turn, Lacanian psychoanalysis in principle must encourage inventive interpretation and independent thinking on the part of his readers. Lacan, reflecting upon the “veritable aporia” of the Freudian doctrine, again on the face of it, does nor expect unconditional love. To the contrary, he insists All of us share an experience based upon a technique, a system of concepts to which ‘we remain faithful, partly because this system was developed by the man who opened up to us all the ways to that experience, and partly because it beats the living mark of the different stages of its elaboration. That is to say, contrary to the dogmatism that is sometimes imputed to us, we know that this system remains open both as a whole and in several of its articulations.” Seemingly tied cogether by mutual respect and resistance, itis fair to espect a Dertidean/Lacanian philosophical legacy that reflects a dynamic interchange of ideas. Yet, for a comples set of reasons, there is relatively lite productive interchange benween, deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis. If Derrida and Lacan are named together with mantric regularity under the general banner of “p tructuralism,” mote detailed work on the shape of an accord between theit discourses is telatively scarce. One is more commonly confronted with mutual ignorance of resentment between Derrideans and Lacanians, and interchanges characterized by clear misconstructions of either Derrida’s thinking or Lacan's, This i a reference to the following essay by Jean-Luc Nancy & Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: The Tt ofthe Lets A Reading of Lac, x. Feangois Raffoul and David Pettigrew (Albany: Stare University of New York Press, 1992), ‘Derrida, “Love of Lacan,” SL $ Jacques Lacan, “Aguressivity in Psychoanal 1577), 8 n Exits A ehstion, tt. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, or both. In consequence, the interface berween deconstruction and psychoanalysis is at risk of becoming a limiting border rather than a permeable space of generative cross-fertilization. ‘The misunderstanding that trumps all misunderstandings concerning Detrida’s thinking, as John Caputo points out, is the argument that he has destroyed his own grounds for protest about being misunderstood, since his so-called “anything goes” postmodernism undermines the very idea that there can be such a thing as misunderstanding.’ There are two versions of this misunderstanding, ‘The first is derived from a catchphrase whose slipping from the pen Derrida, and those who love him, have good reason to regret sorely, namely “i st”) Many take this phrase as confirmation of ny a pas de boretexte” (thete is no outside-t Desrida’s apparently uninhibited celebration of an utterly nominalist, relatvise Freeplay of differences, supposedly based on the premise that there is nothing “our there” beyond the test, which dooms us to the infinite play of texts upon texts upon tests, all of indifferently equivalent non-value and endlessly referring to nothing but themselves. Derrida persistently and explicitly rejects this misreading, which is the contemporary equivalent of Hegel’s mistaken characterization of Kant’s “transcendental turn” as a subjective idealism, and it may be subjected to the same kind of rejoinder; namely, that transcendental constitution does not create existence, but interprets or synthesizes what is given, thereby constituting a phenomenal world.* Dervida’s phrase “there is no outside-text” makes the equivalent claim. John D, Caputo, ed, and commentary, Devonsnution ie a Netball A Consraton nth lacgnes Dorie (New York Fordham University Press, 1997), 4 Jacques Dersida, O/ Gransastoey, t. Gayatei Chakravorty Spival (Baltimore: The Johas Hopkins University Pres, 19 For Hegel's attempt to bend Kans erica philosophy into the shape of subjective idealism, see for example GNCE. Hegel, “Cetical Philosophy,” in Tie Lagi of Hlege, in The Englopania ofthe Phiosaphical Scena, Stoad Editor, . Wiliam Wallace (Ostord: Oxford Universite Peess, 1968)- On Hegel’s account, “Kant and his philosophy.” amounts to a self-conceited, gravely defective, and basbasously Formulated “subjective idealism,” {o which, he comments, “plain minds have not unreasonably taken exception” (85-54). Kant, he claims, “holds ‘hac both the form and the matter of knowledge are supplied by the Ego ~ ot knowing subject ~ the form by ‘our intellectual, the matter by our sentient ego” (90). He takes this to be a simple ease of “the reduction of the facts of consciousness toa purely personal world, created by ourselves alone” (93), Its time, he insists to move beyond the “ugh look” (89) of Kantian philosophy to “the true statement of the ease” (93), which amounts to “Something” must occur before there can be interpretation (ie. tests), but there are no uuninterpreted objects for us because itis precisely through the process of interpretation that they 1e first constituted as elements that belong to a phenomenal reality. In his words: Thelieve always in the necessity of being attentive first of all to this phenomenon of language, naming, and dating, to this repetition compulsion (at once rhetorical, magical, and poetic). To what this compulsion signifies, translates, or betrays. Not in order to isolate ourselves in language, as people in too much of a rush would like us to believe, but on the contrary, in order to try to understand what is going on precisely yond language and what is pushing us to repeat endlessly and without knowing what we are talking about, precisely there where language and the concept come up against their limits. Again, as Caputo puts it: We ate always inside/outside rextuality, for rextuality makes it possible to say everything we say about the individual, including that the individual is ineffable, which is the most striking thing we say about individuals. But textuality makes ic impossible that we would ever seach a puse, wamediaced, naked, pre-textual, ua- textual, de-contextualized fact of the matter.! One may address this problematic in terms of the tension between “essentialism” and “nominalism” where the difference is articulated as follows. From a purely essentialist point of view, what exists as the real “thing” (as endusingly present for all time, or endles repeatable as the same) is a universal eidetic structure or essence rather than any particular instance of it. In this case, its conceptual articulation or hermeneutic construal is open to error or decay, and its name, or the nominal unity that deseribes it, functions merely sa convenient, arbitrary labeling service for this construal. From a purely nominalist point of hic own “absolute idealism.” For the Kantian rejoinder, which acknowledges that “existence cannot be constructed” see for example: Immaauel Kant, Crtigne of Pure Reaso, . Noa Kemp Smith (London: Macmilla, 1953), .\160//B199 4179/B222. Again, Kant insists thar “Whether othee perceptions than those belonging to our whole possible experience, and therefore a quit different field of mates, mar exist, the understanding is not in a position to decide. [e son deal on sith the sytesi af thar which ir gen” (4230-231 /B283- 284; my emphasis. Jacques Derrida, “ Autoimmunity: Real and Ssmbolie Suicides,” in Philp in a Time of Toor: Diangs ith Jeger Habermas and} ids, e€ 8 commentary. Giovanna Bossadori (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 87-88. John D. Caputo, gaint Ethie: Contributions ta Paster of Obligation vith Constont Re Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 78 nme to Daconsrstion ‘ew, on the other hand, what exists as the real entity is the particular instance, which is considered to be unique and unrepeatable, For pragmatic reasons, we impose a certain repeatability and therefore “thing-quality” or durability, on such unique events by means of hermeneutic constructions, or, that is, by imposing nominal unities. In this case, what has any kind of endurance at all is no essence, but the imposed nominal unity, whose repeatability is a matter of habit, convention, and pragmatism. Erase the nominal unity and nothing remains. To insist on the instability of the conditions for hermeneutic and linguistic security, therefore, is to insist that all becomes a matter of unregulated freeplay. Derrida, as T see it, rejects the necessity of a choice between essentialism and nominalism, and chooses instead ro negotiate the contaminated and treacherous path of an anti-essentialism that must therefore risk becoming a form of nominalism: a quasi nominalism that does not fall prey to the excesses of pure nominalism. Or, rice versa, he treads the path of an anti-nominalism that risks becoming a quasi-essentialism, One may borrow from psychoanalytic theory one of the most accessible among very many figures offered for grasping this alternative; namely, that of “trauma.” I assume here that the term “trauma” denotes an event that both cannot and must be assimilated into the everyday economy of sense, Notably, “trauma” does not necessarily denote only “negative” events of pain and suffering. Love, joy and unexpected success, for example, ean be equally traumatic. Whatever the case, a traumatic event in principle “wounds,” unsettles, and violates the comfortable fabric of one’s habitually experienced world, ‘The figure of trauma offers a negotiated position berween essentialism and nominalism in the following way. A traumatic event happens as that which so exceeds the framework of ordinary experience for a person or group that it cannot be accommodated within this framework, Even though it is not in itself a fully present thing or essence, it 6 remains and repeats itself precisely because itis impossible co assimilate. The imperative, nevertheless, to accommodate this “unspeakable” event calls the wounded to the task of hermeneutic construal, of “speaking it,” or of gathering it into a nominal unity, which aims to make it “fit.” To make sense of it, as one must, is to make of it a thing in the world, and in this sense to bring it into being for the first time. This is the sense in which the nominal unity, and not the trauma itself is the thing in the world.” Bur this represents only a quasi-nominalism, for something that cannot be assimilated remains after and beyond every possible construal. Since in principle the traumatic event cannot “fit” the constituted world of the affected person or group, it remains as a surplus that exceeds any nominal unity, repeating itself as a rent in the fabric of this world, which calls constantly for further hermeneutic work. Even after the operations of interpreting, speaking, or constituting, have brought the event into being, itis chis unspeakable “remaining behind” that keeps calling again and again for a repetition of the operation by which itis brought into being. In other words, even if all such construals were to be erased, one is not left with nothing, but something in the event of which these are construals, which is impossible ever to define precisely and remains more or less resistant to different hermeneutic construals. The nominal unity, then, cannot replace the trauma, which remains independently of it as “something” that has happened, and itis this remaining that allows us to speak hese of a quasi-essentialism." What Derrida goes on to challenge, then, is not Kant’s “transcendental turn,” but his interpretation of interpretation, which, for the sake of epistemological certainty, not only 2" For a fuller discussion ofa viable form of nominalism in Derrda’s thinking sce Caputo, Against Eihis, 72-79, 22 While, for example, one eannot say of the traumatic event masked by the neminal unity “9, L1” precisely \whac iti, there is sufficient eause provided by the event itself for ensusing chat Iwill make litle headsay FT construe it asa propaganda event, engineered by the Chinese government to showease the insanity of in- fighting among Western religions in order to promote the wisdom of the Tae Tle Ching makes of the event “beyond language” a “thing: itself,” which must be postulated as sublimely present behind the phenomenal interpretation even if its inaccessible as such, but also presupposes that the rules for synthesis, or one could also say interpretative or linguistic processes, can be understood as a unified set of robust transcendental conditions. The second misconception of Desrida’s thinking dexives from this phrase, “interpretation of interpretation.” He is often correctly cited as describing two interpretations of interpretation, one that remains nostalgic for the kind of totalizing system of synthetic rules that Kant envisaged, and one that affirms the freeplay of interpretative differences." He explicitly insists, in accordance with what he later calls the “plural logic of the aporia” (will return shortly to this axial notion), that it is never a matter of choosing between them. Nevertheless, time and again he is taken to have made precisely a choice (for the side of unregulated play) that he expressly interdicts, Claims that Derridean thinking represents a cynical version of “anything goes” postmodernism, based on such arguments, could only be the consequence of not having read his tests with sufficient care."* By now this kind of misconception should have given way to more balanced treatments of his thinking. Its persistence, nevertheless, can probably be attributed to the fact that it suits enthusiasts, who desire his endorsement for various “anything goes” stratagems, as much as detractors; both of whom tead his tests highly selectively, taking snippets here and there to support one- sided agendas. Even though the majority Derrida’s texts reveal a sustained engagement with psychoanalysis, his readings on topics other than language and the “purloined letter,” draw litle explicit attention from Lacanian theorists, and citations more often than not take the » Jacques Derrida te, Alan Bass, 2 . ''Capsata makes this point ia Dasnitretin i 0 and Phy in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in Wining and Dijon, sof Chicago Press, London: Routledge & Kegan, 19°8), 2923. shel, M0 form of typical misconstructions, For example, in a collection thematizing Lacan’s theory of discourse, there is but a single reference to Derrida, which refers to Jacqnes-Alain Miller's claim that in contrast to intellectuals such as Derrida, Lacan “saw patients”: that is, he put his theories to work in the world outside the esoteric selé-referemtial circle of the academic text." More importantly, when reference is made to Derrida, it is often to his early work on the sign, which is reduced to an endorsement of freeplay; a misreading that precludes serious engagement with his later writings on ethical issues in the broadest sense of the term, which are in constant dialogue with psychoanahy Kj Silverma ipproach to Derrida’s work provides a clear, but by no means unique, example of this reduction. In Th Subject of Semiotics she focuses on his commitment to “the endless commutability of che signified” together with the “principle of deferral,” which is taken to mean simply that “signification occurs along a chain in which one term displaces another before being itself displaced.” These commitments are brought together under the notion of “free play.”"* While Silverman’s observations are not inaccurate, and Derrida does indeed insist on this “aneconomic” interpretation of difénanee (naming it “

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