🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

If I start abruptly with the essence of what I have to tell you, it could be expressed as follows:
it is that in what we are exploring, from a certain discourse…
on this occasion, mine, mine insofar as it is that of the analyst
…let’s say that it determines functions, in other words, that functions are only determined from a certain discourse.

So, at this level of functions determined by a certain discourse, I can establish the equivalence that: “writing is jouissance.”
Naturally, this can only be situated within this initial articulation of functions determined by a discourse. Let’s say it holds exactly the same place within these functions.

This being stated so abruptly, why?
Well, so that you put it to the test.
It is true that it will always lead you somewhere.
And preferably even to something precise.

This, of course, does not exempt me from the task of introducing you to it through the appropriate paths, namely:
– not those that justify it for me, given where I speak to you from,
– but those through which it can be explained.

I suppose—I do not necessarily suppose—that I am always addressing analysts here;
after all, that is precisely what makes my discourse not easily followed,
it is very precisely insofar as there is something at the level of the analyst’s discourse
that constitutes an obstacle to a certain type of inscription.

Yet this inscription is what I leave behind, what I propose, what I hope will pass,
will pass from a point where, if one may say so,
the analytic discourse might gain a new momentum.

So, the point is to make perceptible how the transmission of a letter relates to something essential, fundamental,
in the organization of discourse—whatever it may be—namely, jouissance.
For that, of course, I must each time attune you to the tone of the thing.

How to do it, if not by recalling the fundamental example from which I started,
namely that it is very explicitly by studying the letter as such…
as what? As—so I have said—it has a feminizing effect
…that I open my Écrits.

This letter, in sum—I emphasized it again last time—it functions very specifically
in that no one knows anything about its content [Cf. symptom],
and that until the end of the tale, no one will know anything about it.

It is highly exemplary, it is highly exemplary in that, naturally, only a simpleton…
and still, I think that even to a simpleton the idea would not occur
…that this letter is something as rudimentary, as crude, as something
that would bear witness to what is commonly called a sexual relationship.

Even though it is written by a man and it is stated, and emphasized, that it is by a Great Man, by a Great Man and to a Queen,
it is evident that this is not what makes a drama, and that this letter, which pertains to the decorum of a Court…
if I may say so, that is to say, something founded
—it is the best definition one can give—on the distribution of jouissance,
…pertains to the decorum of a Court in that, within this distribution,
it places what is properly called the sexual relationship in its rank,
that is, quite obviously, the lowest.

No one considers noteworthy the services that a great Lady may receive in this respect from a lackey.
With the Queen, of course, and precisely because she is the Queen, things must take on another tone.

But first, then, it is established—this being an experiential fact—that a man born,
that is to say, if I may put it “by race,”
could not take offense at a liaison of his wife beyond the measure of his decency,
that is, within the limits of the forms respected.
The only thing that could be an objection to it is, of course,
the introduction of bastards into the lineage,
but even that, after all, can serve to rejuvenate a bloodline.

Where it is obviously seen here…
in a framework which, though it may not be especially presentified to you in contemporary society,
is nonetheless exemplary and fundamental when it comes to reasoning about social relations,
…where it is seen, I say, in sum, that there is nothing like an order founded on artifice
to bring forth that element which, in appearance, should precisely seem irreducible in the real,
namely the function of need.

If I have told you that there is an order in which it is fully assigned its place,
that a subject—no matter how highly placed—
reserves for himself that irreducible share of jouissance,
the minimal share that cannot be sublimated,
as Freud expressly puts it,
only an order founded on the artifact—
I specified the Court…
the Court insofar as it doubles the artifact already of nobility
with this second artifact of an ordered distribution of jouissance—
…and it is only there that need can decently find its place:
need explicitly specified as such is sexual need.

Only, what seems on the one hand to specify the natural,
to be what, I would say, from the perspective of a theorization
essentially biological of the sexual relation,
could make what must result from a need—namely reproduction—
stem from that need,
we observe that while the artifact satisfies a certain primary theorization on one side,
on the other, it evidently leaves room for this,
which is that reproduction, in this case,
may just as well not be—
I will say, in quotation marks—”legitimate” reproduction.

This need, this irreducible element in the sexual relation,
we can, of course, admit that it always exists, and Freud affirms this.
But what is certain is that it is not measurable
so long as it is not explicitly…
and it can only be so in the artifact…
in the artifact of the relation to the Other with a capital O.

It is not measurable, and it is precisely in this element of indeterminacy
that the fundamental issue is inscribed,
it is very precisely that the sexual relation is not inscribable,
is not foundational as a relation.

This is precisely why the letter,
the letter from which I start to open my Écrits,
designates itself by what it is,
and by what it indicates in everything that Freud himself develops,
which is that if it serves something that belongs to the order of sex,
it is certainly not a sexual relation,
but a relation, let’s say, sexed.

The difference between the two is as follows,
it is that…
this is what Freud demonstrates, what he contributed decisively…
it is that through the mediation of the unconscious,
we perceive that everything in language
– has to do with sex,
– is in a certain relation to sex,
but very precisely in that the sexual relation cannot…
at least up to the present time…
in any way be inscribed in it.

The so-called sexualization by Freudian doctrine…
of what pertains to the functions that can be called subjective,
provided they are properly situated,
situated within the order of language…
the so-called sexualization essentially consists in this:
that what should result from language—
namely that the sexual relation in some way
might be inscribable therein—
precisely shows—and this, in fact—
shows its failure: it is not inscribable.

You already see functioning here that which forms part of this effect of gap,
this effect of division, which is what we always regularly encounter,
and it is precisely for this reason that, in a way,
you must be trained in it,
it is that I state, for example, the following:
that the sexual relation,
it is precisely to the extent that something fails,
fails in that it…
is it “stated” in language?
But precisely, it is not “stated” that I said: it is “inscribable.”
…inscribable in that what is required,
what is required for there to be a function,
is that from language “something” may arise
that is the writing explicitly—as such—of the function,
namely this “something”
which I have already symbolized for you more than once
in the simplest way,
namely this: F in a certain relation to x: F → x.

So, at the moment of saying that language is that “something” which does not account for the sexual relation,
it does not account for it—in what sense?—
in this sense: from the inscription that it is capable of commenting on,
it cannot make that inscription be…
for that is precisely what it consists in…
be what I define as the effective inscription of something that would be the sexual relation,
insofar as it would establish a relation between the two poles, the two terms named man and woman,
insofar as this man and this woman are sexes respectively specified as masculine and feminine—
in whom, in what?—in a being who speaks.
In other words, one who, inhabiting language, finds in it the means for that usage which is speech.

It is in this sense that it is not insignificant here to bring forth the letter,
properly speaking, as situated within a certain relation—
the relation of the woman to what, in Written Law,
is inscribed in the context where the matter is placed,
namely, by the fact that she is—as Queen—
the image of the woman as conjoined with the King.

It is insofar as something is here improperly symbolized,
and typically around the relation as sexual…
and it is no coincidence that precisely it can only be embodied in beings of fiction…
it is in this sense that the fact that a letter, that a letter is addressed to her,
takes on the value, takes on the value that I designate
in order to be read, in order to enunciate myself in my own discourse:
“this sign”:

“this sign—it concerns the letter—is indeed that of the woman,
in that she asserts her being in it,
by founding it outside the Law,
which always contains her, by virtue of the effect of its origins,
in the position of signifier, or even of fetish.”

It is clear that without the introduction of psychoanalysis,
such an enunciation…
which is nonetheless the one from which, I would say,
the revolt of the woman proceeds…
such an enunciation, that is, to say that the Law always contains her,
by virtue of the effect of its origins, in the position of signifier, or even of fetish,
could not…
of course, I repeat, outside the introduction of psychoanalysis…
be enunciated.

So, it is precisely in this that the sexual relation is—if I may say so—statized,
that is to say, by being incarnated in that of the King and the Queen,
highlighting, in truth, the structure of fiction.
It is from there that the letter takes on function, effect,
that it surely establishes itself as being in relation
to the deficiency, the marked deficiency of a certain promotion,
in a way arbitrary and fictive, of the sexual relation,
and it is there that, taking on its value,
it poses its question.

This is, after all, an occasion here…
do not assume that this follows directly from what I have just recalled,
but these sorts of leaps, of displacements,
are strictly necessitated by the point to which I wish to lead you…
it is an occasion to mark that here, of course, it is confirmed:
this fact that truth only progresses through a structure of fiction.

That is to say, precisely, in its essence,
it is from the promotion, somewhere, of a structure of fiction…
which is precisely the very essence of language…
that something may arise.
And what is that something?

But precisely, this kind of interrogation, this kind of pressure, of constriction,
which places truth, if I may say so, against the wall of verification.
That is nothing other than the dimension of science.

Where it is finally shown that the path by which, if I may say so,
the path by which we see science progressing,
is that the role logic plays in it is not negligible.

Whatever may be the originally, fundamentally,
inherently fictive nature of the material from which language is articulated,
it is clear that there is a path called verification,
which consists in grasping where fiction, if I may say so, stumbles, and what halts it.

It is clear that here, whatever it is that we have been able to inscribe…
and you will soon see what that means…
the progress of logic,
I mean the written path through which it has advanced,
it is clear that this stumbling block
is entirely effective in inscribing itself within the very system of fiction.
It is called contradiction.

If science has apparently progressed in ways other than through tautology,
this takes nothing away from the scope of my remark,
namely that the imperative, issued from a certain point,
for truth to be verifiable,
is precisely what has forced the abandonment of all sorts of other allegedly intuitive premises,
and that if…
I will not return to this today,
I have insisted enough on the characteristics
of everything that preceded,
paved the way for, for example, the Newtonian discovery…
it is indeed very precisely because no fiction proved satisfactory,
other than one which, precisely, had to abandon all recourse to intuition
and adhere to a certain inscribable.

This is why we must concern ourselves with what is at stake in the inscribable
in its relation to verification.

To conclude, of course, regarding what I have said about the effect of the letter
in The Purloined Letter, what have I explicitly stated?
It is that it feminizes those who find themselves
in a position of being “in its shadow.”

Of course, this is where the importance of this notion is touched upon:
the “function of the shadow,”
insofar as, already last time, in what I enunciated to you about what an écrit precisely is…
I mean something that presents itself in literal or literary form…
the shadow, in order to be produced, requires a source of light… Yes!

And what I had done was perceptible to you
only through what Aufklärung entails,
through something that retains the structure of fiction.
I am, of course, speaking of the historical period,
which was no small thing,
and which may be useful to us—
it is useful here, and that is what I am doing—
to retrace its paths or revisit them,
but in themselves.

It is clear that what creates light
comes precisely from what emerges from that field
which defines itself as the field of truth.
And as such, inasmuch as it is such,
the light that it spreads [this field of truth] at every moment…
even if it should have the effective consequence
that what causes opacity within it casts a shadow
and that it is this shadow that produces effects…
that this truth itself must always be interrogated
regarding its structure as fiction.

Thus, in the end, it follows that,
as it is enunciated, explicitly enunciated in this écrit,
the letter, of course,
is not to the woman,
the woman to whom it is addressed,
that it brings satisfaction by reaching its destination,
but to the subject,
namely, very precisely—
to redefine it—
to that which is divided within the fantasy,
that is to say,
to reality insofar as it is engendered by a structure of fiction.

This is indeed how the tale concludes,
at least as, in a second text—my own—I rewrite it,
and it is from there that we must proceed
to further reinterrogate what is at stake in the letter.
It is very precisely because this has never been done
that, in order to do so,
I must myself extend this discourse on the letter.
There you have it!

What must be taken as a starting point is nonetheless this:
it is not in vain that I urge you
to miss nothing of what occurs within the order of logic.
It is certainly not so that you feel obliged, so to speak,
to follow its constructions and detours.

It is in this sense that nowhere,
as in these constructions that designate themselves
as belonging to symbolic logic,
nowhere does the deficit of any possibility of reflection appear more clearly.
I mean that nothing is more cumbersome—
this is well known, is it not?—
than the introduction of a treatise on logic,
the impossibility for logic to posit itself
in a justifiable way is something truly striking.

It is in this respect that the experience of reading these treatises—
and they are all the more striking, of course,
the more modern they are,
the more they are at the forefront of what effectively,
and quite effectively,
constitutes a progression in logic—
which is the project of inscribing what is called “logical articulation,”
the articulation of logic itself being incapable
of defining either its goals, its principle,
or anything resembling even a material basis.

It is quite strange, and it is precisely in this
that it is highly suggestive,
for this is precisely what would warrant exploring more deeply
something that is assuredly located solely within language,
and grasping that if, perhaps, within this language,
nothing that ever advances itself only clumsily
as not being of this language—
let us say, a correct usage—
can very precisely be enunciated
only by failing to justify itself,
or justifying itself only in the most confused manner
through all sorts of attempts,
such as those consisting in dividing language
into an object-language and a metalanguage,
which is entirely the opposite of what everything that follows demonstrates,
namely that there is no way,
even for a single instant,
to speak of this so-called object-language
without, of course,
not using a metalanguage,
but indeed using the language that is everyday language.

But in this very failure, what is at stake in the articulation that has the closest relation to the functioning of language can be revealed, that is to say, the following articulation:
namely, that the relation—the sexual relation—cannot be written.

Thus, for this reason and for this purpose alone, if I may say so, to make a few movements that remind us of the dimension in which we are moving, I will recall the following: how what inaugurates the tracing of logic first presents itself, namely as formal logic, and in Aristotle.

Of course, I will not go over it for you…
although that would be very instructive, it would be very instructive, but after all, each of you can simply make the effort to open the Prior Analytics. Let them put themselves to the test of this revisiting, let them open the Prior Analytics, and they will see what the syllogism is. And the syllogism, after all, must be taken as a starting point—at least, that is where I resume things—since, in our second-to-last meeting, that is where I left off.
…I do not wish to take it up again by exemplifying it…
because for this, time limits us…
…by exemplifying it with all the forms of the syllogism.

Let it suffice for us to quickly highlight what is at stake in the Universal and the Particular, and in their form, quite simply affirmative. I will take the syllogism known as Darii, that is to say, one composed of an affirmative Universal and two Particulars, and I will remind you of a certain way of presenting things.

Simply understand that here, nothing, in any case, can function except by substituting within the fabric of discourse, substituting for the signifier the gap produced by replacing it with the letter.

For if we enunciate this—for the sake of dealing only with Darii—that, to use Aristotle’s terms:

– “Every man is good,” the “every man” is of the Universal—and I have sufficiently emphasized, sufficiently prepared you in any case to hear this, so that I can recall it without further ado—that the Universal does not, to hold, require the existence of any man: “Every man is good” can mean that there is no man but a good man; everything that is not good is not a man, is it not?

– Second articulation: “Some animals are men.”

– Third articulation, which is called the conclusion, the second being the minor premise: “Some animals are therefore good.”

It is clear that this specifically holds only by virtue of the use of the letter,
for the reason that it is evident that, unless they are supported by a letter, there is no equivalence between “Every man”…
the “Every man” as the subject of the Universal, which here plays the role of what is called “the middle term”…
…and that same middle term in the place where it is used as an attribute, namely in “Some animals are men.”

For in truth, this distinction, which deserves to be made, nevertheless requires great care.

The man of “Every man,” when he is the subject, implies a function of a Universal that provides him with support solely in his symbolic status, namely that something is enunciated as “man.”

In the form of the attribute, and to maintain that “Some animals are men,” it is of course necessary—this is the only thing that distinguishes them—to enunciate that what we call “man” in the animal is precisely that species of animal that finds itself inhabiting language.

Of course, at that moment, it is justifiable to posit that “man is good” is a limitation.
It is a limitation precisely in that what can serve as the foundation for man being good lies in this,
highlighted long ago and even before Aristotle,
that the idea of the “good” could only be established from language.

For Plato, it is at its foundation: there is no language, no possible articulation—
since for Plato, language is the world of Ideas—
there is no possible articulation without this primary idea of the good.

It is entirely possible to interrogate differently what is at stake in the “good” within language,
and in that case, to simply deduce the consequences that will result from it
for the universal position of the statement that “man is good.”
As you know, this is precisely what Meng-Tzu does,
whom I did not bring up here for nothing in my recent lectures.

“Good”—what does that mean? Good for what?
Or is it simply to say, as has been said for some time now: “You are good.”
If things have come to a point where,
in the questioning of what is truth as well as discourse,
this shift in emphasis has perhaps indeed been adopted in the usage of the word “good.”

Good, good! No need to specify: “good for service,” “good for the slaughter,”
that is saying too much.
“You are good” has its absolute value.
In fact, that is the central link between “good” and discourse:
as soon as you inhabit a certain type of discourse,
well, you are good for it to command you.

It is precisely in this that we are led to the function of the master signifier,
which I have emphasized is not inherently part of language itself,
and that language does not command…
or rather, I mean, does not make possible…
anything other than a certain determined number of discourses,
and that none of those I have articulated for you up until now—
especially last year—eliminates the function of the master signifier.

To say “Some animals are good” is obviously, under these conditions,
not at all a merely formal conclusion.
And that is why I emphasized earlier that the use of logic…
whatever it may be able to enunciate…
is not at all to be reduced to a tautology.

That “some animals are good” is precisely not limited to those who are men,
as the existence of those called domestic animals implies.

And it is not for nothing that I have been emphasizing for some time
that we cannot say they do not have the use of speech.
If they lack language, and of course much more—
the mechanisms of discourse—
that does not make them any less subject to speech;
on the contrary, that is precisely what distinguishes them
and makes them into means of production.

This, as you can see, opens a door that would lead us a bit far.
I will point out to you for your meditation
that in the so-called commandments of the Decalogue,
the woman is assimilated to the aforementioned [means of production],
in the following form:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his ox, nor his donkey.”

And finally, there is an enumeration
which is precisely that of the means of production.
This is not an opportunity for mockery but for reflection,
by relating what I point out here in passing
to what I once took the trouble to say
about what is expressed in the commandments,
namely, nothing other than the laws of speech—
which limits their interest.
But it is precisely very important to limit the interest of things
in order to understand why they truly carry weight.

Well, now that this has been said,
to the best of my ability—
which is to say, through a clearing,
which, as usual, is it not,
is the one I am forced to make
with the reversed capital A,
the buffalo head, the bulldozer—
I move on to the next step,
namely what the progress of logic allows us to inscribe.

You know that something has happened…
something which, moreover…
it is quite remarkable that it waited for something like a little more than 2000 years…
that something happened
which is called a reinscription of that first attempt
by means of gaps placed in the right spots,
namely by replacing terms with letters—
the so-called major and minor terms [lapsus]…
extreme and middle terms!
The so-called “extreme and middle terms”:
major and minor being propositions—
I ask your pardon for that lapsus.

Now, you know that with the logic inaugurated
by the laws of De Morgan and Boole,
we have arrived…
inaugurated only by them, and not pushed to its ultimate point…
we have arrived at the so-called quantifier formulas.

[Noises in the room…] We can’t hear anything…
Who can’t hear? No one?
Have you not been hearing me for a while?
When you’re at the board…
So up until now, it was fine?
I am grateful to you for telling me at the moment when it no longer is.

So listen, I am going to write quickly, and then I will return to this…

Alright then, I just made these little circles to show you that the bar is not a bar between two F(x)…
which, by the way, would mean absolutely nothing…
and that the bar you find in the right-hand column, between each of the pairs of F(x),
this bar is only linked to the F(x) that is below it here,
that is to say, it signifies its negation.

Time is moving forward more than I had anticipated,
so this might force me to shorten things a little.
The result of the complete operation of inscription,
the one that was made possible, suggested,
by the progress of mathematics,
is that because mathematics, through algebra,
has come to write itself entirely,
the idea arose of using the letter for something other
than just making gaps.

That is, to write differently our four types of propositions,
insofar as they are centered on “All,”
on “some”—terms whose ambiguities
would really not be difficult to demonstrate to you.

Then, from this idea,
what was first presented as a subject was written,
on the condition that it be marked with this reversed capital A: ∀,
which we could take as equivalent to “For all x”;
and from then on,
the question became to what extent a certain “For all x”
could satisfy a functional relation.

I think I do not need to emphasize here…
though I must do it nonetheless,
otherwise, all of this would seem empty…
that the matter has full meaning in mathematics,
namely that precisely as long as we remain within the letter,
where the power of mathematics lies,
this x on the right, insofar as it is unknown,
may legitimately be posited—or not posited—
as capable of finding its place in what turns out to be the function that corresponds to it.
That is, where this same x is taken as a variable.
To go quickly—because, as I said, time is moving forward—
I will illustrate it.

I have emphasized,
I have said it,
I have enunciated it,
that the x on the left—
in the ∀x, namely [ ; ]—
is an unknown.
Let’s take, for example, the root of a second-degree equation.
Can I write, for every root of a second-degree equation,
that it can be inscribed in this function that defines x as a variable,
the one that constitutes the real numbers?

For those who are entirely unfamiliar with this,
for whom all of this is truly a language never before heard,
I emphasize that the real numbers,
at least for them,
are all the numbers they know—
including irrational numbers,
even if they do not know what those are.

Let them simply understand that with real numbers,
well, we are done:
we have given them a status.
Since they do not suspect what imaginary numbers are,
I only mention them to suggest
that it is worth defining a function for real numbers.
Alright!

Well then, it is entirely clear that it is not true
that for “For all x,”
that is, for every root of the second-degree equation,
one can say that every root of the second-degree equation
satisfies the function upon which real numbers are founded.
Quite simply because there are roots of the second-degree equation
that are imaginary numbers,
which do not belong to the function of real numbers.

Alright, what I want to highlight for you is this:
we tend to think this is enough to say.
Well, no!

It is not enough to say,
because just as for the relations of “For all x,”
as well as for the relation that one thinks can be substituted for “Some,”
namely…
that one might be content with in this instance…
namely that there exist roots of the second-degree equation
that satisfy the function of the real number,
and also that there exist roots of the second-degree equation
that do not satisfy it.

But in one case as in the other,
what results…
far from allowing us to see here a purely formal transposition,
a complete homology,
a complete equivalence between Universals and Particulars,
affirmative and negative respectively…
is that what this means is not that the function is not true…
what could it possibly mean for a function to not be true?
From the moment you write a function,
it is what it is,
this function,
even if it far exceeds the function of real numbers…
what this means is that regarding the unknown
that constitutes the root of the second-degree equation,
I cannot write, to situate it within,
the function of real numbers.

Which is something entirely different from the negative Universal,
whose properties, moreover, were already well suited
to lead us to suspend it, as I sufficiently emphasized at the time.

It is exactly the same at the level of:

there exists an x about which…
there exist certain x, certain roots of the second-degree equation, about which…
I can write the so-called function of real numbers, stating that they satisfy it.

There are others [x] about which…
it is not a matter of denying the function of real numbers…
about which I cannot write the function of real numbers.

This is what will introduce us to the third step,
which is, in sum, everything I have just told you today,
which is, of course, meant to introduce you.

It is that, as you clearly saw, I naturally slipped…
trusting my memory of what needed to be rearticulated…
I slipped into writing it,
namely that the function, with its little bar above it,
symbolized something completely absurd
in relation to what I actually had to say.

You may have noticed that
it had not even occurred to me—at least until now… nor to you either—
to think that the negation bar
might have something to do,
something to indicate,
not in the right-hand column, but in the left.

Let’s try—
what can be made of this?
What can we say about the fact that the function would not vary?
Let’s call it Φ(x), just by chance,
and let’s place—
what we have never done until now—
the negation bar.
It can be spoken or written.
Let’s start by stating it:

– It is not for every x that the function Φ(x) can be inscribed: .!
– It is not for an existing x that the function Φ(x) can be written: /!

There you have it!
I have not yet said whether this is inscribable or not,
but in expressing myself this way,
I am enunciating something that has as its only reference
the existence of the written.

To put it plainly,
there is a world of difference between these two negations:

– The one that means I do not write it, that I exclude it,
and, as someone who was quite a fine grammarian once put it,
it is forclusive:
the function will not be written, I want nothing to do with it.

– The other is discordant:
it is not insofar as there is an “all x”
that I can write or not write Φ(x),
it is not insofar as there exists an x
that I can write or not write Φ(x).

This is precisely what places us
at the heart of the impossibility of writing
what the sexual relation is.

For after structures of fiction concerning this relation
persisted for ages—
those on which all religions in particular are based—
we have come—
through analytic experience—
to the foundation of the fact that this relation
does not hold without a third term,
which is, strictly speaking, the phallus…
of course, I can already hear—if I may put it this way—
a certain comprehension forming:
“Ah, with this third term, everything falls into place!”
…precisely, there is a third term,
that is why there must be a relation!

It is very difficult, of course, to visualize this, to show:

– that there is something unknown that is man,
– that there is something unknown that is woman,
– and that the third term, as a third term,
is characterized precisely by the fact that it is not a medium:
that if we connect it to one of the two terms—
the term man, for example—
we can be certain that it will not communicate with the other, and vice versa.
This is specifically what defines the characteristic of the third term.

Of course, even if one day the function of the attribute was invented,
why would it not be in relation to the very first ridiculous steps
of the structure of semblance,
that:

– every man is phallic,
– every woman is not?

But what needs to be established is something entirely different.
It is that some men are,
based on what is expressed here in the second formula,
based on the fact that it is not as a particular that he is:
man is a phallic function insofar as he is “everyman.”

But as you know,
there are the greatest doubts as to whether “everyman” exists.
That is the issue:
it is that he can only be so as “everyman”—
that is, as a signifier, nothing more.

And on the other hand, what I have enunciated, what I have told you,
is that for the woman, the issue is exactly the opposite,
namely what is expressed by the discordant enunciation above—
the one I have written—if I may say so—only without writing it,
since I emphasize to you that it is a discordant statement
that is sustained only through enunciation—
that the woman,
the woman,
cannot fulfill her place in the sexual relation,
she can only be so in the capacity of a woman.

As I have strongly emphasized,
there is no “every woman.”

What I wanted to clear a path for today, to illustrate for you,
is that logic bears the mark of the sexual impasse,
and that by following it in its movement, in its progress—
that is, in the field where it seems to have the least to do
with what is at stake in what is articulated in our experience,
namely analytic experience—
you will find the same impasses,
the same obstacles,
the same gaps,
and, in short,
the same absence of closure of a fundamental triangle.

I am surprised that things—
I mean time—
have advanced so quickly,
given what I had to clear a path for today,
and that I must now interrupt myself.
I think it will be easy for you, perhaps,
even before we meet again
on the second Wednesday of June,
to perceive for yourself the appropriateness of this—
which results, for example, in the fact
that nothing can be founded on the status of man—
I mean, from the perspective of analytic experience—
except by artificially, mythically,
making this “every man”
out of the presumed figure,
the mythical father of Totem and Taboo,
namely the one capable of satisfying
the jouissance of all women.

But conversely,
what follows from this for the position of the woman
is that it is only by being a woman
that she can establish herself in what is inscribable
as not being one—
that is, remaining open to the gap
that constitutes the sexual relation.

And that this results in something clearly readable
in what concerns the highly valuable function of hysterics:
hysterics are the ones who,
regarding what the sexual relation is,
tell the truth.

It is hard to see how the path of psychoanalysis
could have been forged if we had not had them.
That neurosis—
that at least one form of neurosis—
and I will demonstrate this for the other as well—
that a neurosis is precisely the point
where the truth of a failure is articulated,
a failure that is no less true elsewhere
than where truth is spoken,
this is where we must start
to give meaning to Freud’s discovery.

What the hysteric articulates is, of course, the following:
that when it comes to making “every man,”
she is just as capable of it as “every man” himself,
that is, by imagination—
therefore, for that very reason, she does not need it.

But if, by chance, the phallus interests her—
that is, what she conceives herself as lacking,
as Freud sufficiently emphasized—
then through the progress of analytic treatment,
she has no use for it,
since one must not believe
that she does not already have jouissance on her side.
And if by chance the sexual relation interests her,
then she must take an interest in this third element,
the phallus.
And since she can only be interested in it
in relation to man—
given that it is not even certain that there is one—
her entire strategy will be oriented
toward what I call having at least one.

This notion of at least one,
that is what—
my God—
I will conclude on,
because time is telling me where the limit is.

You will see that later on,
I will, of course, have to put it into relation
with what you already see articulated here—
namely, that of the one more,
which is nowhere else but here,
is it not?—
as I wrote last time: one in peluce.
It is not for nothing that I wrote it this way;
I believe it may still, for some,
resonate in certain ways.

The at least one
as an essential function of the relation,
insofar as it situates the woman
in relation to the key ternary point
of the phallic function—
we will write it in this way,
because it is inaugural,
inaugural of a dimension
which is precisely the one I have emphasized in
“For a Discourse That Would Not Be of the Semblant”—
the hommoinsun.