拉岡講座230

Deconstruction of Drive
驅力的解構

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At the other end of the chain, Freud refers to Befriedigung, satisfaction, which he writes out in full, but
in inverted commas. What does he mean by satisfaction of the drive? Well, that's simple enough, you'll
say. The satisfaction of the drive is reaching one's Ziel, one's aim. The wild animal emerges from its
hole querens quem devoret, and when he has found what he has to eat, he is satisfied, he digests it. The
very fact that a similar image may be invoked shows that one allows it to resonate in harmony with
mythology, with, strictly speaking, the drive.

在驅力鎖鏈的另一端，佛洛伊德提到滿足。他詳細地描述滿足是什麼，但是用引號限制。他所謂
的驅力的滿足是什麼呢？非常簡單，你會說。驅力的滿足就是要到達我們的目標。野生動物從自
己的洞穴出現。當他發現它必須吃食物，它才能滿足，它只有消化食物。人作為動物，何嘗不是
如此？這顯示，飲食的滿足在神話中，或嚴格地說，在驅力的神話中，天經地義地存在。

One objection immediately springs to mind —it is rather odd that nobody should have noticed it, all the
time it has been there, an enigma, which, like all Freud's enigmas, was sustained as a wager to the end
of his life without Freud deigning to offer any further explanation—he probably left the work to those
who could do it. You will remember that the third of the four fundamental vicissitudes of the drive that
Freud posits at the outset—it is curious that there are four vicissitudes as there are four elements of the
drive—is sublimation. Well, in this article, Freud tells us repeatedly that sublimation is also satisfaction
of the drive, whereas it is zielgehemmt, inhibited as to its aim—it does not attain it. Sublimation is
nonetheless satisfaction of the drive, without repression.

我們心裡馬上浮起一個反對見解：為什麼竟然沒有人曾經注意到這一點？驅力始終像一個謎團
般存在。像所有佛洛伊德的謎團，它被維持作為一個賭注。終其一生，佛洛伊德並沒有假裝提供
更進一步的解釋。他可能要將這個工作留給勝任的人去做。你們還記得，佛洛伊德一開始提出，
驅力有四個基本的變數。其中第三個變數就是昇華。耐人尋味的，驅力有四個元素之外，竟然還
有四個變數。在這篇文章中，佛洛伊德不厭其煩地告訴我們，昇華也是一種驅力的滿足，雖然它
的目標被壓抑，它並沒有得到它的目標。儘管如此，昇華仍然是驅力的滿足，不算是壓抑。

In other words —for the moment, I am not fucking, I am talking to you. Well! I can have exactly the
same satisfaction as if I were fucking. That's what it means. Indeed, it raises the question of whether in
fact I am not fucking at this moment. Between these two terms—drive and satisfaction—there is set up
an extreme antinomy that reminds us that the use of the function of the drive has for me no other

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purpose than to put in question what is meant by satisfaction.

換言之，目前這一刻，我沒有正在跟你們做愛，我正在跟你們演講。嗯！我得到的滿足，確實跟
我正在跟你們做愛得到的滿足差不多。那就是我的意思。當然，這會浮現一個問題：我現在這一
刻到底算不算正在你們做愛？驅力與滿足這兩個術語，形成一個極端的二律悖論提醒我們，驅
力的功用的使用，就我而言，沒有其它目的，就是要質疑滿足是什麼意思？

All those here who are psycho-analysts must now feel to what extent I am introducing here the most
essential level of accommodation. It is clear that those with whom we deal, the patients, are not
satisfied, as one says, with what they are. And yet, we know that everything they are, everything they
experience, even their symptoms, involves satisfaction. They satisfy something that no doubt runs
counter to that with which they might be satisfied, or rather, perhaps, they give satisfaction to
something. They are not content with their state, but all the same, being in a state that gives so little
content, they are content. The whole question boils down to the following—what is contented here?

所有在現場的精神分析師，現在一定會感覺到，我要將驅力的基本調適，介紹到什麼程度？顯
而易見，我們處理的對象是病人，他們並不滿足於他們的現狀，我們可以這樣說。可是，我們知
道，他們的一切，他們的經驗，甚至他們的病徵，都牽涉到他們的滿足與否。無可置疑地，他們
自己的滿足愈多，他們給人的滿足就愈少，換言之，他們就愈自私自利。他們並不滿意於自己的
現狀，但是對於自私自利的這個現狀，他們卻仍然安之若素。問題的癥結可以簡述如下：在此，
有什麼東西被滿足？

On the whole, and as a first approximation, I would say that to which they give satisfaction by the ways
of displeasure is nevertheless—and this is commonly accepted—the law of pleasure. Let us say that,
for this sort of satisfaction, they give themselves too much trouble. Up to a point, it is this too much
trouble that is the sole justification of our intervention. One cannot say, then, that the aim is not attained
where satisfaction is concerned. It is.

大體上，我可提出一個概略的說法，大家可以接受的說法：不樂之捐，仍然是滿足需要，仍然
是基於快樂原理。容我們這樣說，為了這種滿足，人們苦心孤詣。目前，就是這個苦心孤詣，成
為我們精神分析要介入的唯一理由。因此，我們不能說，就滿足而言，目標沒有達到。確實有達
到。

This is not a definitive ethical position. But, at a certain level, this is how we analysts approach the
problem—though we know a little more than others about what is normal and abnormal. We know that
the forms of arrangement that exist between what works well and what works badly constitute a
continuous series. What we have before us in analysis is a system in which everything turns out all
right, and which attains its own sort of satisfaction. If we interfere in this, it is in so far as we think that

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there are other ways, shorter ones for example. In any case, if I refer to the drive, it is in so far as it is at
the level of the drive that the state of satisfaction is to be rectified.

這並不是一個明確的倫理立場。但是，在某個層次上，這是我們精神分析師處理問題的方式，雖
然對於正常與不正常，我們充其量比別人懂得稍微多一點。我們知道，我們的方法行得通或行不
通，條分縷述起來，不勝枚舉。我們精神分析所面對的，是一個結果一切都好的系統，這個系統
自己志得意滿。我們介入干涉，是因為我們認為，還有其它途徑，例如，更簡捷的途徑。無論如
何，假如我提到驅力，那是因為在驅力的這個層次，滿足的狀態可以被改正過來。

This satisfaction is paradoxical. When we look at it more closely, we see that something new comes
into play—the category of the impossible. In the foundations of the Freudian conceptions, this category
is an absolutely radical one. The path of the subject—to use the term in relation to which, alone,
satisfaction may be situated—the path of the subject passes between the two walls of the impossible.

This function of the impossible is not to be approached with- Out prudence, like any function that is
presented in a negative form. I would simply like to suggest to you that the best way of approaching
these notions is not to take them by negation. This method would bring us here to the question of the
possible, and the impossible is not necessarily the contrary of the possible, or, since the opposite of the
possible is certainly the real, we would be lead to define the real as the impossible.

Personally, I see nothing against this, especially as, in Freud, it is in this form that the real, namely, the
obstacle to the pleasure principle, appears. The real is the impact with the obstacle; it is the fact that
things do not turn Out all right straight away, as the hand that is held out to external objects wishes. But
I think this is a quite illusory and limited view of Freud's thought on this point. The real is
distinguished, as I said last time, by its separation from the field of the pleasure principle, by its
desexualization, by the fact that its economy, later, admits something new, which is precisely the
impossible.

But the impossible is also present in the other field, as an essential element. The pleasure principle is
even characterized by the fact that the impossible is so present in it that it is never recognized in it as
such. The idea that the function of the pleasure principle is to satisfy itself by hallucination is there
to illustrate this—it is only an illustration. By snatching at its object, the drive learns in a sense that this
is precisely not the way it will be satisfied. For if one distinguishes, at the outset of the dialectic of the
drive, Xot from Bedilrfnis, need from the pressure of the drive—it is precisely because no object of
any Xot, need, can satisfy the drive.

Even when you stuff the mouth—the mouth that opens in

the register of the drive—it is not the food that satisfies it, it is,

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as one says, the pleasure of the mouth. That is why, in analytic
experience, the oral drive is encountered at the final term, in a
situation in which it does no more than order the menu. This
is done no doubt with the mouth, which is fundamental to the
satisfaction—what goes out from the mouth comes back to
167
THE TRANSFERENCE AND THE DRIVE
the mouth, and is exhausted in that pleasure that I have just
called, by reference to the usual terms, the pleasure of the
mouth.

This is what Freud tells us. Let us look at what he says—As

far as the object in the drive is concerned, let it be clear that it is,
strictly speaking, of no importance. It is a matter of total indifference.

One must never read Freud without one's ears cocked. When
one reads such things, one really ought to prick up one's ears.

How should one conceive of the object of the drive, so that

one can say that, in the drive, whatever it may be, it is indifferent?

As far as the oral drive is concerned, for example, it is

obvious that it is not a question of food, nor of the memory of
food, nor the echo of food; nor the mother's care, but of
something that is called the breast, and which seems to go of
its own accord because it belongs to the same series.

If Freud makes a remark to the effect that the object in the drive is of no
importance, it is probably because the breast, in its function as
object, is to be revised in its entirety.

To this breast in its function as object, objet a cause of desire,

in the sense that I understand the term—we must give a function
that will explain its place in the satisfaction of the drive.

The best formula seems to me to be the following—that lapulsion en

fait le tour.1

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I shall find other opportunities of applying it to
other objects.

Tour is to be understood here with the ambiguity

it possesses in French, both turn, the limit around which one
turns, and trick.