🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

Well, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since our last meeting—I mean the one that took place here in April.
I am not talking about the very last one, which happened elsewhere, at least for some…
I mean that kind of exchange we were led to have on the steps of the Pantheon.

In truth, looking back after eight days, I find that what was exchanged there in terms of discourse was not of a poor level since, after all, it allowed me to recall a certain number of points that undoubtedly…
since I was being asked the question and that this question was not at all inept
…deserved to be clarified.

My first feeling immediately afterward, when I was with someone who was accompanying me,
was nonetheless one of a certain inadequacy.

Even the best of those who spoke…
and in truth, none were without justification in their questions
…even the best, at first, seemed to me to be somewhat lagging behind, lagging behind something
which seems to be reflected in the fact that…
at least in that kind of familiar interpellation that was not yet questions,
…I was positioned as such within a certain number of references which are certainly not all to be rejected
since, after all, the first was that of Gorgias, of whom I was supposedly performing here I don’t know what kind of repetition.

Why not?

The drawback is that, in the mouth of the person who evoked this figure,
whose effectiveness we can now barely measure,
Gorgias was nonetheless someone belonging to the history of thought.
That is precisely where, if I may say so, the distance lies, and it seems unfortunate to me,
the kind that, ultimately, unifies under this term
a sort of sampling, a distancing from this or that,
which is gathered under this bracket, under this embrace,
of “function of thought.”

It seems to me that nothing is less homogeneous…
if I may put it that way
…nothing allows for defining a species among those who…
in whatever capacity one imagines them as representing thought
…have established a function that would precisely be of a species.

Thought is not a category; I would almost say it is an affect.
Yet, that would not even be to say that it is the most fundamental affect in this respect.
That there is only one—that is what properly constitutes a certain position, newly introduced into the world,
and of which I say that it is the fact of that something whose schema I present on the blackboard
when I speak of the psychoanalytic discourse.
In truth, presenting something on the blackboard is distinct from speaking about it.

Someone…
I remember, in Vincennes, when I appeared there for the time that has not repeated itself since,
but which, as I said, will be repeated
…someone felt the need to shout at me that…
there were real things truly occupying the assembly, namely
this or that point being reminded to me, namely that people were being beaten up at some place more or less far from where we were gathered,
that that was what we should be thinking about, that the blackboard had nothing to do with that real.

That is where the mistake lies, and I would even say that if there is a chance of grasping something called the real,
it is nowhere else but on the blackboard, and even what I may have to comment on about it, what takes the form of speech,
relates only to what is written on the blackboard.

It is a fact, which is demonstrated by this fact, by this factitious thing that is science,
whose emergence one would be completely wrong to attribute solely to a philosophical concoction:
“metaphysical” perhaps more than “physical”:
that our scientific physics deserves to be qualified as metaphysical—that is what should be clarified.

And clarifying it seems possible precisely from this point, which is the psychoanalytic discourse,
in that it states that, from this discourse, there is only one affect,
namely the product of the capture of the speaking being in a discourse
insofar as this discourse determines him as an object.

It is very certainly from there that the Cartesian cogito derives its exemplary value, provided, of course, that one examines it, that one reviews it. That is what, perhaps, once again and quickly, I will have to do today.

This affect through which the speaking being, by a discourse, finds itself determined as an object—what must be said is that this object is not nameable. If I try to name it as plus-de-jouir, that is nothing more than a nomenclature apparatus.

What object is made of this effect of a certain discourse?
This object—we know nothing about it, except that it is the cause of desire,
that is to say, properly speaking, that it manifests itself as a lack of being.

It is therefore nothing that is, which is thus determined.
What the effect of such a discourse applies to may well be a being that one will call, for example, man, or rather a living being;
one will add sexuated and mortal, and one will boldly advance the thought that this is what the discourse of psychoanalysis is about,
under the pretext that it is constantly dealing with sex and death.

But from where we start, if it is indeed at the level of something that first reveals itself and as the primary fact for “structured like a language,” we are not there.
It is no being that is at stake in the effect of language, in this sense that it concerns only a speaking being.
We are not, at the outset, at the level of being but at the level of being itself.

Yet, this is where…
so that we must guard against an illusion, namely that being is thus posited
…this is where we risk the error of an assimilation with everything that has been ordered as dialectic,
namely with a primary opposition between being and nothingness.

This effect—let us now put quotation marks—”of being,” its first affect, appears only at the level of that which becomes the cause of desire,
of what we delimit, of this first effect of an apparatus, of what concerns the analyst, of the analyst no doubt as a place,
as a position that I attempt to outline with those small letters on the blackboard.
For it is there that it is posited: it is posited as the cause of desire.

An eminently unprecedented position, if not paradoxical, and one which is certainly validated by a practice,
whose importance can be measured by its identification with what is its fundamental relation—not of distance, nor of overview,
but properly initiated by what is designated as the discourse of the Master.
That is to say, there is something that is made present
by the fact that it is from discourse that every determination of the subject,
thus of thought, depends.

It is in this discourse that there arises, in fact… that there is this moment of which it would be quite mistaken to believe that it is at the level of a risk…
this risk, nevertheless mythical, a trace of myth still lingering in Hegelian phenomenology
…which makes it so that this Master would be nothing more than the one—what?—who is the strongest?

Certainly not what Hegel inscribes.
“The struggle for pure prestige at the risk of death” still belongs to the realm of the imaginary.
What makes the Master is this: it is what I have called, in other terms, “the crystal of language.”
Why not use what in French can be designated under the homonymy of “m apostrophe être”:
m’être, being myself?
It is from there that emerges the signifier-m’être, the second term of which I leave to you to write as you prefer.

To begin to articulate how this unique signifier operates in its relation with what is already there,
already articulated, such that we can only conceive of it as the presence of the signifier already there,
I would say, always there.
For if this unique signifier—the signifier of the Master, to be written as you wish—
articulates itself with something of a practice that it orders,
this practice is already woven, threaded, with what, though not yet fully formed, does not detach from it,
namely the signifying articulation that is at the principle of all knowledge,
even if at first it could only be approached as know-how.

The trace of this first presence of knowledge,
we even find it where it is already distant, for having been precisely long manipulated in what is called the philosophical tradition,
specifically concerning the engagement of the Master’s signifier with this knowledge.
Let us not forget that when Descartes posits his “I think, therefore I am,”
it is because he had, for a time, sustained his “I think”—of what?—
by a questioning, a doubting of this knowledge that I call “manipulated”,
of this knowledge that had already been long elaborated through the intrusion of the Master.

What can we say about contemporary science that allows us to find our bearings?
If you will, in three levels, three levels that I evoke here only due to a didactic weakness,
because after all, I am not sure that you will stick to my sentences:
— science,
— behind it: philosophy,
— and beyond it: something of which we have the notion, if only through biblical anathemas.

If I have given so much space this year to the text of Hosea—concerning what Freud draws from it according to Sellin—
the greatest benefit is perhaps not—although it exists on that side as well—
the questioning of what it is, in psychoanalytic theory,
that I have called this residue of myth that is called the Oedipus complex.

Surely, if there were something here to presentify,
some ocean of mythic knowledge regulating…
and how could one know whether harmoniously or not…
…the life of men, it would be what Yahweh curses—
from what I have called his fierce ignorance—
under the term “prostitution.”

This is a sufficient bias in my eyes, and surely a better one than the common reference to the fruits of ethnography,
which itself harbors I don’t know what kind of confusion, in somehow adhering naturally to what is collected.
Collected how? Collected in writing! That is to say, detailed, extracted, forever falsified from the so-called field from which it is claimed to be drawn.
This is certainly not to say that these mythic knowledges could say more, nor better,
about what constitutes the essence of the sexual relation.

What psychoanalysis demonstrates, and wherein it presents to us sex, death as its dependency…
even there, we are sure of nothing, except for this massive apprehension of the link between sexual difference and death
…if psychoanalysis presents it to us—what is it?—it is to demonstrate, in a way that I will not call vivid but only articulated,
that from the capture of this being—whatever it may be, that is to say, that it is not even being—
in discourse, what is demonstrated, in any case, is that nowhere does an articulation appear that…
that indicates, expresses the sexual relation, except in a complex way,
which one cannot even say is mediated, that there are medii or media, as you prefer, which are:

– The one, this real effect that I call plus-de-jouir, which is the petit(a).
What experience shows us is that it is only when this petit(a) substitutes for the woman that the man desires her.

– Conversely, what the woman deals with—if indeed we can speak of it—
is precisely this jouissance that is hers, and which, somewhere, represents itself as an omnipotence of the man,
which is precisely that by which the man, articulating himself as Master,
finds himself lacking.

It is from there that one must start in the analytic experience,
that what could be called man, that is to say, the male,
insofar as he is a speaking being,
properly disappears, vanishes, from the very effect of discourse and the discourse of the Master
—write it as you wish—
from being inscribed only in castration, which in fact is properly to be defined as the privation of the woman,
the woman insofar as she would be realized in a congruent signifier.
The privation of the woman: that is, expressed in terms of the lack in discourse,
what castration means.

It is precisely because this is unthinkable that, as an intermediary, the speaking order
institutes this desire, constituted as impossible,
which makes the privileged female object: the mother,
insofar as she is forbidden.
It is the ordered dressing of the fundamental fact that there is no possible place
in a mythical union that would be defined as sexual between man and woman.
This is precisely what we apprehend in psychoanalytic discourse,
that the One unifying, the One-whole, is not what is at stake in identification.

The pivot-identification, the major identification, is the unary trait, it is being marked 1.
Insofar as, before any promotion of any being,
from the fact of a singular 1, of that which bears the mark,
and from that very moment, the effect of language is posited,
and so is the first affect.

This is what the formulas here, which I have inscribed on the blackboard, recall.
Somewhere, this something is isolated, which the cogito only marks,
from the unary trait as well,
which one can suppose in “I think” to say “therefore I am.”
It is already to mark here the effect of division,
of a “I am” which elides “I am marked by 1,”
for, of course, Descartes is indeed inscribed within a scholastic tradition,
from which he extricates himself by a feat of acrobatics,
which is not at all to be disregarded as a process of emergence.

It is in function of this primary position of the “I am”,
moreover, that the “I think” can only be written.
A long time ago, you remember how I wrote it: “I think: therefore I am.”
This “therefore I am” is a thought.

It is infinitely better supported by bearing its characteristic of knowledge,
which does not go beyond “I am” marked by 1,
by the singular, by the unique—of what?—of this effect that is “I think.”
But here again, there is an error of punctuation:
the ergo…
a long time ago, I expressed it this way:
the ergo, which is nothing other than the ego at stake,
…must be placed on the side of the cogito:
the “I think: ‘therefore I am’.”
That is what gives the formula its true scope,
its cause, the ergo is “thought.”

That is the starting point to be taken from the effect of what is at stake
in the simplest order, in which the effect of language is exercised
at the level of the emergence of the unary trait.
The unary trait is certainly never alone,
so the fact that it repeats itself—
that it repeats itself by never being the same—
is properly the very order,
the one in question when language is present,
present and already there, already effective.

The first of our rules is not to question the origin of language,
if only because it sufficiently demonstrates itself through its effects.
The further we push its effects, the more this origin emerges.

The effect of language is retroactive,
precisely in that it is as it develops
that it manifests what it properly is,
a lack of being.

Likewise, I will only briefly indicate in passing—
as we have further to push today—
that by simply writing it this way:

and by making it operate in its strictest form,
what manifests itself from the very origin of a rigorous use of the symbolic,
in the Greek tradition,
namely at the level of mathematics,
at the level of what, in Euclid,
a fundamental reference,
a first definition never given before him,
I mean in what remains to us in writing.

Of course, who knows from where he derives his very strict definition of proportion,
the one that alone provides, at the level of the Fifth Book—if I remember correctly—
the only true foundation of geometric demonstration, an ambiguous term,
which, by always bringing forward these intuitive elements that exist in the figure,
leads us to misunderstand that, very formally, in Euclid,
the requirement is for symbolic demonstration, for grouped orders of inequalities and equalities,
which alone can allow proportion to be secured in a non-approximate but properly demonstrative way,
and in this term that designates what it names λόγος [logos], it is the sense of proportion.

It is curious, it is interesting, it is representative that it was necessary to wait for the Fibonacci sequence
for what is given in an apprehension of this proportion,
which is called “mean proportional”, and which is precisely the one that I rewrite here,
which you know I have used when I spoke of “From an Other to the other”.

That I have used this “mean proportional”,
which a certain romanticism still continues to call the “golden number”,
and which is lost in trying to rediscover it on the surface of everything that has ever been painted or drawn through the ages,
as if it were not certain that all of this is nothing but…
— to see it, one only needs to open a work on aesthetics that refers to this notion —
that if one can overlay it onto something, it is certainly not because the painter beforehand
drew its diagonals, and that, indeed, there is I don’t know what kind of intuitive agreement,
which makes it so that always, in the end, it is what sings the best.

There is, nevertheless, something else, which is this, whose terms will be easy for you to take:

Take them, if you will, like this, begin to calculate them from the bottom,
and you will quickly see that you first encounter 1/2,
that when you reach there, you are dealing with 2/3,
that then you are dealing with 3/5,
and that, in short, the proportion in question will be in this sequence that constitutes the Fibonacci series: 1, 2, 3, 5…,
namely, each term being the sum of the previous two, as I pointed out to you at the time,
that by pushing the series far enough, this relation of two terms,
which we will write as Un-1 + Un, or more precisely Un-1/Un,
where Un is constituted by the sum of Un-2 and Un-1,
this Un-1/Un will be equal to this ideal proportion,
which is called the “mean proportional” or the “golden number”.

From which it follows…
that by taking this proportion as an image of what affect is,
insofar as there is repetition of this “I am 1”,
…from which retroactively follows what causes the affect,
this affect we can momentarily write as a,
and we will know that it is the same a
that we find at the level of the effect.

The effect of the repetition of 1 is this a,
insofar as, in sum, at the level of what is here designated by a bar:

—the bar being precisely this:
that there is something to pass for the 1 to affect,
it is this bar, in sum, which is equal to a.

No surprise that we cannot legitimately write it below the bar
as what is the effect here thought,
inverted so as to make the cause emerge.
It is in the first effect that the cause emerges as a thought cause.
That is precisely what motivates us
to find in this first fumbling use of mathematics
something that interests us only because it is a more certain articulation
of what is at stake in the effect of discourse.

It is at the level of the cause, insofar as it emerges as a thought reflection of the effect,
it is at the level of this cause that we touch upon the initial order
of what the lack of being consists in,
in that being affirms itself only from the marking of 1,
and that everything else is a dream thereafter,
and notably that of 1,
insofar as it encompasses,
insofar as here it could unite anything,
except precisely this confrontation,
this addition of the thought of the cause
to something that is the first repetition of 1:

—namely, this repetition that already costs,
that institutes, at the level of a,
the debt to language,
to that something which must be paid
to the one who introduces his sign,
to that something which, from a nomenclature
trying to give it its historical weight,
names it here—
it is not strictly speaking of this year,
but let’s say, for you, of this year—
by the term Mehrlust.

Notice that if there is something to reproduce here
from this infinite articulation,
it goes without saying that for this a to be the same here and there,
the repetition of the formula can be, of course,
— not an infinite repetition,
as phenomenologists always fail by making the mistake
of repeating the “I think” within “I think”,
— but only this: that the “I think”—if it is an effect—
can only be replaced by the “I am”.

“I think therefore I am,”
“I am the one who thinks, therefore I am,”
and this indefinitely, where you will notice
that a always moves away
in a series that exactly reproduces
the same order of 1s
as they are here deployed to the right:

—except that in the last term there will be a petit(a),
a petit(a)—notice this, a singular thing—
which is enough,
as far as you carry it down,
for the equality to remain the same
in the formula inscribed here,
namely that the multiple and repeated proportion
equals— in total— the result of petit(a).

In which it is marked that this series, in sum, does nothing else,
if I am not mistaken,
than mark the order of convergent series
whose intervals are the greatest by being constant,
namely, always petit(a).

This, in truth, is in a certain way nothing more than a local articulation,
which, certainly, does not claim to establish a fixed proportion
and measure what constitutes the effectivity of the most primary manifestation of number,
namely that of the unary trait.

It is made only to recall that science, as we now have it—if I may say so—
on our hands, I mean, present in our world in a way that far exceeds anything
that can be speculated as an effect of knowledge.

For one must not forget the following:
– That the characteristic of our science is not to have introduced a better, more extensive knowledge of the world,
– But to have brought forth into the world things that in no way existed at the level of our perception.

That is, everything that one tries to organize around a mythical genesis,
under the pretext that this or that philosophical meditation
would have long dwelled on the question:
what guarantees perception not to be illusory?

That is not where science came from.

Science came from what was already in the egg,
in the Euclidean demonstrations,
even though these remain highly suspect of still carrying this attachment
to the figure that takes pretext from its evidence.

The entire evolution of Greek mathematics proves to us that it is precisely those
who elevate to the zenith the manipulation of number as such—
look at the method of exhaustion, which is the one that, already in Archimedes,
prefigures what will lead to the essential,
and which for us is structure in this case,
namely “calculus,” infinitesimal calculus,
which does not even need to wait for Leibniz,
who, for that matter, first approaches it with a certain clumsiness,
and which already begins well before,
simply by reproducing Archimedes’ feat on the parabola,
at the level of Cavalieri—
we are in the 17th century, but already long before Leibniz.

What follows from this?

From this science, of which one could no doubt say “Nihil fuerit in intellectu non prius fuerit in sensu”,
what does that prove?

Sensus has nothing to do, as we nonetheless know, with perception.

Sensus is there only as something that can be counted,
and the very act of counting quickly dissolves it,
since what concerns our sensus…
— if taken, for example, at the level of the ear or the eye —
…ultimately results in a numeration of vibrations,
and it is precisely insofar as we have…
— through this play, this play of number —
…that we have begun to produce, in effect, vibrations that had nothing to do
neither with our senses nor with our perception,
that the world, the world presumed to be ours from always,
is now, this very same world, populated…
— as I said the other day on the steps of the Pantheon —
…populated, in the very place where we are,
with a considerable number, crisscrossing without you having the slightest suspicion,
of something called waves,
which certainly cannot be neglected as a manifestation, presence, existence
of something that is science,
and which nonetheless should require that when speaking about our Earth,
about atmosphere or stratosphere…
— or whatever pleases you in terms of spherization,
as far as we can apprehend particles —
…one should also take into account, and even more so in our time,
something that is the effect of what?

Less of a knowledge that would have progressed through its own filtering,
through its critique, as they say,
but rather through this bold momentum toward something,
which is what—by an artifice, and undoubtedly an artifice at the level of Descartes…
— others will choose others —
…the artifice of entrusting God with the guarantee of truth:
if there is a truth, let Him take charge of it, we take it at face value.

– And by this sole game of a truth,
not abstract, but purely logical,
– By this sole game of a strict combinatorial order,
subjected simply to the condition that its rules
must always be designated under the name of axioms,
– By this sole game of a formalized truth,

…thus is constructed a science
that has nothing to do anymore
with the presuppositions of what has always been implied by the idea of knowledge,
namely this dual polarization,
this ideal unification,
which would be imagined as what knowledge is,
and in which one can always find…
— and by whatever name one clothes them,
εἶδος, ὔλη [eidos, oulé], for example —
…the reflection, the image—
moreover, always ambiguous—
of two principles,
the male principle and the female principle.

That what is at stake as the space
where the creations of science unfold,
from then on, can only be qualified
as insubstance, as a-thing (l’apostrophe),
is indeed the fact that completely changes
the meaning of our materialism.

It is the oldest figure
of the infatuation of the Master—
write it as you wish—
that man imagines himself forming woman.

I think that you all have enough experience
to have encountered this comedic story
at one turn or another in your life!

The form, the substance—
call it as you wish again—
the content:
this myth is precisely what a scientific thought must break away from.

And if I may here advance with a somewhat rough plowshare, simply, how shall I say,
to express my thought clearly…
which of course means that I fall into pretending as if I had one,
for that is precisely not what is at stake,
but as everyone knows, thought is communicated through misunderstanding, obviously…
so let us engage in communication and say that what this version, this conversion, consists in—
by which science at once proves itself as distinct from any “theory of knowledge”—
which means nothing, since it is precisely only in the light of the apparatus…
—to the extent that we can apprehend it—
…of science, that we can establish what was at stake in the errors, the dead ends,
the confusions that indeed never failed to arise in what was articulated as “knowledge”,
with the underlying assumption that there were two principles to be divided:

– One that forms,
– And the other that is formed,

because, precisely, if there is something that science makes us touch with our fingers…
and just as much something that is confirmed
by the fact that in the analytic experience we find its echo…
it is that…
if you will, and to express myself in these grand, approximate terms,
when I speak of the male principle, for example…
the effect of the incidence of discourse
is that it is as a speaking being
that he is summoned to account for his “essence”,
between ironic quotation marks.

It is precisely from affect that it follows,
from this effect of discourse,
that is to say, it is precisely inasmuch as he receives
this feminizing effect,
which is the petit(a)—
and only through that—
that he recognizes what constitutes him,
namely, the cause of his desire.

Conversely, at the level of the so-called “natural” principle,
which is no accident that it has always been symbolized—
in the bad sense of the word—
by a female reference,
it is, on the contrary, from insubstance,
as I said earlier,
that this void arises,
which is assuredly the something at stake
if we want, from a very distant, very remote perspective,
to give it the horizon of woman.

It is within this jouissance that is precisely unformed, formless,
that we may find the place,
the place where science constructs itself,
in its “operates-itself” function…
for this “I perceive,” supposedly original,
must be replaced by an “operates-itself”.

It is insofar as science refers only to a signifying articulation,
takes itself only from the order of the signifier,
that it is constructed from something
of which there was nothing before.

That is precisely what is important to grasp,
if we want to understand something about what is at stake—
what exactly?—
in the forgetting of this very effect,
namely that all of us, as the field expands,
as what science makes a function of the Master’s discourse extends,
we do not know to what extent,
for the simple reason that we never knew,
at any point,
that we were each and first of all determined as object(a).

Earlier, I was speaking—
to recall it—
of those spheres,
of which the expansion of science precisely…
which, curiously enough,
is also highly operative in determining what is being…
encloses the Earth
within a series of zones,
which it qualifies as best it can.

Why not also account for the place
where these fabrications are situated—
and here again, I overemphasize what I mean—
these fabrications of science?

If they are nothing more than the effect of a formalized truth,
how shall we name it?

I cannot tell you that I am necessarily very proud
of what I am proposing here.

I think it is useful—
you will see why—
to pose this question,
which is not one of nomenclature,
for it is indeed about the place that is effectively occupied,
by what?

Let’s be blunt.
I was speaking earlier of waves,
well, that is exactly what it is about:

– Hertzian waves or others,
– Waves of which no phenomenology of perception
has ever given us the slightest idea,
nor would it ever have led us there.

Let’s look at that!

Certainly not the noosphere,
you see that—right?—
the noosphere,
that would be populated with noumena.

If there is indeed something that,
on this occasion,
recedes into the 25th background
of everything that could interest us,
it is precisely that.

What if we called it—
but you may find something better—
the aléthosphere,
borrowing from ἀλήθεια [alètheia],
a manner of speaking
that, I concede,
has nothing emotionally philosophical about it.

Let’s not lose our bearings.

The aléthosphere,
that gets recorded:
if you have a microphone here,
you plug into the aléthosphere.

What’s astonishing
is that if you are in a small vehicle
taking you to Mars,
you will always be able to connect to the aléthosphere.

And even,
it is absolutely clear and manifest
that what I have already designated
as this surprising effect of structure,
which accounts for the fact that these two or three people
went to wander on the moon,

believe me,
as for what constitutes the exploit,
it is certainly not by chance
that they remained always within the aléthosphere.

Even for those who, at the last moment, at the last instant, encountered some minor troubles,
they would have probably managed much less well…
I am not even talking about their interactions with their little machines…
maybe they would have gotten through it all alone,
but the fact remains that they were constantly accompanied by this petit(a) of the human voice alone.
After all, they could allow themselves to say nothing but nonsense,
for example, that everything was fine [Laughter] when everything was going wrong!

But what does it matter!

What matters is that they remain within the aléthosphère,
insofar as this…
we must, after all—at the time we live in—
realize all of this, all these things that populate it.

And since I have just spoken to you about the aléthosphère,
it will lead us to introduce another word.

Aléthosphère is beautiful to say,
because we suppose that what I have called this formalized truth
already sufficiently holds the status of truth at the level where it operates, where it operates-itself,
but at the level of the operated, of what wanders,
it is not at all unveiled, this truth.

The proof is that this human voice, with its effect—
as if it supports your perineum, if I may put it this way—
does not unveil its truth at all.

So, we will call that, using the aorist of the same verb,
of which a famous philosopher reminded us that ἀλήθεια [alètheia] derives from it…
because, after all, only philosophers think of such things,
philosophers, and perhaps linguists…
we are going to call this “lathouses”. [Laughter]

The world is becoming increasingly populated with lathouses.

It seems to amuse you, so I will write it down for you.

You will notice that I could have called it “lathousies”,
which would have played along with οὐσία [ousia],
for it partakes of οὐσία [ousia],
with all the ambiguity that exists in οὐσία [ousia]:

– οὐσία [ousia] is not the Other,
– It is not being,
– It is between the two.
– It is not quite being either, but still, it approaches it closely.

As for feminine insubstance, I might even go as far as parousia.
But as for the petit(a) objects you will encounter when you step outside,
there on the pavement,
at every street corner,
behind every shop window,
amidst this proliferation of objects made to provoke your desire,
insofar as science governs us,
think of them as “lathouses.”

I realize, somewhat belatedly—
because “lathouse” is something I have only recently invented—
that it rhymes with “ventouse” (suction cup).
There is wind inside, a lot of wind,
the wind of the human voice!

It is rather comical to find this at the end of our discussion,
whereas if man had spent less time using God as a go-between
to believe he unites with woman,
perhaps we would have discovered these lathouses long ago!

In any case, since the hour is advancing,
after all this little eruption meant to ensure that you do not feel at ease,
not at ease with your relation to the “lathouse”,
with the fact that it is quite certain
that each person is dealing with two or three of this kind, at the very least.

Because the truth is that the lathouse
has no reason at all to limit itself in its multiplication.

What matters is to know what happens
when one truly engages in a relation with the lathouse as such.

The ideal psychoanalyst would be the one who says
that he commits this absolutely radical act,
and the very least that can be said
is that to see him do it is anxiety-inducing.

One day, when the matter was about monetizing me,
I tried to advance a few small points,
it was part of the ceremony:

while they were pricing me,
they were willing to pretend
to be interested in what I might have to say
about the formation of the psychoanalyst,
I advanced…
— of course, in absolute indifference,
since people were more occupied
with what was happening in the hallways —
I advanced that there is no reason
why psychoanalysis should cause anxiety,
since that is precisely what one is dealing with,
and that it is quite certain
that if the lathouse exists,
it shows that anxiety—
and this is where I started—
is not without an object,
that a better approach to the lathouse
should, at least a little, calm us.

But to put oneself in such a position
that there is someone whom you have dealt with,
regarding his anxiety,
who now wants to take up the very position
that you hold,
or that you do not hold,
or that you barely hold.

To know how you hold it,
and how you do not hold it,
and why you hold it,
and why you do not hold it…

That will be the subject of our next meeting.

That will be the subject of our next meeting, the title of which I will nonetheless tell you.
It will be about the relations—still to be supported by the same little schemas—
between impotence and impossibility.

It is clear that it is absolutely impossible to hold the position of the “lathouse”.
Only, that is not the only thing that is impossible;
there are other things as well,
provided that we give a strict meaning to the word “impossible”,
that is, defining it only at the level of our formalized truth, namely:

That in any formalized field of truth,
there are truths that cannot be demonstrated
[See Gödel’s incompleteness theorems].

At the level of this impossible, it is there—
as you know—that I define what is real.

If it is real that the analyst exists,
it is precisely because it is impossible.

That is part of the position of the “lathouse”.

The trouble is that, in order to be in the position of the “lathouse”,
one must truly have grasped that it is impossible.

That is why we so much prefer
to emphasize “impotence”,
which also exists, but which is something else,
which I will show you, and which occupies a different place than impossibility.

That is why…
I know that there are some people here
who are occasionally troubled
to see me, as they say—
though I don’t know how they say it exactly—
insulting, addressing, vociferating against analysts.

These are young people,
who are not analysts,
and they do not realize that
this is actually something kind that I am doing,
these are little signs of recognition that I give them.

I mean, after all,
I do not want to put them through too harsh a trial,
and when I make allusions to their impotence—
which is also my own—
it means that at that level,
we are all brothers,
and we simply have to struggle through as best we can.

It tames them before I speak to them
about the impossibility of the analyst’s position.