In “Lacan’s Thing With Hegel” Richard Boothby nicely describes the fundamental role of the imaginary and real components in the formation of a signifier, but he neglects the signifier’s essentially symbolic component and this oversight becomes obvious in his example: He says that a pointing finger constitutes a signifier by combining the image of the finger with the real of the pointed Thing. Even though it’s true that this image-real combination really takes place, this is not sufficient to constitute a signifier [1].

The pointing finger represents some Thing for an observer, so it can only be a sign, not a signifier. The essentially symbolic component of the signifier requires it to represent the subject for another signifier. We can nicely differentiate “sign vs. signifier” by referring to “spatial vs. combinatorial” [2]. What the pointing finger achieves as a sign is a certain spatial positioning of a Thing; whereas a signifier would refer to other signifiers and take part in certain combinations with them. A pointing finger could become a signifier only in the context of a conversation in sign language. Boothby neglects this difference also in Freud as Philosopher: He heavily relies on the spatial notions of ‘positioning’ and ‘positional articulation’ in order to express the function of language to delineate Things; and he occasionally uses ‘sign’ and ‘signifier’ interchangeably.

Recall Lacan’s example:

“I’m at sea, the captain of a small ship. I see things moving about in the night, in a way that gives me cause to think that there may be a sign there. How shall I react? If I’m not yet a human being, I shall react with all sorts of displays, as they say – modeled, motor, and emotional. I satisfy the descriptions of psychologists, I understand something, in fact I do everything I’m telling you that you must know how not to do. If on the other hand I am a human being, I write in my log book – At such and such a time, at such and such a degree of latitude and longitude, we noticed this and that.

This is what is fundamental. I shelter my responsibility. What distinguishes the signifier is here. I make a note of the sign as such. It’s the acknowledgment of receipt that is essential to communication insofar as it is not significant, but signifying. If you don’t articulate this distinction clearly, you will keep falling back upon meanings that can only mask from you the original mainspring of the signifier insofar as it carries out its true function.” (Seminar 3)

By “making note of the sign”, we transcribe the spatial domain of signs into the combinatorial domain of signifiers. After its transcription, the note can be translated into different languages, proving its signifying (as opposed to significant) status.

The same difference is discernible on a map. The map of a country can only be a sign, because it has a spatial correspondence to the country. But the map also contains signifiers in the form of the words that name the cities on the map, because they represent their subjects for other signifiers in a combinatorial way [3].

(Turkish)

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

Notes:

[1] This is why I’m opposed to the practice of many Turkish Lacanians who translate “signifier” (imleyen) as “the one that shows – shower” (gösteren): “Signifier Neden Gösteren Değil İmleyen Olarak Çevrilmeli”

[2] See “Spatial and Combinatorial” and also “The Paradox of the Phallus”

[3] I deliberately avoid the oxymoron “combinatorial space” or “space of combinatives” (Jacques-Alain Miller used this term in Lacan: Topologically Speaking). It’s more proper to call it a “combinatorial non-space”.