Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Ilenri Ey- -thanks to his authority which has made him rhe most influcmial
figure in French psyd1iatric circles-brought together in his wanl at Bonneval Hospital a vcry broad spectrum of specialists around the theme of
Freudian unt:on::.cious (October 30 to November 2,19(0).
111e lalk given by my s(Ud(>nt~ Laplam:hc and Lcdairt' promoted OIl Ihe
colloquium a conception of my work which, since the talk was publishc(1 in
Le~ temp~ modemes, has become dcftnithe, despite the divergence between
their positions that wa::. manifested thtTein.
me
Remarks made at a colloquium such as this, inviting philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologi::.:ts. and psychoanalysts on the basis of their respective
expertise, fail to agree on the level of truth of Freud's texts.
Concerning the unconscious, one must go straight to the crux of Freud's
expenence.
The unconscious is a concept founded on the trail [trace] left by that which
operates to constitute the subject.
The unconscious is not a species defining the circle of that part of psychical reality which docs not have the attribute (or the virtue) of consciousness.
830
F.cnts
831
There may be phenomena that are subsumed by the unconscious according to both of these acceptations; the latter remain no less foreign to each
odler. The only relation between them is one of homonymy.
The importance I attribute to language as the cause of the subject requires
that I be more spccific: aberrations abound when the concept "unconscious"
is depreciated by being applied ad lihitum to phenomena that can be classified
under the homonymous species. It is unthinkable that the concept might be
restored on the bm:iis of these phenomena.
Let me specify my own position concerning the equivocation to which the
"is" and "is not" of my initial positions might give rise.
The unconscious is what I say it is, assuming we are willing to hear what
Freud puts forward in his theses.
Saying dlat for Freud the unconscious is nol what goes by that name in
other contexts would be of little value if what I meant were not grasped: the
unconscious, prior to Freud, is not purely and simply. This is because it names
nothing [prior to Freud] that counts any more as an object-nor warrant:;
being granted any more existence-than what would be defined by situating
it in the "un-black" [rin-TWirl
The unconscious before Freud has no more consistency than this unblack- namely, die set of what could be classified according to the various
meanings of the word "black," by dint of its refusa1 of the attribute (or
virtue) of blackness (whether physical or moral).
\Vhat, indeed, could the following possibly have in common- to take the
eight definitions collated by Dwclshauvcrs in a book that is old (1916), but
not so far out-of-date that, were such a catalogue to be prepared anew today,
its heterogeneity would not be diminished: the sensory unconscious (implied
by the so-called optical effects of contrast and illusion); the automatic unconscious developed by habit; the co-consciousness (?) of split personalities;
ideational emergences of a latent activity that appears in creative thought as
if it were oriented, and telepathy which certain people would like to relate to
such thought; the learned and even integrated reserves of memory; the passions in our character which get the better of us; the heredity that is recognized in our natural gifts; and finally the rational or metaphysical unconscious
that is implied by "'mental acts"?
(None of them can be grouped together, except con[usedly~ because of
what psychoanalysts have added by way of obscurantism in failing to distinguish the unconscious from instinct, or, as dley say, [rom the instinctual- dle
archaic or primordial, succumbing thereby to an illusion decisively dispelled
by Claude Levi-Strauss-and even from the genetic character of a supposed
"development. ")
832
f..cots
8"
Position of me Unconscious
7 07
..
834
tcrits
J08
filling his role (fostering the patient's discourse, restoring its meaning effect,
meure en cause] by responding, as well as by
putting himself on the line
remaining silent), he ever had the feeling he was dealing with anything like
an instinct-could he say yes?
Reading analytic writings and official translations of works by Freud
t.<r
(who never wrote the word "official") that use the term "instinct" right and
left, it is perhaps worth obviating a rhetoric that obturates the concept's
835
JO.9
83 6
710
Ecrits
the results of analytic experience are distorted by the vcry fact of being
837
proves is the absence of any doctrine of training analysis that includes the latter's relations with the affirmation of the unconscious.
Tt will thus be understood that my use ofHegd's phenomenology bore no
allegiance to his system, but was intended as an example with which to
counter the obvious fact of identification. It is in the way in which one conducts an examination of a patient and draws one's conclusions that a critique
of intellectual fables is proposed. It is by not avoiding the ethical implications
of our praxis for deontology and scientific debate that the beautiful soul will
be unmasked_ The law of the heart, as I have said, is a bigger nuisance than
paranoia_ It is the law of a ruse which, in the clmning [ruse] of reason, traces
out a meander whose current is seriously slowed_
Beyond that, the statements Hegel makes, even if one sticks to the text,
provide the opportunity to always say something Other_ Something Other
which corrects their fantasmatic link with synthesis, while preserving the
effect they have of exposing the lures of identification_
That is my Aufoehung [sublation], which transforms Hegel's (his own
lure) into an occasion to point out-in lieu and place of the leaps of an "ideal
83 8
7/1
mOre than one car to heat things that would have been passed over indifferently since they would not haye been recognizcd. One of my auditors put this
naively, announcing the marvelous fact that, tilat very evening, or perhaps
just the day before, he had come across in a session with a patient what] had
said in my seminar-verbatim.
The place in question is the entrance to the cave, towards the exir of which
Plato guides us, while one imagines seeing the psychoanalyst entering there.
But things arc nor that easy, as ir is all entrance one can only reach just as it
closes (the place will never be popular with tourists), and the only way for if
to open up a bit is by calling from the inside.
This is not unsolvable-assuming the "open sesame" of the unconscious
consists in having speech effects, since it is linguistic in structure- but
requires that the analyst reexamine the way in which it closes.
\Vhat we have to account for is a gap, beat, or alternating suction, to follow some of Freud's indications, and that is what 1 have proceeded lO do in
grounding the unconscious in a topology.
TIle structure of what doses forme] is, indeed~ inscribed in a geometry
in which space is reduced to a combinatory: it is what is called an "edge" in
rse
topoloh')'_
By formally studying the consequences of the irreducibility of the cut it
makes, one could rework some of the most interesting functions between aesthetics and logic.
One notices here that it is the closing of the unconscious which prm'ides the
key to its space-namely, the impropriety of trying to turn it illto an inside.
This closing also demonstrates the corc of a reversion time, quite necessarily introduced [if we arC to explain) the efficiency of discourse. It is rather
easily percei\'ed in something I have been emphasi7.ing for a long time: the
retroactive effect of meaning in sentences, meaning requiring the last word of
a sentence to be scaled [.fe boueler].
fllachtraglichkcit (remember that 1 was the first to extract it from Freud's
texts) or deferred action [apres-coupl, by 'Which trauma becomes invoked in
symptoms, reveals a temporal structure of a higher order.
But abo\"e all, experience with this closing shows that it would not be gratuitous On the part of psychoanalysts to reopen the debate over the cause, a
phantom that cannot be banished from thought, whether critical or not. For
rlle cause is not, as is said of being as well, a lure of forms of dis.course-otherwisc it would have alrcady been dispelled. It perpetuates the reason that
subordinates the subject to the signifier'S effect.
It is only as instance of the unconscious, the Freudian unconscious, thar
one grasps the cause at the level at which someone like f Yume attempts to
8,9
7'2
Ecrits
flush it out, which is precisely the level at which it takes on consistency: the
retroaction of the signifier in its efficiency, which must be rigorously distinguished from the final cause.
Were we to demonstrate thar it is rhe only true first cause,
apparent
discordance of Aristotle's four causes would, in fact, dissipate; from their tefrain, analysts could contribute to this reformulation.
They would have the benefit of being able to usc the Freudian term
"overdetertnination" as something other than an evasive answer. What follows introduces the feature that commands the functioning relationship
between these forms: their circular, albeit nonreciprocal, articulation.
While there is dosing and entry, they do not necessarily separate: they
provide tvm domains with a mode of conjunction. They are the subject and
the Other, respectively, and these domains are to be substantified here only
on the basis of my theses concerning the unconscious.
The subject, the Cartesian subject, is what is presupposed by the unconscious-I have shown that elsewhere.
The Other is the dimension required by the fact that speech affirms itself
me
as truth.
The unconscious is, between the two of them, their cut in action.
840
This cut is seen to command (he twO fundamental operations with which the
subject's causation should be formulated. These operations are ordered in a
circular, yet nonreciprocal, relationship.
The first, alienation, constitutes the subject as such. In a fidd of objects,
no relationship is conceivable that engenders alienation apart from the relationship with the signifier. Let us take as our point of departure the fact that
no subject has any reason to appear in the real unless there arc speaking
beings in it. A physics is conceivable that accounts for everything in the
world, including its animate part; a subject intervenes only inasmuch as there
al'e, in this world, signifiers that mean nothing and must be deciphered.
To grant priority to the signifier over the subject is, in my book, to take
into account the experience Freud opened up for us: the signifier plays and
wins, if I may say so, before the subject is aware of it, to such an extent that in
the play of Wit{ (in witticisms, for example) it may surprise the subject.
What it lights up ",;th its flash is the subject's division from himself.
But the fact that the signifier reveals to the subject his own division should
not make us forget that this division stems from nothing other than that very
same play, (he play of signifiers-signifiers, not signs.
Signs are polyvalent: they no doubt represent something to someone, but
7 1J
841
Ecrits
You should be awal-e that what remains is, in any case, diminished: it will
be life without money and, having refused death, a life somewhat inconve-
an "and" (sic el non). This is illustrated by the fact that, in the long run, you
will have to give up your life after your money, and in the end the only thing
left will be your freedom to die.
Similarly, OUf subject is subjected to the Yel of a certain meaning he must
receive or petrification. But should he retain the meaning, the nonmcaning
842
procluccd by his change into a signifier will encroach on this field (of meaning). This nonmeaning clearly falls within the Other's field, although it is
pf(xluced as an eclipse of the subject.
This [Ia chose] is worth saying, for it qualifies the field of the unconscious
to take a scat, I would say, in the place of the analyst-let us take that literally-in his armchair. Vie have arrived at such a pass that we should leave
him this armchair in a "symbolic gesture." The latter is an expression commonly used
[0
to
chal-
lenge the order-so prettily avowed by its crude motto in "Francglaire" (to
coin a term), directly issuing from theb,..w8tu a princess perpetrated upon
Frendl psychoanalysis by replacing the pre-Socratic tone of Freud's precept,
"v;ro Es war, solilch werden," with the croaking strains of--"the ego" (the
analyst'S, no doubt) "must dislodge the id" (the patient's, of course).
The fact that people have objected
to
com sequence is unconscious, by pointing out that Leclaire himself is conscious of it, means that they do not see that the unconscious only has meaning
in the Other's field; still less do they see the consequence thereof: that it is not
the effect of meaning that is operative in interpretation, but rather the articulation in the symptom of signifiers (without any meaning at all) dlat have
gotten caught up in it.)
Let us turn now to dle second operation, in which the subject'S causation
closes, to test the stmcture of the edge in its function as a limit, but also in the
twist that motivates the encroachment of the unconscious. I call this operation "separation." We will see that it is what Freud called" Ichspaltung" or
the splitting of the subject, and grasp why Freud, in the text in which he
introduces it ["The Splitting of the Ego"]~ grounds it in a splitting, not of the
subject, but of the object (namely, dle phallic object).
The logical form dialectically modified by the second operation is called
"intersection" in symbolic logic; it is also the product formulated by a
7'5
called i[. A belonging neither to _ is called upon here to fill a IWr to _ "
Empedoclcs' act, responding thereto~ shows that a will [you/oir] is involved.
The yel returns in the form of a yelle. That is the end of the operation. Now
for the process.
Separare, separating, ends here in se parae, engendering onesclf. Let us
dispense with the obvious gems we find in the works of Latin etymologists
concerning the slippage in meaning from one verb to the other. One should
simply realize that this slippage is grounded in the fact that they are both
paired with the function of the pars.
The part is not the whole, as they say, though usually without thinking.
For it should be emphasized that the part has nothing to do with the whole.
One has to come to terms with it [en prendre son pam]; it plays its game [sa
partie] all by itself. I Iere the subject proceeds from his partition to his parturition. This does not imply the grotesque metaphor of gi'\ring birth to himself
anew. Tndeed, language would be hard pressed to o""Press that with an original term, at least in Indo-European climes where all the words used for this
purpose are of juridical or sodal origin. Parere" was first of all to procure (a
child I(lr one's husband). This is why the subject can procure for himself
what interests him here-a status T will qualify as "civil." Nothing in anyone's life unleashes more determination to succeed in obtaining it. In order
to be pars, he would easily sacrifice the better part of his interests, though not
in order to become part of the whole, which, moreover, is in no way constinJted by others' interests, still Jess by the general interest which is distinguished therefrom in an entirely different manner.
Separare, se parare: in order to attribute to himself [se parer] the signifier to
which he succumbs, the subject attacks the chain- that T have reduced to a
binary, at its most elementary level- at its interval. The repeating interval,
the most radical structure of the signifying d1ain, is the locus haunted by
metonymy, the latter being the vehiele of desire (at least that is what I teach).
It is, in any case, through the impact whereby the subject experiences in
this interval something that motivates him Other [Autre chose] than the meaning effects by which a discourse solicits him, that he in fact encounters the
Other's desire, before he can even call it desire, much less imagine its object.
843
844
Ecrits
\~lhat
845
he will place there is his own lack, in the form of the lack he would
(like to) produce in the Other through his own disappearance the disappearance (which he has at hand, so to speak) of the part of himself he receivcs
from his initial alienation.
But what he thus fills is not the lack [faille] he encounters in the Other, but
rather, first of all. the lack that results from the constitutive loss of one of his
parts, by which he turns out to be made of two parts. Therein lies the twist
whereby separation represents the return of alienalion. for the subject operates with his own loss, which brings him back to his point of departure.
I lis "'can he lose me?" is, no doubt, the recOurse he has against the opacity
of the desire he encounters in the Other's locus, but it merely brings the subject back to the opacity of the being he receives through his advenr as a subject. such as he was first produced by the other's summoning.
1t is an operation whose fundamental outlines arc found in psychoanalytic
technique. For it is insofar as the ana1yst intervenes by scanding the patient's
discourse that an adjustment occurs in the pulsation of the rim through which
the being that resides just shy of it must flow.
The true and final mainspring of what constinHes transference is the
expectation of this being's advent in relation to what J call "the analyst's
desire," insofar as something ~\bout the analyst'S own position has remained
unnoticed therein, at least IIp until now.
This is why transference is a relationship thar is essentially tied 10 time and
ilS handling. But what is the being that respon<ls to us, operating in the field
of speech and language, from shy of the cave's entrance? I would go so far as
to embody it in the form of the very walls of the eave that woul<l (like to) live,
or rather come alive widl palpitations whose living movement must be
grasped now that is, now that T have articulated the funC[ioll and field of
speech and language in their conditioning.
I do not see how anyone can rightfully claim that I neglect dynamics in my
topology; T orient it, which is better than to make a commonplace of it (the
most verbal is nor where people are willing to say it is).
As for sexuality, which people would like to remind me is the force we deal
with and that it is biological, I retort that analysts perhaps have not s11ed as
much light as people at one time hoped on sexuality's mainsprings, recommending only that we be natural, repeatedly trotting out the same themes of
billtng and cooing. I wiU try to contribute something newer by resorting to a
genre that Freud himself never claimed to have superseded in this area: myth.
To compete with Aristophanes on his own turf in the above-mentioned
Symposium, let us reca11 his primitive double-backed creatures in which two
Now imagine (hat every rime the membranes burst, a phantom~an infinitely more primal form of life, in no wise willing 1O settle for a duplicate role
in some microcosmic worlel within a world~takcs flight through the same
passage.
Man [I'Homme] is made by breaking an egg, but so is the Manlet"
fIIfommclcue].
Let us assume the larrer to be a large crepe that moves like an amoeba, so
utterly flat that it can slip under doors, omniscienr as it is guided by the pure
life instinct, and immortal as it is fissiparous. It is cerrainly something that
would not be good to feel dripping down your face, noiselessly while you
sleep, in order to seal iL
If we arc willing to allow the digestive process [0 begin at this poim, we
realize that the Manlet has ample sustenance for a long rime to come (remember that there are organisms, which are quite differentiated, that have no
digestive tract).
It goes without saying that a struggle would soon ensue with such a fearsome being, and that the struggle would be fierce. For it can be assumed that,
since the Manlet has no sensory system, it has for guidance bur rhe pure real;
it thus has an advantage over us men who must always provide ourselves
with a homunculus in our heads in order to turn Ihat real into a reality.
Indeed, it would not be easy to obviate the paths of its anacks, which
would, moreover, be impossihle to predict, as it would also know no obstac1es.1t would be impossible to educare and just as impossible ro trap.
As for destroying the 11anlct, one had best avoid letting it proliferate, for
846
Ferils
to Cllt it up would help it repr<xlu""",, and m.:, least of its altrin~ to surviH'e~en after having h<:<:n <;(;t afin:- wmJd prt:...::n;e all of its ru:stnletive pow_
e ..... Apart from killinp; it wilh a lethal ray Ihat lUIs yel lOb<: leSled, til<: (lnly
solution would he 10 lock it up, placing it in tht' jaws of a M~gdeburg sphere,
fi" e"ilmple, " . Ili~h turn, up ajl;.l.in lI('re, a~ if bl dUln<-":, as 11J(' onll appr<lp"_
ate tovl for the JOb.
llUi tiJ(' "Iwle f,lanlet wOIJd ha\ e to slip uno Ihe sphere, and would lta\e to
do so by it5.Clf. E,en the bra\f:st person would he )uMified m thinking twke
before touching it inordt'r 10 shove a negligible merflowing amount (un ritnJ
back in, for fear that il w0I1ld slip bct"'een his fingers and tak up its abode
who lum,,'s where?
Excepl for its naill<', thaI I will no'\\' change 10 a m<Jrt' decem one,
~Iamclla" (of which the word ~omtltllt" is, in fact, but a metastasis)/ Ihis
imaF(e and Ihis mylh seem to me apt for ]x,lh illustralinp; and silualinF( wl'al I
call "libido."
Thi~ image rJ1U"'S Mlibido~!() bt' "...1131 it is---namely, 3n orgnn, to whit'h ils
hahlt~
male il rar lTK,r(' lIkin than t,l a forc<.' field. LeI liS !,Ol} I hal it i~ '1ua ~ur_
fllee Ihal It Ort;dn'teS tllis force field. This co[l(:eption can be td;tcd by rcaliz_
illl!: Ihal freud considert'd the drhe 10 he fJnidllrOO like a monla!!:<" and b)
847
relating it to llial.
Rdt'rring to elt'ctromagnnic thror)", and, in particular, t<l a thoorem
known as Stokes' throrem, ,..OI,ld allow me 10 SiTUate II,," rt'aSOn for II,," cOn_
~ancy of tlJ(' drive's prcssurt', wInch Frt'l,d emphasi7.<'s SO greally, 1 in lilt' fael
subjcrti\ e CO()rdinale5.
nus o~an must be called ~unre~l. in the sell5(' in which Ihe Wlrcal is nUl
tl,," imaginary and precedes the subjoxu,c rt'ahn il C<Jnditions, bein~ in d,.e.t
cOtUOCI ",ilh the real.
H
That is ",I'at my mYlh, like any Of her mylh, SlriH~S 10 pro\ ide a ~} mboh,
articulalion (or, rather than all image.
III) lamella rt'pr<:5CnIS here Ihe part of a li.inF( being Ihat is loS( when thaI
being is pr<xluced Ihrou~ll Iht' slrails (lf <;('x.
Tlus parI is t'erlainly indicrlled in Ihe media Ihm microscopiC anatomy
malcriali,.<'s in Ihe ~I"blllc~ expulscd al Ihe t"~) 'lal-,'-':5 of Ihe phenomena
organued around chromosome rcdUCI1()n and in the malUration of a sexed
g,,"ad.
Rt'pt,,5.Cntcd ht'rc by a deadly hein~, il mark;; the rdali'"lship
lJ1
whkh
.71-')
l>cl~ <OCrl
,11C '>pc of anawmk~1 <ou, (br~arlnng ,,~\\ h(c In\(> Ihc <'t)-mo1(lwcal mc-.l/1in).: of thc ..."rd ~3n;lwmy") by Wflidl Ihe fuoltion of lwtain t,bia"
...hich \hould nOI bc l-allcd parti"l, hut which ~l3nd apart f"um !he ."hu-o, "
dClcrmltlcrl.
l11C brc~, to ,alc an C'X3mpk (,r th p."bluns 1<1 whkh the.<' obic"" !Q'('
rioc, is nOI Intrcly a !>(lun;e o(~rq.!;T(.'Mi\(M n(>"ala, hm In!, bccn a M'Urtl- of
IUj1;hl) pri~cCl n( ouri,hrTICnl. I, i!O, I am told, rdaled I" dlC m(>lher'$1x ,dr, to iIS
""arnuh, ~nd e,cn to r"nder \e'l Inl!: car('. Hut ,hal d"c~ n." loUfTkienll) l"'pla,n
ils NOlie value, Wll"h a pamtilljJ; (in Ikolin) by Tiepolo., in til(' cxah~d IK>TT(!r
... ith winch it prewn" ~inT A!!ftlha a{(('r ha ord<oal, illu... ralCS fH helrer.
[n (acl, i, 1$ 0(" a (/UC!I(I('oO ,,( II,e brt'OlSi ["c",l, In Illc MTI<.c (,( till- rnc"hcr'~
",omb tmQtrirt; uin also;> mean~ womb], ~\~Il th(>uj..,h pc(>pk mix a~ thq like
rt'!iC,nanccs in wl,idl tllC 'ipificr rei i('S 11('3,il) on Illetaph" . It is iI lj'ICSli('oO
(,f d,e brca... 'ptll rted III thc fUl"u.'n nf ... -caninfl: ... hieh prcl'i/-:urcs ~" .. rano".
Weanio!!: has becn t(>() extcI1,j,cly .,il u~lcd, "'I(:e "'kin " in\CSli~Jli(>ns, in
tlO!' fanra~) {l( IllE pamm'n (,f the m(llher'~ h(ld) f('T IlS /lI,t Il' ~\l,,1 II>!II rI,c
planc of scparati( ,n, wind: milke, III(: hrca" rhe 100;{ (,bjffl in\oh t-d \m (Qu-'~I
l!l dc!.,re, P""'>C'> bct"'ccn the l>.taM and tit<' mOllon.
~('r ,f ""e rt..:al1 tI'~1 mamrn~han o'l"'ni7..atiun p[~~Clo lloe lump;. (,,'m ,I,c
emhryo rijl:lu lip 10 rI'e newlx,o-n, in a parasi'",,) rcbl;on 10 Ihe 1lI1,tloer\
bod), ,IIC br<'a<d ap(X'3'" 3'> lilt !>OIllIC kind (>f olJ.,~n ---1o bc unde ..... r(>(..:! as lloe
a10pia of onc indl\ idual nnl(> an<>! hn as ,Ilar t"( .... l>Iiturcd b) IJoC pla~cm3 al
Ihc bcj;;:inlllnK (If Ihe /-:TOwth of a l:erl311l type (,f o'}!;lln;~m whid, rcmaln'>
,;pl..:ificd hy tI,,~ ,mer<.('Clion.
tim lamella Ihat the m ....nhm\ ocin!!: raln In ir~ Irm'limit, whid,
~>C.~ {un"cr than the 1>c>cl}'S hmil. It, mdkal fun~,i('n III ammals is fTliIlctialilcd in a cenau' c,huk,lO' b} the ,,,ddcn rledi"" [rJi"uJ in an aIllmal'. at"l;t)
to mhmidale (,I her animals at lloe ixml1dane, of ir ... rcrritol'Y. "
ltf.ldo
i~
TIl!1 lamena
i~
848
f.oits
849
85 0
It is not true tlmt God made them male and female, C\en if Ihe couple
Adam and EH' imply that; such a norlen is also cxpl..:itl ) contra<hcted by th(
Y(''J'Sion of my anSVlcr to an
ineffeClivc objection
2. J he<lr Ih<ll !hose who cspc1lJ<;e Ihe \inue<
of mother"<; milk lauf!h at Illy references to" .
metastasis and metonymy (.ric). But the one
whme face i.. ~rftCr lor iIlu~lr<lting dIe slo-
dung. [Ia
hou.re de Jladlc 'lui ritJ3. h is well kou\1m \\har Ihis theorem srale~
WeUI curl flux. It a<;wmt'!> a continuously dif-
Ir<ltiun complex.
Thi<; (lbjt"Ct is (lbcu~sed in the nt'x! paper in
this \olume.
I. Abbn.-'yiated
C\JW
It
th\"
ps}choan;;JI)~i~
f di =ff dS.
in restoring here.. in
all
Ironic wah
mt'
fLl\(;-
The ~i7,e