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(All parts in English)

1. 天下之言性也
2. 則故而已矣
3. 故者以利為本
4. 孟子

1. “The discourse on human nature under heaven is this.”
2. “Thus, that is all there is to it.”
3. “The ancients took benefit as the foundation.”
4. Mencius

孟子 [Meng Tzeu]— that is the name of the author of this brief formula…

This brief formula, which, despite having been written around 250 B.C., in China as you can see,
in Chapter 2, Book IV, Part 2…
sometimes it is classified differently, in which case it would be
Part VIII, Book IV, Part 2, Paragraph 26
…of Meng-Tzeu, whom the Jesuits call Mencius, since it was they who…
long before the time when there were sinologists—that is, before the early 19th century, not earlier…
I had the good fortune of acquiring the first book in which a Chinese printing plate was combined,
which is not quite the same as the first book that contained both Chinese characters and European characters.
It is the first book in which there was a Chinese printing plate with writings,
with things printed, of our own making. It is a translation of Aesop’s fables.

This was published in 1840, and it boasts—rightfully so—of being the first book where this conjunction was realized.
1840—keep in mind that this is roughly the date when sinologists emerged.
The Jesuits had been in China for a very long time, as some may recall.
They almost achieved the conjunction of China with what they represented in their capacity as missionaries.
Only, they allowed themselves to be somewhat influenced by Chinese rites,
and as you may know, in the midst of the 18th century, this caused them some trouble with Rome,
which, on this occasion, did not demonstrate particular political acuity.
It happens to Rome…

Finally, in Voltaire…
if you read Voltaire—but of course, no one reads Voltaire anymore,
which is a great shame, as his works are full of insights…
In Voltaire, there is…
very precisely in The Age of Louis XIV and, I believe, in an appendix, where it forms a separate pamphlet…
a substantial development on this “Rites Controversy,”
from which many things in history can now be seen as descending.

Be that as it may, it is Mencius we are speaking of, and Mencius writes this,
as I wrote it on the board at the beginning.
It is not strictly speaking part of my discourse today,
which is why I place it before exactly half past twelve.
I will tell you, or rather, try to make you sense what it means.

And then, it will ease us into what is precisely the subject of what I wish to articulate today, namely:
In what concerns us, what is the function of writing?

Since writing has existed in China since time immemorial—
I mean long before we had, strictly speaking, literary works,
writing had already existed for an extremely long time—
we cannot assess how long it had existed.
Writing in China has played an entirely pivotal role
in a number of events, and this is quite illuminating
in terms of what we can think about the function of writing.

It is certain that writing played a completely decisive role in supporting something—
something to which we have access in this manner and in no other,
namely a type of social structure that endured for a very long time,
and from which, until recently, one could conclude
that there was an entirely different lineage in what was sustained in China
compared to what developed in our own civilization.

And specifically, through one of these phyla that particularly concern us,
namely the philosophical phylum,
insofar as—as I pointed out last year—
it is nodal for understanding what is at stake in the discourse of the Master.

Now, here is how this epigraph is stated.
As I already showed you on the board last time:

天下 之 言 性 也
Tiānxià zhī yán xìng yě

– This 天 designates the sky, it is pronounced tiān.
– 天下 (tiānxià) means “under the sky,” everything that is under the sky.
– Here, 之 is a determiner (zhī), indicating something that is beneath the sky: 天下之.
What is beneath the sky is what follows.
– What you see here 言 is nothing other than the designation of speech,
which in this context we will pronounce yán.
– 言性 (yán xìng), I already wrote it on the board last time,
pointing out that this 性 (xìng) is precisely one of the elements
that will concern us this year,
insofar as the term that comes closest to it is that of “nature.”
– And 也 (yě) is something that concludes a sentence,
without strictly saying that it belongs to what we express as “is” or “to be”;
it is a conclusion, a conclusion or, let’s say, a punctuation mark.

Car the sentence continues here, since things are written from right to left:

則 故 而 已 矣
zé gù ér yǐ yǐ.

The sentence continues here with a certain 則 (zé), which means “therefore” or at least indicates the consequent.
So, let us see what this is about: 言 (yán) [back to the first column] means nothing other than “language,”
but like all terms stated in the Chinese language, it is also capable of being used in a verbal sense.
Thus, it can mean both “speech” and “that which speaks,” and what does it speak about?
In this case, it would be what follows, namely 性 (xìng), “nature”: that which speaks of nature under heaven,
and 也 (yě) would serve as punctuation.

Nevertheless, and this is why it is interesting to engage with a sentence in the written language,
you see that you could divide things differently and say: “speech” or even “language,”
for if the intention were to specify “speech,” we would have a slightly different character.
As it is written here, this character can mean either “speech” or “language.”

These kinds of ambiguities are absolutely fundamental in the use of what is written, precisely,
and this is what gives it its significance. Because, as I pointed out,
as I pointed out at the start of my discourse this year and especially last time:
it is precisely insofar as reference…
with regard to everything that pertains to language…
is always indirect that language takes on its significance.

Thus, we could also say: “language…
as it exists in the world, as it exists under heaven…
language—this is what constitutes 性 (xìng), nature,”
for this nature is not, at least in Mencius, just any nature.
It is precisely the nature of the speaking being, the one of which, in another passage, he takes care to specify that:

“There is a difference between this nature and the nature of the animal…

a difference,” he adds, emphasizing it with two terms that mean exactly what they mean:

“an infinite difference.”

And perhaps this is what is being defined here.
You will see, moreover, that whether we take one or the other of these interpretations,
the axis of what follows as the consequent will not be altered.

則 故 而 已 矣
zé gù ér yǐ yǐ.

– 則 (zé) [back to the second column] therefore, “the consequence,” “as a result,”
– 故 (gù)—here, gù, “as a result,” is from “cause,” for “cause” means nothing else.

Regardless of the ambiguity introduced by a certain book—this book here: Mencius on the Mind,
written by a man named Richards…
who was certainly no minor figure…
Richards and Ogden are the two leading figures of a position that emerged in England,
fully aligned with the best tradition of English philosophy.
They established at the beginning of this century the doctrine called logical positivism,
whose major work is titled The Meaning of Meaning.
This is a book to which you will already find references in my Écrits,
where I express a somewhat dismissive stance.

The Meaning of Meaning means Le sens du sens.
Logical positivism proceeds from the requirement that a text must have a graspable meaning,
which leads it to this position: that a certain number of philosophical statements
are, in a way, devalued from the outset because they yield no graspable result
in the search for meaning.

In other words, if a philosophical text is caught in the act of meaninglessness,
it is, for that very reason, dismissed.
It is all too clear that this is a way of pruning things that does not really allow one to find their way,
for if we assume that something without meaning cannot be essential to the development of a discourse,
we simply lose the thread.

I am not saying, of course, that such a requirement is not a method, but that this method, in a way, forbids us any articulation whose meaning is not immediately graspable. This is something that, for instance, could lead to the following consequence: we would no longer be able to make use of mathematical discourse, whose characteristic—according to the most qualified logicians—is precisely that, at certain points, we may not be able to assign it any meaning. Yet, this does not prevent it from being, among all discourses, the one that develops with the greatest rigor.

This, moreover, places us at a point that is absolutely essential to highlight regarding the function of writing.

則 故 而 已 矣
zé gù ér yǐ yǐ.

故 者 以 利 為 本
gù zhě yǐ lì wéi běn.

– So, it is 故 (gù) that we are dealing with. It is gù that we are dealing with, and as 以為 (yǐ wéi), for I have already told you that this 為 (wéi), which in some cases can mean “to act” or even something in the order of “to do,” though not just in any sense.

– 以 (yǐ) here has the meaning of something like “with,” it is “with” that we proceed—with what?—with 利 (lì). This is the word I am pointing out to you, and I emphasize this: that 利 (lì), I repeat, this 利 (lì), which means “gain,” “interest,” “profit.” And this is all the more remarkable because Mencius, in his first chapter, when presenting himself to a certain prince—
no matter which one, from among what were later called the Warring States—
finds himself in the presence of this prince, who asks him for advice.
Before this prince, Mencius makes it clear that he is not there to teach what constitutes our present law for all, namely what is appropriate for the increase of the kingdom’s wealth, and specifically what we would call surplus value.
If there is a meaning that can be retrospectively assigned to 利 (lì), it is indeed this.

Now, what is remarkable to observe here is that what Mencius signifies on this occasion is that, from this speech which is nature—or if you prefer, from speech that concerns nature—what is at stake is reaching the cause, inasmuch as the said cause is 利 (lì).

則 故 而 已 矣
zé gù ér yǐ yǐ

Which means:

– 故 而 (gù ér) is something that means both “and” and “but.”

– 而 已 矣 (ér yǐ yǐ): “that is all there is to it,” and to dispel any doubt, the 矣 (yǐ) at the end, which is a concluding yǐ, has the same intonation as “only”—”it is yǐ (矣), and that is enough.”

This is where I allow myself, in sum, to recognize that, as far as the effects of discourse are concerned, as far as what is beneath the sky is concerned, what emerges, what results, is none other than the function of the cause inasmuch as it is “the surplus enjoyment.”

You will see, if you refer to this text of Meng-Tzu, that there are two ways to do so:

– You can obtain it in the very, very good edition produced by a Jesuit at the end of the 19th century, a certain Wieger, in an edition of The Four Fundamental Books of Confucianism.

– Another way is to get hold of Mencius on the Mind, which was published by Kegan Paul in London.

I do not know if there are still many copies currently available, as they say, but after all, it might be worthwhile—why not?—to have some made for those curious enough to refer to something so fundamental for shedding light on a reflection on language.
For the work of a neo-positivist is certainly not negligible, and Mencius on the Mind, by Richards, can be obtained in London from Kegan Paul.
So, for those who wish to make the effort to get a copy—if they cannot obtain the volume—a photocopy might allow them to better understand a number of references I will be making to it this year, for I will return to it.

Something else entirely is speaking about the origin of language, and something else is its connection to what I teach,
to what I teach in accordance with what I articulate,
which I articulated last year as the discourse of the analyst.
For you are not unaware that linguistics began with Humboldt under this sort of prohibition:
not to pose the question of the origin of language, lest one go astray.

It is no small thing that someone, in the midst of a period of genetic mythification—such was the trend
at the beginning of the 19th century—should have established that nothing could ever be situated, founded,
or articulated concerning language unless one first prohibited all questions about its origin.

This is an example that ought to have been followed elsewhere;
it would have spared us many ramblings of the kind one might call primitivist.
There is nothing like a reference to the primitive to primitive-ize thought itself.
It is thought itself that regularly regresses in direct proportion to what it claims to uncover as primitive.

The discourse of the analyst…
I must tell you, since, after all, you have not heard it…
the discourse of the analyst is nothing other than the logic of action.

You have not heard it—why?—because in what I articulated last year, with the small letters on the board in this form:
– a over S₂,
– and regarding what happens at the level of the analysand, namely the function of the subject as barred (S̷),
and in that what it produces are signifiers (S₁), and not just any signifiers: master signifiers.

“The logic of action.”
It is not about the “action” of speech, but about the action of writing, of what is written when one speaks on the couch:
→ “the logic of action” proper to the four small letters in which discourse A is written.
What is written there is not what is spoken there: writing differs from speech.
What is written there, and thus the logic that is constituted there
(it is only from writing that logic is constituted), may go unheard.
What is written there hollows out, scratches, palimpsestically, the misunderstanding about… pale-incest. (Bousseyroux 2014)

It is because it was written, and written in this way…
for I have written it many times…
that you have not heard it.

This is how writing differs from speech, and it is necessary to reintegrate speech into it,
to butter it up generously…
but of course, not without fundamental inconveniences…
for it to be heard.

One can write all sorts of things without them ever reaching an ear,
and yet, they are written.
This is precisely why my Écrits are called as such.
It scandalized sensitive people, and not just anyone.

It is quite curious that the person whom this quite literally convulsed was a Japanese woman.
I will comment on this later.
Naturally, here, it convulsed no one; the Japanese woman I am speaking of is not present.
And anyone belonging to that tradition, I believe, would understand, if the occasion arose,
why this kind of insurrectional effect occurred.

It is, of course, through speech that the path to writing is forged.
My Écrits, if I titled them as such, it is because they represent an attempt—an attempt at writing—
as is sufficiently marked by the fact that they culminate in graphs.
The problem is that those who claim to comment on me immediately start with the “graphs.”
They are wrong!

The graphs are only understandable in relation to—
I would say—the slightest stylistic effect of the so-called Écrits,
which are, in a way, the stepping stones to them.
As a result, writing, writing taken in isolation…
whether it be this or that diagram, the one called “L,” or anything else,
or even the great graph itself…
creates the opportunity for all kinds of misunderstandings.

It is speech that is at stake,
insofar—why?—as it tends to forge the path to these graphs in question.
But one must not forget this speech,
for the very reason that it is precisely what reflects the analytic rule,
which, as you know, is:
“speak, speak, wager.”
It is enough that you speak, is it not?
There, you have the box from which all the gifts of language emerge—
a Pandora’s box.

What, then, is the relation with these graphs? These graphs—of course, no one has yet dared to go that far—
do not indicate to you in any way anything that would allow a return to the origin of language.
If there is one thing that is immediately apparent, it is that not only do they not reveal it,
but they do not promise it either.

What we will address today is the situation concerning truth
that results from what is called “free association,” in other words, a free use of speech.

I have only ever spoken of it with irony: there is no more “free association”
than one could say that a bound variable in a mathematical function is free,
and the function defined by analytic discourse is obviously not free; it is bound.
It is bound by conditions that I will briefly designate as those of the analytic setting.

At what distance is my analytic discourse, as it is here defined by this written arrangement,
at what distance is it from the analytic setting?
That is precisely what constitutes what we shall call “my dissent” from a certain number of analytic settings.

Thus, this definition of analytic discourse…
to indicate where I stand on this…
does not seem to them to be compatible with the conditions of the analytic setting.

However, what my discourse outlines—at the very least—delivers part of the conditions that constitute the analytic setting.
Measuring what one is doing when one enters psychoanalysis is something of real importance,
but in any case—where I am concerned—it is indicated by the fact
that I always conduct numerous preliminary interviews.

A pious person, whom I shall not name otherwise, apparently found—so it is said,
at least in echoes from three months ago—that there was for her an untenable wager
in founding transference on the subject supposed to know,
since, moreover, the method implies that it is sustained by a complete absence of prejudgment regarding the case.

The subject supposed to know what, then?
I would allow myself to ask this person whether the psychoanalyst must be supposed to know what he is doing
and whether he actually does know it?

From there, from there, one will understand how I formulate my questions about transference
in The Direction of the Treatment, for example, which is a text in which, I am pleased to see,
that in my school…
since something new is happening—
that in my school, people are beginning to work under the title of a school,
which is, after all, a step new enough to be noted…
I was able to observe, not without satisfaction,
that it had been noticed that in this text, I do not in any way settle what transference is.

It is very precisely in saying “the subject supposed to know”—as I define it—
that the question remains entirely open as to whether the analyst can be supposed to know what he is doing.

To, in a way, take from the beginning, the beginning of what will be articulated today,
for which this small Chinese character 厶—for that is what it is, that is what it is…
I very much regret that chalk does not allow me to place the accents that a brush permits…
it is a character that has a meaning, and to satisfy the requirements of the logical positivists,
it is a meaning that you will see is entirely ambiguous:

– since it simultaneously means “cunning,”
– it also means “personal,” in the sense of “private,”
– and it has still a few other meanings.

But what seems remarkable to me is its written form,
and its written form will allow me immediately to tell you
where the terms around which my discourse today will revolve are situated.

– If we were to place somewhere here [1] what I call, in the broadest sense…
you will see that it is broad; I must say that it seems unnecessary for me to emphasize it…
the effects of language,

– it is here [2] that we would have to place what is at stake, namely, where they take their principle.
Where they take their principle, that is where analytic discourse is revelatory of something,
that it marks a step. I will try to recall this, even though for analysis, these are first truths.
This is precisely where I will begin at once.

– We would have here [3], then, the fact of writing.

It is very important in our time, especially in light of certain statements that have been made and tend to establish very regrettable confusions, to recall that writing is not primary but secondary in relation to any function of language. Nevertheless, without writing, it is in no way possible to return to questioning what results, first and foremost, from the effect of language as such—
in other words, from the symbolic order—
which is, to put it in terms that might please you, its dimension.
But you know that I introduced the term demansion, the demansion, the dwelling, the locus of the Other of truth.

I know that this demansion has raised questions for some; I have heard echoes of it.
Well, if demansion is indeed a term, a new term that I have coined, and if it has no meaning yet,
then that means it is up to you to give it one.

To interrogate the demansion of truth, the truth in its dwelling,
is something…
this is the term, the novelty of what I am introducing today…
that can only be done through writing, and through writing insofar as this:
it is only through writing that logic is constituted.

This is what I am introducing at this point in my discourse this year:
there is no logical question except from writing,
insofar as writing is precisely not language.

And this is why I have stated that there is no metalanguage,
that writing itself, insofar as it is distinct from language,
is there to show us that if it is through writing that language is interrogated,
it is precisely insofar as writing is not language,
but that it is only constructed, only fabricated, through its reference to language.

Having established this, which has the advantage of clarifying my aim, my intention,
I return to what concerns this point [1]:

This point, which is of the order of that surprise
through which is marked the effect of reversal
in which I have tried to define the junction of truth with knowledge,
and which I have stated in these terms:
“there is no sexual relationship in the speaking being.”

There is an initial condition that could immediately reveal this to us:
the sexual relationship, like any other relationship,
ultimately only subsists through writing.

The essence of the relationship is an application:

– a applied to b (a/b),

– and if you do not write a and b, you do not hold the relationship as such.

This does not mean that things do not happen in the real,
but on what grounds would you call it a relationship?
This fact, as obvious as it is,
should already suffice to make it at least conceivable that there is no sexual relationship,
but it would not settle the fact that one cannot manage to write it.

I would even go further: something that has already been done for some time
is to write it like this: ♂/♀,
using small planetary symbols,
that is, the relationship of what is male to what is female.

And I would add that for some time now, thanks to the progress made possible by the use of the microscope—
for let us not forget that before Swammerdam,
there was no way to have any idea of this whatsoever—

this might seem to articulate the fact that the relationship…

– no matter how complex it may be,
– no matter how meiotic the process by which so-called gonadic cells
provide a model of fertilization from which reproduction proceeds…

well, it seems that something is indeed founded there, established,
allowing one to situate at a certain level, called “biological,”
what pertains to the sexual relationship.

The strange thing—
and after all, my God, not so strange—
but I would like to evoke for you the dimension of strangeness in this matter…
is that the duality and sufficiency of this relationship
have always had their model.

I mentioned this last time in relation to the small Chinese symbols.

There is one here…
I suddenly became impatient to show you symbols,
as if it had only been done to impress you…

well, the yīn that I did not show you last time,

here it is: yīn 陰,
and yáng, here it is: yáng 陽.

I repeat, do I not? Here, another small stroke here…

Yīn and yáng, the male and female principles—this, after all, is not unique to the Chinese tradition.
You find it in every form of reflection:

– concerning “the relations between action and passion,”
– concerning the formal and the substantial,
– concerning Purusha, the spirit, and Prakriti, some kind of feminized matter.

The general model of this relationship between male and female has always haunted, for a long time,
the way the speaking being situates itself in relation to the forces of the world—those that are Tiānxià 天下: under the sky.

It is important to highlight something entirely new, what I have called the effect of surprise:
understanding what has emerged—whatever its value—
from analytic discourse is that it is untenable to remain in any way at this duality as sufficient.

It is because of the so-called function of the “phallus”…
which, to be sure, is the most clumsily handled, yet is there,
operating not just within an experience linked to some vague notion of deviance,
as though it were pathological,
but as something essential in itself to the institution of analytic discourse…
this function of the phallus now renders this sexual bipolarity untenable,
untenable in a way that literally volatilizes whatever could be written of this relationship.

One must distinguish:
– what pertains to this intrusion of the phallus,
– from what some have thought they could translate as a “lack of signifier.”

It is not a “lack of signifier” at stake, but the obstacle posed to a relationship.

The phallus, by emphasizing an organ, does not refer to the so-called “penis” with its physiology,
nor even to the function one might—well, indeed!—
quite plausibly attribute to it, namely copulation.
It designates, in the least ambiguous way—if one refers to the analytic texts—
its relation to jouissance.

And this is precisely what distinguishes it from its physiological function:
there is…
this is what is posited as constituting the function of the phallus…
there is a jouissance that constitutes, in this relationship—different from the sexual relationship—what?
What we shall call its condition of truth.

The angle under which the organ is considered,
which in relation to the whole of living beings is in no way necessarily tied to this particular form…
If you knew the variety of copulatory organs that exist among insects, you might…
which, after all, is the principle of what is always useful: astonishment, in order to interrogate the real…
you might indeed be surprised that this is how it works in vertebrates.

Here, it is a question of the organ insofar…
I must go quickly here, for I am not going to…
spend eternity on this, rehash everything—
let one refer to the texts I mentioned earlier: The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power…
the phallus is the organ insofar as it is—is in the sense of being—
insofar as it is feminine jouissance.

This is where and how the incompatibility between being and having resides.
In this text, this is repeated with a certain insistence,
with certain stylistic emphases which, I repeat,
are just as important for navigating this as the graphs to which they lead.

And so, there I was, facing me at the famous Royaumont Congress,
a few people chuckling:
“Well, if it’s all about that, if it’s about being and having,
it didn’t seem to them to have much significance—
being and having, you just choose, right?”
Yet, that is precisely what is called castration.

What I am proposing is this: to posit that language…
is it not, we place it here [1]…
has its reserved field in this gap [2] of the sexual relationship,
the gap left open by the phallus.

By positing that what it introduces there:
– is not two terms defined by male and female,
– but a choice between terms of a fundamentally different nature and function, called being and having.

What proves this, what supports it,
what makes this distance absolutely evident and definitive, is this…
this, whose distinction does not seem to have been noticed…
it is the substitution of the sexual relationship
with what is called sexual law.

This is where the distance is inscribed, where it becomes clear that there is nothing in common between:

– what can be stated about a relationship that would establish a law, insofar as it falls, in some form, under an application as closely as mathematical function constrains it,
– and a law that is coherent with the entire register of what is called desire, of what is called prohibition, which emphasizes that it is from the very gap of inscribed prohibition that the conjunction—and even the identity, as I have dared to state—of this desire and this law arises. And this, in turn, establishes correlatively, for everything related to the effect of language, everything that founds the demansion of truth, a structure of fiction.

The correlation between rite and myth has always existed, and it is ridiculous to say that myth is merely a commentary on the rite, something made to sustain it, to explain it. Rather, according to a topology that I have addressed for quite some time now—so that I need not recall it—the rite and the myth are like the front and the back of the same surface, with the condition that this front and back remain in continuity.

The persistence, within analytic discourse, of this residual myth called the Oedipus myth—God knows why—which is in fact the myth of Totem and Taboo, where Freud’s entire invented myth is inscribed, that of the primordial father enjoying all women, is something that we must nonetheless interrogate from a bit further away, from the perspective of logic, of writing, to understand what it truly means.

It has been quite some time since I introduced here Peirce’s schema concerning propositions, insofar as they are divided into four: universal, particular, affirmative, and negative, with the two pairs of terms exchanging.
Everyone knows that to say “all x is y,” if Peirce’s—Charles Sanders Peirce’s—schema is of any interest, it is in showing that defining it as necessary for “all something” to be endowed with such an attribute is a universal position that is entirely acceptable, even if no x exists.

In Peirce’s small formula, his small schema, let me remind you:
– here [2] we have a certain number of vertical marks,
– here [1 and 4] we have none,
– here [3] we have a small mixture of both, and it is from the overlapping of two of these sections that the specificity of each of these propositions emerges,
– and it is by combining these two quadrants [1 and 2] that one can say: every mark is vertical; if it is not vertical, there is no mark.

To construct the negative, these two [1 and 4] must be combined: either there is no mark, or there is no vertical one.
What the myth of “the enjoyment of all women” designates is that “all women”—there are none.
There is no universal of Woman.

This is what emerges from questioning the phallus…
and not the sexual relationship…
in regard to the jouissance it constitutes, since I have stated that it is feminine jouissance.

It is from these statements that a number of questions are radically displaced.
After all, it is possible that there exists some knowledge of the jouissance called “sexual,”
which belongs to a particular woman.
The idea is not unthinkable; traces of it exist in myths, scattered here and there.
Things like Tantra, they say, are practiced.

Still, it is clear that for quite some time now—if you allow me to put it this way—
the skill of the “flute players” has been far more evident.

I do not bring this up at this point to indulge in obscenity, but because there is here…
and I assume so…
there is at least one person here who knows what it means to play the flute.
It is the person who recently pointed out to me, regarding this flute playing…
but this could be said about any use of an instrument…
what a division of the body the use of an instrument, any instrument, requires.

I mean a rupture of synergy.
It is enough to use any instrument.
Put on a pair of skis, and you will immediately see that your synergies must be broken.
Take a golf club…
I have recently started again…
same thing, isn’t it? There are two types of movements you must make simultaneously,
which you absolutely cannot manage at first,
because synergetically, it just does not work that way.

The person who reminded me of this about the flute also pointed out that in singing,
where, on the surface, there is no instrument—
and this is what makes singing particularly interesting—
it is also necessary to divide the body,
to separate two things that are entirely distinct
in order to be able to sing, but which are usually absolutely synergic, namely:
– the placement of the voice,
– and breathing.

Well, these fundamental truths…
which did not need to be reminded to me,
since, after all, I was just telling you that my latest experience was with the golf club…
this is what leaves open the question of whether, somewhere,
there still exists a knowledge of the phallic instrument.

Only, the phallic instrument is not an instrument like the others—just as in singing,
the phallic instrument, as I have already told you, must not at all be confused with the penis.
The penis, on the other hand, is regulated by the Law:

– that is to say, by desire,
– that is to say, by the surplus-jouissance,
– that is to say, by the cause of desire,
– that is to say, by fantasy.

And this supposed knowledge of the woman who would know—here, she runs into a bone,
precisely the one that is missing from the organ,
if you will allow me to continue in the same vein.
Because in certain animals, there is indeed a bone. Oh yes!
There, there is a lack—it is a missing bone—
but it is not the phallus, it is desire and its functioning.

As a result, a woman has no testimony of her insertion into the law,
of what substitutes for the relationship, except through the desire of the man.
And here, it takes only the slightest analytic experience to be certain of it:
the desire of the man—as I have just said—is linked to its cause,
which is the surplus-jouissance, or which is also…
as I have expressed many times, if it takes its source in the field from which everything arises…
the effect of language, in the desire of the Other, then.

And the woman, on this occasion,
one realizes that it is she who is the Other.
Only, she is the Other of an entirely different nature,
of an entirely different register than her knowledge, whatever it may be.

Thus, the “phallic instrument”—placed in quotation marks—
is posited as the cause of language. I did not say its origin.

And now, despite the late hour—my God—I will be brief;
I will point out the trace that one can find of it,
namely, the persistence, despite everything,
of a prohibition on obscene words.

And since I know that there are people waiting for me on that point,
on something I promised them:
to make an allusion to Eden, Eden, Eden
and to explain why I do not sign those—what do you call them?—those things,
those petitions regarding it.

It is certainly not because my esteem for this endeavor is low:
in its own way, it is comparable to that of my Écrits.
Except that it is far more desperate.

It is utterly hopeless to “language” the phallic instrument.
And it is precisely because I consider it, at this point, beyond hope,
that I also believe that nothing can develop around such an endeavor except misunderstandings.

You see that my refusal, in this case, is positioned at a highly theoretical level.
Where I would like to go is this: from where does one interrogate truth?
Because truth can say whatever it wants—it is the oracle.
It has existed forever, and afterward, one is left to figure it out.

Only, there is a new fact, isn’t there?
The first new fact since the oracle has been functioning—which means forever—
is one of my writings,
the new fact called The Freudian Thing,
where I stated something that no one had ever said before…
only, since it was written, naturally, you did not hear it…
I said that “truth speaks I.”

If you had given due weight to that kind of polemical luxuriance I engaged in,
in presenting truth in such a way,
I do not even remember exactly what I wrote—
“as entering the room in a crash of mirrors”—
perhaps that might have opened your ears.

Does the sound of breaking mirrors in a written text not strike you?
And yet, it is quite well written;
this is what is called “a stylistic effect.”

That would certainly have helped you understand what “truth speaks I” means.
It means that one can address it as “You.”

And I will explain to you what that is for.
Of course, you will think that I am going to tell you that it serves dialogue.
But I have long since said that there is no such thing as dialogue,
and with truth, even less so.

Nevertheless, if you read something called Metamathematics by Lorenzen…
I have brought it—it is published by Gauthier-Villars and Mouton…
well, and I will even tell you the page where you will find some clever things.

It consists of dialogues—it is written dialogues,
meaning that it is the same person writing both replies.
It is a very peculiar kind of dialogue,
but it is highly instructive.
You can refer to page 22.
It is highly instructive,
and I could translate it in more than one way,
including by making use of my being and having from earlier.

But I will go more simply, to remind you of something I have already emphasized,
namely that none of the so-called paradoxes at which classical logic stumbles,
notably the “I am lying” paradox,
holds up except from the moment it is written.
It is entirely clear that saying “I am lying” presents no difficulty,
given that one does nothing else—
so why would one not say it?

What does this mean?
That it is only when it is written that there is a paradox,
because one then says: “Well, are you lying, or are you telling the truth?”

It is exactly the same thing that I pointed out to you before:
that writing “the smallest number that can be written in more than fifteen words” presents no difficulty when I say it to you.
But if it is written, you count, and you realize that there are only thirteen words in what I have just said.
Yet, this only counts if it is written.

Because if it were written in Japanese, I challenge you to count them.
For then, you would still have to ask yourself the question—
there are little bits, like this, fragments of babbling, little o and little wa,
and you would wonder whether they should be attached to the word
or separated and counted as a word on their own.
And yet, they are not even words—they are just there.

Only, when it is written, it becomes countable.
Then, truth, you will realize, exactly as in Lorenzen’s Metamathematics,
if you assume that one cannot say “yes and no” at the same time about the same point,
then you win…
you will soon see what you win…
but if you bet that it is “either yes or no,” then you lose.

Refer to Lorenzen, but I will illustrate it for you right away.
I posit:

“It is not true,” I say to truth, “that you tell the truth and that you lie at the same time.”

Truth can respond in many ways, since it is you who make it answer—
it costs you nothing.
Either way, it will lead to the same result,
but I will detail it for you to stay in line with Lorenzen:

– It says: “I tell the truth!”
– You reply: “I won’t argue with that!”
– Then, to annoy you, it says: “I lie.”
– To which you respond: “Now I’ve won—I know that you contradict yourself!”

This is exactly what you discover with the unconscious—it carries no greater weight than that.
That the unconscious always tells the truth and that it lies is, in itself, perfectly tenable.
It is simply up to you to know it.

What does this teach you?
That you only know something about truth when it breaks loose.
For it has broken loose—it has shattered your chain.
It has told you both things equally well,
just when you were saying that the conjunction was untenable.

But suppose the opposite—suppose you had said to it:
“Either you tell the truth, or you lie.”
Well then, you would be out of luck.
Because what does it reply?

“I grant you that—I bind myself. You tell me: either you tell the truth or you lie, and indeed, that is true.”

Only then, at that point, you know nothing—you know nothing of what it has told you,
since either it tells the truth or it lies,
so you are the loser.
I do not know if this appears to you in all its relevance,
but it means something we experience constantly, which is:

“That truth refuses itself—well, then, that serves me in some way.”

This is what we are constantly dealing with in analysis, and that:

“That it gives in, that it accepts the chain, whatever it may be—well, then, I lose my Latin.”

In other words, this… this leaves me wanting.
It leaves me wanting—it leaves me in my position as a petitioner,
since I deceive myself by thinking that I can handle a truth
that I can only recognize in its state of being unleashed.

Show what kind of unbinding you participate in.

There is something that deserves to be noted in this matter, and that is the function of something that I have, for quite some time now, been slowly putting in the spotlight—something that goes by the name of freedom.

It happens that, through fantasy, there are those who elaborate certain theories in which—
if not truth itself, then at least the phallus—could be tamed.
I will not tell you into what varieties of detail these kinds of speculations can extend.

But there is something quite striking—
aside from a certain kind of lack of seriousness,
which may well be the most solid criterion for defining perversion—
well then, these elegant solutions,
it is clear that for those to whom this is serious business—
for whom, my God, language matters, as does writing,
if only because it enables logical questioning—
for in the end, what is logic if not that absolutely fabulous paradox
that only writing allows: taking truth as a referent?

It is, of course, through this that we enter into communion,
when we begin by stating the very first formulas of propositional logic,
we take as a reference that there are:

– propositions that can be marked as True,
– and others that can be marked as False.

It is with this that the reference to truth begins.
To refer to truth is to posit absolute falsehood,
that is, a falsehood that could be referenced as such.

Serious people…
let me return to what I was saying…
to whom these elegant solutions—these supposed “taming of the phallus”—are proposed,
well, curiously enough, they are the ones who refuse.

And why, if not to preserve what is called freedom,
insofar as it is precisely identical to this non-existence of the sexual relationship?

For after all, is there any need to point out
that this relationship between man and woman,
insofar as it is, by law—the so-called sexual law—
radically falsified,
is precisely that which still leaves something to be desired,
that each should have their other to respond to them?
If that happens, what will we say?

Certainly not that it was a natural thing,
since in this regard, there is no nature,
since Woman does not exist…
that she exists is a woman’s dream,
but it is the dream from which Don Juan emerged.

If there were a man for whom the woman existed, that would be a marvel!
One would be certain of his desire.
It is a feminine speculation…
for a man to find his woman,
what else but the romantic formula:
“It was fate, it was written.”

Once again, here we are at this crossroads—
the one where I told you I would shift the issue
of what it means to be the true lord, the one who is…
what is translated, quite poorly indeed, as man…
placed just a little above the common lot.

This shift occurs between:

– the xìng 姓, this nature as inscribed by the effect of language,
inscribed within this disjunction between man and woman,

– and, on the other hand, this “it is written,”
this mìng 命, this other character,
whose form I have already shown you once before,
the one before which freedom recoils.

1. 孟子曰天下之言性也則故而已矣
2. 故者以利為本所惡於智者
3. 為其盡也如惡惡臭然馬
4. 之行水也則無惡於智
5. 矣焉之行水也行其
6. 無事也如智者亦行行其
7. 所無事則智亦大矣天
8. 之高也星辰之遠也苟
9. 求其故千歲之日至可
10. 坐而致也

1. Mencius said: “The discourse on human nature under heaven—
   that is all there is to it.”
2. “That which is called reason takes benefit as its foundation. What the wise detest…
3. is the pursuit of it to the utmost, just as one detests a foul stench. A horse…
4. when moving through water, has no aversion to wisdom.
5. If it follows the current, it does not resist wisdom.
6. Moving along without obstruction, like the wise man, who also follows…
7. that which is without resistance—thus, wisdom is great. The sky…
8. is high, the stars and constellations are distant. Yet, if one…
9. seeks to understand their principles, even after a thousand years,
10. one can sit and attain them.”

MENCIUS, Book IV, Chapter II, § 26.

Translation by M.G. Pauthier: Mencius said:

– “When discussing human rational nature in the world, one must speak only of its effects. Its effects are the most important thing to know. This is why we feel aversion toward a [false] sage who employs deceptive maneuvers.
If this sage acted naturally, like Yu when he directed the waters [of the great flood], we would feel no aversion to his wisdom. When Yu directed the great waters, he did so according to their most natural and easiest course.
If the sage likewise guides his actions according to the natural path of reason and the nature of things, then his wisdom will also be great.
Although the sky is very high and the stars are very distant, if one investigates the natural effects that proceed from them, one can thus, with the greatest ease, calculate the day when, after a thousand years, the winter solstice will occur.”

Translation by Séraphin Couvreur: Mencius said:

– “Everywhere under heaven, when speaking of nature, one refers to natural effects. Natural effects have this peculiarity first of all: they are spontaneous.
What displeases us about men who are prudent (but with a narrow prudence) is that they force nature.
If prudent men imitated the way Yu channeled the waters, nothing in their prudence would displease us.
Yu made the waters flow in such a way as to encounter no difficulty (he took advantage of their natural tendency).
If prudent men likewise acted in a way that avoided difficulty, their prudence would be great.
Although the sky is very high and the stars are very far from the earth, if one studies their movements,
one can easily calculate the moment of the winter solstice for every year over the past ten centuries.”