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Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis
American Imago, Volume 58, Number 3, Fall 2001, pp. 685-706 (Article)
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DOI: 10.1353/aim.2001.0014
Introduction
685
686 Postures and Impostures
Questions of Style
that we are already familiar with. This means, for Lacan, that in
understanding the patient’s discourse analysts understand
only what they are already familiar with. Instead of accessing
the patient in his or her uniqueness, instead of being open to
something new and different, analysts effectively reinforce
their own self-understanding.
No doubt it is unsettling when we are confronted with
something we cannot immediately understand. No doubt it is
comforting to believe that we understand each other and that
we all share certain aspirations and standards of morality. But,
Lacan wants to claim, this comes at a price. The price we pay
for an undue reliance on immediate understanding is an
unthinking acceptance of premises we have come to rely on
and that cease to elicit the need for justification. Think, for
instance, of the ideal of pedagogy. This is often taken as an
unquestioned ideal that requires no justification.
Ultimately, Lacan’s point is an ethical one, finding appli-
cation not just in the clinic, but in theoretical work and
quotidian life as well. It has to do with taking responsibility for
one’s understanding, rather than relying on a consensus of
understanding. And the strategy he chose to adopt in this
regard involved systematically creating a margin of
nonunderstanding. He recognized in this strategy its potential
productiveness— productive in terms of generating a desire
for responsible understanding and in terms of generating re-
search. In short, Lacan is not celebrating misunderstanding.
Rather, he is making an argument in favour of responsible
understanding. As Fink notes, Lacan
Questions of Substance
Conclusion
Notes
1. Of course, we do not want to suggest the existence of a shared set of reasons
leading to this shared (op)position.
2. But as Lacan (1989) insists, the claim that psychoanalysis is (or aims to be)
scientific should not be conflated with a similar, yet distinct, claim, namely that
psychoanalysis is a science, at least in the way modern physics is traditionally
considered to be a science.
3. On surface topology, see, for example, Lacan (1961–62). For a discussion of
complex numbers, see his seminar of January 10, 1962.
4. An index of such a dialogic opening is to be found in the recent exchange
between J.-A. Miller and R. H. Etchegoyen (1996).
5. We do not claim to be sufficiently familiar with Kristeva’s work to pass judgment
on her invocation of mathematics. We simply report S&B’s assessment.
6. See, for example, Lacan (1975, 9), where he mistakenly states that an open set
is one that excludes its own limits. Indeed, many Lacanians have gone out of
their way to point to several such mistakes.
Jason Glynos & Yannis Stavrakakis 705
7. 1n this repsect, S&B simply reiterate, by displacing it to the field of mathemati-
cal science, the structurally homologous accusations that “Lacan is doing
violence to linguistics” (an argument that has often been made vis-à-vis the
Lacanian appropriation of Jakobson’s concepts of metaphor and metonymy) or
that “Lacan is doing violence to Freud.” On these latter points, see Stavrakakis
(1999, 21–22, 57–59).
8. But even if we accept that S&B “do not purport to judge Lacan’s psychoanalysis
. . . [limiting themselves to] statements about the mathematical and physical
sciences” (11), what are we to make of their attempt to do exactly that, namely,
not to judge Lacan’s mathematics per se but to insist that his mathematics cannot
play any fruitful role in psychoanalysis (34)?
9. See, for example, Burgoyne (2000), Darmon (1990), Vappereau (1985), Granon-
Lafont (1985, 1990), and Nasio (1979, 1987). As to debates about the status of
Lacan’s mathematics within the Lacanian school, see Dor (1991).
10. For an example of the power of this volume to influence opinion by virtue of
simple association with the scientific establishment, thereby sanctioning a quick
dismissal of Lacan’s invocation of mathematical science, see Schwartz (1999,
254–55).
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