🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

I do indeed have to… I do indeed have to bring this to an abrupt end today. I told you last time that this would be my last lecture of the academic year: we’ll have to conclude this topic without having done more than open it. I hope that some will take it up again, if I’ve been able to animate them with this desire.

To bring things to an end, I intend to finish with what one might call a clinical reminder. Not, of course, that when I speak of logic, and specifically of the logic of fantasy, I leave, even for a moment, the clinical field. Everyone knows, everyone can testify, among those who are practitioners, that it is in the day-to-day declarations of their patients that they commonly rediscover my main terms. I myself, indeed, have not gone looking for them elsewhere. What I situate—by what I call these reference terms of my teaching—what I situate, I mean what I organize the placement of, is psychoanalytic discourse itself.

No later than the beginning of this week… Here, it’s in a way a reverse testimony from the one I am often given, namely, that a certain patient seemed to give his analyst, that same afternoon or the day after my seminar, something that seems to be a repetition of it, to the point where one might wonder whether he could have heard about it.

And if one is all the more astonished in cases where it is truly impossible, conversely, I could say that no later than the beginning of this week, I found in the remarks from three sessions that were brought to me—from a psychoanalysis, whether it was “didactic” or “therapeutic” doesn’t matter—the very terms I knew—since it was Monday—I had worked out the day before, in that country place where I prepare my seminar for you. So, this analytical discourse, I do nothing other than provide, in a sense, the coordinates of where it is situated.

But what does that mean, since I can relate—since everyone, so frequently, can relate this “discourse” that it is not enough to say it is “the discourse of a neurotic,” that does not specify it. This discourse is “the discourse of a neurotic” under the very conditions, under the conditioning provided by the fact that it takes place in the analyst’s office.

And—from this very moment—it is no coincidence that I bring forth this condition of location. Does that mean that these “echoes,” even these “tracings,” would signify something rather strange? Everyone knows, everyone can see, everyone may have experienced, that my discourse, of course, here is not one of free association. So does that mean that this discourse, to which we recommend the method, the path, of free association—this discourse of the patients—coincides with, covers, the one that is mine here, at the moment where it is somehow lacking, where it speculates, where it introspects, where it theorizes, where it intellectualizes, as we so nicely put it? No, undoubtedly not!

There must be something else that can still justify that [if] the patient obeys the recommendation of free association insofar as it is the path we propose, [he] may nonetheless, in some sense legitimately, say these things. And indeed, everyone knows well that if one is invited to go by way of free associations, it does not mean that this commands a loose discourse, nor a broken discourse.

But still, for something to reach, at times even in subtlety, such a distinction regarding the implications of his relation to his own demand, to his question about his desire, that is still something of a nature to make us pause and reflect for a moment on what conditions this discourse beyond our guidelines. And there, of course, we must bring in the element which—today I will truly remain at the level of the most common evidence—is called interpretation.

Before asking what it is, how, when it must be done… which increasingly causes, for the analyst, a certain embarrassment—perhaps due to failing to pose the question at the time prior to the one at which I will now pose it. It is this: how is discourse, the free discourse, the free discourse recommended to the subject, conditioned by the fact that it is somehow in the process of being interpreted? And that is what leads us to simply mention a few reference points that logicians have long provided us, and that is precisely what led me, this year, to speak of logic.

Certainly not that I could give a course in logic here, that was not—with what I had to cover—compatible. I tried to provide the framework of a certain logic, which interests us on the level of these two registers:

— on the one hand, alienation,
— on the other, repetition.

These two quadrangular and fundamentally superimposed schemas, which I hope at least some of you will remember.

But I also hope to have encouraged some to open, just like that, to slightly open, to peek a little into a few logic books, if only to recall the distinctions of value that the logician introduces into discourse, when he distinguishes, for example, the sentences called assertive from imperative or imploring sentences.

Simply to indicate that something happens, that it can happen, it can arise, it is located at the level of the first ones [assertives], questions that the others… which are of course no less utterances full of implications, and which could also interest logicians, but, curiously, they only approach by skirting them, and somehow obliquely, and which results in this field being, up to this day, left rather untouched by them… these sentences I have called imperative, imploring insofar as, after all—what?—they do indeed solicit something that, if we refer to what I have defined as an act, can only be of interest to logic: if they solicit active interventions, it may sometimes be in the form of acts.

Nevertheless, only the first ones would—according to logicians—be susceptible to what can be called “critique.” Let us define this as that critique which demands a reference to the necessary conditions for one statement to be deduced from another. But someone who, today, would be parachuted here for the first time and who had never, of course, heard of these things, would find that there’s something rather flat about all this.

But still, I suppose nonetheless that for everyone, to your ears, the distinction between enunciation and statement resonates here. And this: that the statement—for me to be understood, to be understood in what I have just said—is constituted by a chain of signifiers. That means that what is in discourse, the object of logic, is thus limited from the outset by formal conditions, and that is precisely what leads it to be designated by this name: formal logic.

Well, so there, at the outset… certainly not formulated at the outset by the one who is here the great initiator, namely ARISTOTLE, formulated by him only in an ambiguous, partial way, but clearly elaborated in subsequent developments… we see, at the level of what I called necessary conditions, the function of negation highlighted insofar as it excludes the third. This means that something cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time, from the same point of view. That, at least, is what ARISTOTLE states for us. That, expressly.

After all, we can immediately place alongside this what FREUD asserts to us: that it is not in fact the case that this principle known as non-contradiction is limited to stopping… stopping what? That which is enunciated… in the unconscious. You know this, FREUD already emphasizes it in The Interpretation of Dreams: contradiction—that is to say, that one and the same thing is affirmed and denied, quite properly, at the same time, from the same angle—that is what FREUD designates for us as being the privilege, the property of the unconscious.

If anything were needed to confirm, for those in whose skulls this still hasn’t managed to penetrate, that the unconscious is structured like a language [Lacan sighs], I would say: how then can you yourself justify that FREUD takes care to underline this absence, in the unconscious, of the principle of non-contradiction? Because the principle of non-contradiction has absolutely nothing to do with the real! It’s not that there is no contradiction in the real: contradiction is simply not a question in the real!

If the unconscious, isn’t it?… Like those who, having to speak about the unconscious, finally, in places where teaching is supposedly given, begin by saying: “Those who are in this room and who believe that the unconscious is structured like a language, get out!” Certainly, they’re quite right, because it proves that they already know everything! And in any case, if they are to learn anything else, they don’t need to stay! [Laughter]

But this something else, if it’s “tendencies,” as they say, pure tendency or tension, in any case, huh! it cannot be anything other than what it is! It can combine, on occasion, according to the parallelogram of forces, it can be reversed, insofar as we suppose a direction in it—right?—but it is always in a field that is, so to speak, subject to composition!

But, in the principle of contradiction, it is a matter of something else. It is a matter of negation. Negation doesn’t just lie around in the gutters! You can go look under a horse’s hoof, you will never find a negation! So, if it is emphasized, if FREUD—who surely must have known a thing or two—takes care to emphasize that the unconscious is not subject to the principle of contradiction, well then, it is precisely because it is indeed possible for it to be subject to it! And if it is possible for it to be subject to it, it is obviously because of what we see: that it is structured like a language!

In a language, in the use of a language, this prohibition, after all, can be part of a certain convention: this prohibition has a meaning, the principle of contradiction either functions or it doesn’t. If one notices that it does not function somewhere, it is because it is a matter of discourse! To invoke it means that the unconscious violates this logic and that proves, at the same time, that it is installed in the logical field and that it articulates propositions.

So, recalling this is not, of course, except incidentally, to return to the basics, to the principles, but rather to, in this respect, remind you that logicians teach us that the law of non-contradiction—although we may have long been mistaken about it—is not the same thing, must be distinguished from what is called the law of bivalence:

— it is one thing to forbid [contradiction] in logical usage, insofar as it has set for itself the limited goals I mentioned earlier: limited in its field to assertive sentences, limited to this: to establish the necessary conditions so that from one statement a correct chain can be deduced, that is, one that allows the same assertion to be made about another statement, an assertion which is either affirmative or negative
— it is another thing to found this and to say: law of bivalence: every proposition is either true or false [cf. the undecidable].

I will not go into detail here, because first of all I have already done so: from my first lessons of this year I made a few hints [allusions]:
— to make you feel just how easy it is to demonstrate that it is not simply because one does not know that a proposition can easily be constructed,
— to make you feel how much this bivalence, this sharp-edged bivalence, is problematic.

All the nuances that exist and that are inscribed in “is it true that it is false?” or “it is false that it is true?” This is not at all something linear, univocal, and clear-cut. But precisely, it is this that gives all its value to the presence of this dimension, which is ours, the one within which this discourse is situated, to which we ask not to look any further, so to speak, than the end of its nose.

It is enough that you find yourself having to ask the question—I say this to those who enter analysis with me—of whether you should say this or not: “it is clear-cut.” It is the clearest way to state the analytic rule. But still, what I do not say to him, but which is the footing on which he begins, is that it is only truth, in the final instance, which is posed there as having to be sought in the gaps of the statements.

Gaps which, in sum, I give him all the leisure to explore, which I almost recommend him to multiply, but which from that moment on, of course, presuppose, presuppose at the very principle of the rule I give him, a coherence implying a possible reworking of the said gaps. Reworking that is to be done according to what norms, if not those evoked, suggested, by the presence of the dimension of truth. This dimension is inevitable in the institution of analytic discourse.

Analytic discourse is a discourse subject to this law of soliciting this truth, which I have already spoken of, in terms that are here the most appropriate: a truth that speaks, to solicit it in sum to utter a ver-dict, a true saying. Of course, the rule takes on an entirely different value: this truth that speaks and whose verdict is awaited, one strokes it, tames it, runs a hand along its back! That’s the true meaning of the rule! One wants to trick it, and to trick it, one pretends—in sum that’s the meaning of the rule of free association—one pretends not to care and not to give a damn, to think about something else, so that maybe it’ll let the piece drop. That’s the principle. Things that almost make me blush, well… to make a piece out of them here!

But don’t forget, I am dealing with psychoanalysts, that is, with those who… what I say here is tangible and almost within everyone’s reach… are the most prone to forget it and, of course, they have strong reasons for this. I will say them right away.

So the question is there, I point it out in passing, it’s that in sum we question the truth of a discourse, which… if it is true, according to FREUD, what I said earlier… is the truth of a discourse that can say yes and no at the same time, about the same thing, since it is a discourse not subject to the principle of contradiction, and which, in being said, in being made, as a “strange discourse,” introduces a truth.

That too is fundamental, as proof—so fundamental… although of course not always clearly formulated in the type of teaching I was evoking earlier… it is so fundamental that it is from there that the jolt comes, the one we know, we feel, we have testimony, that FREUD had to deal with, when he had to—it surely happened there—explain to his gang—you know, the Viennese pals of the Wednesdays [Laughter]—that a patient had dreams made on purpose to trip him up, him, FREUD!

A jolt in the group, and probably even outcries! Since indeed, we see that FREUD sets himself… well, he took some trouble to solve the question. He explains it of course, as he can, namely:
— that dreams are not the unconscious,
— that dreams can lie!

Nevertheless, the least one can say is that this unconscious should not be pushed! I mean that if this dimension must be preserved—which is what FREUD does—it is in the name of this: that the unconscious preserves a truth it does not confess, and that if one pushes it, then of course, it can start to lie through its teeth, with the means it has.

But what does all this mean? Of course, the unconscious makes no sense—except for the idiots who think it is evil—it makes sense only if one sees that it is not what we would call, just like that, if you will, a “full-fledged subject.” Or more precisely, that it is prior, prior to the full-fledged subject: there is a language prior to the subject being supposed to know anything. There is therefore a logical anteriority of the status of truth to anything that can be qualified as subject, which could be housed there. Isn’t that so…

I know well that when I say these things, when I first wrote them in The Freudian Thing, it had… well, it has its little romantic resonance—what can you do, I can’t help it—Truth: a character to whom we long ago gave a skin, hair, and even a well to lodge in and make its jack-in-the-box. The point is to find the reason behind that.

What I simply want to tell you is that it is—as I told you earlier—impossible to exclude for the reason you are about to see. It’s that if interpretation does not have this relation to what there is no way of calling otherwise than “truth,” if it is only that behind which, finally, one shelters it—in the everyday handling, right!… We’re not going to hassle, just like that, the little darlings we supervise, by dumping the burden of truth on their backs… So we tell them that the interpretation has, or has not, “succeeded,” as they say, because it has—what? that’s the criterion, right!—had its effect of discourse. Which can be nothing else… than a discourse! That is to say, there was some material, it bounced back, the guy went on blabbering.

All right! But if that’s what it is, if it is only a pure effect of discourse, it has a name that psychoanalysis knows perfectly well and which is moreover a problem for it—which is funny—that is precisely and nothing other than what is called suggestion! And if interpretation were only what produces material—I mean: if we radically eliminate the dimension of truth—every interpretation is nothing but suggestion.

That’s what puts in their place those very interesting speculations—because it is clear that they are made only to avoid this word “truth”—when Mr. GLOVER speaks of exact or inexact interpretation, he can only do so to avoid this dimension of truth, and he does so, the dear man, who is someone who knows very well what he is saying, not merely to avoid the dimension—for you will see that he does not avoid it—only here’s the thing: it’s that one can speak of the “dimension of truth,” but it is very difficult to speak of “false interpretation.” Bivalence is polar, but it leaves one at a loss regarding the “excluded third.” And that is why he admits the possible fecundity—I say: GLOVER—of the “inexact interpretation.” Refer to his text.

Inexact does not mean that it is false, it means that it has nothing to do with what is at stake at that moment as truth, but sometimes, it does not necessarily fall completely beside the mark either, because… because there is no way, in that case, not to see it resurface, because truth rebels, and however inexact it may be, it has nonetheless been tickled somewhere. So in this analytic discourse intended to capture truth, it is the answer-interpretation, interpretive, that represents truth, interpretation as being there possible, even if it does not take place, that orients all this discourse.

And the discourse that we have established as free discourse has the function of making space for it; it aims at nothing else than to establish a reserve space so that it may inscribe itself there, this interpretation, as a place reserved for truth. This place is the one occupied by the analyst. I point out to you that he occupies it, but that this is not where the patient places him! That is the interest of the definition I give of transference. After all, why not recall that it is specific?

He is placed in the position of the subject supposed to know, and he knows very well that it only functions insofar as he maintains this position, since it is there that the very effects of transference occur, those, of course, on which he must intervene to rectify them in the direction of truth. That is to say, he is between two chairs, between:
— the false position of being the subject supposed to know, which he knows well he is not,
— and that of having to rectify the effects of this supposition on the part of the subject, and this in the name of truth.

This is precisely how transference is the source of what is called “resistance.” It is because, if it is indeed true, as I say, that truth in analytic discourse is placed elsewhere, at the position of the one who listens, in fact the one who listens can only function as a relay in relation to that place, that is to say that the only thing he knows is that he himself, as a subject, is in the same relation to truth as the one who is speaking to him.

This is what is commonly called this: that he is necessarily, like everyone else, in difficulty with his unconscious. And that this is what constitutes the function, the limping characteristic, of the analytic relationship. It is that precisely, only this difficulty, his own, can respond, can respond with dignity where one is expecting—where one waits and sometimes can wait a long time!—where one awaits interpretation!

Only you see, a difficulty—whether it be of being or of relation to truth, it is probably the same thing—a difficulty does not constitute a status. That is exactly why everything is done to give to this, which is the condition of the analyst: to be able to respond only with his own difficulty of being… an analyst. Why not? Everything is done to camouflage that, by telling stories, for example that, of course, well… with his unconscious, it’s a settled matter, right!… there has been analysis and even “didactic” analysis, and of course that has nonetheless allowed him, in that respect, to be a bit more at ease!

Whereas we are not in the domain of more or less. We are in the very foundation of what constitutes analytic discourse. It doesn’t go fast, does it? [Laughter] Well, yet it is in precisely this way that one must proceed. This truth, if it relates to desire, may perhaps help us understand the difficulties we have in handling this truth here, in the same way that logicians can.

Let it suffice for me to evoke that desire is not something “just like that,” indeed, whose truth would be so easy to define. Because the truth of desire, that is tangible! We are always confronted with it, because that’s why people come to us about what is happening, for them, when desire arrives at what is called “the hour of truth”!

That means: I have greatly desired something, whatever it may be, I am there—facing it, I can have it. That is when an accident occurs! Yes, desire—as I have already tried to explain—is lack, I did not invent this, it has been known for a very long time, other deductions have been made from it, but that is where we started, because we can only start from there.

In SOCRATES, desire is lack in its very essence. And this has a meaning: it is that there is no object in which desire finds satisfaction, even if there are objects that are the cause of desire. What becomes of desire at the hour of truth? It is precisely from these well-known accidents that wisdom takes advantage and prides itself on considering it as madness, and then establishing all kinds of dietetic measures to be preserved from it—I mean, from desire. There you have it!

Only the problem, the problem is that there is a moment when desire is desirable: it is when it concerns what happens, not without reason, in the execution of the sexual act. And then there, the error, the considerable error, is to believe that desire has a function that is inserted into the physiological. It is believed that the unconscious merely brings disorder into it.

That is an error! It is an error which today—my God… like this—as I raise it into relief since I am, like this [Lacan gestures a farewell with his hand], bidding you farewell for a few months. But it is very clear that it is, after all, an error that remains inscribed at the very core of even the most enlightened minds—I mean, psychoanalysts.

It is very strange that it is not understood that what appears, well… as the measure, the test of desire, in other words—my God—erection, well—my God—it has nothing to do with desire. Desire can function perfectly well, operate, have all its implications, without being accompanied by it in any way.

Erection is a phenomenon that—for situating it—is on the path of jouissance. I mean that in itself, this erection is jouissance, and that precisely, in order for the sexual act to take place, it is required not to stop at this auto-erotic jouissance. One does not see why, if it were otherwise, this jouissance would be marked with this kind of veil.

Normally, I mean when the sexual act—at least it must be assumed—has its full value, well then, phallic emblems rise at every crossroads! It is an object withdrawn from common contemplation only insofar as, precisely, this erection is questionable, is questionable in relation to the sexual act as an act.

This desire in question—the unconscious desire, the one spoken of in psychoanalysis and insofar as it relates to the sexual act—first of all, it must be properly defined and seen where this term emerges from before it functions. It is very important to recall this, which has always been my teaching.

Because if one does not remember, if one does not posit in these terms the indispensable operation of the sexual act, if it is not at the register of jouissance—and not of desire—that the operation of copulation, its possibility of realization, is placed: one is absolutely condemned to understand nothing of all that we say about feminine desire, which we explain is, like masculine desire, in a certain relation to a lack, a symbolized lack, which is the phallic lack.

How to understand, how to properly situate the meaning, the place of what we are saying here concerning feminine desire, if one does not begin with this, which on the level of jouissance fundamentally differentiates the two partners, creates the abyss between them, which I will designate, I believe, clearly enough by taking two reference points:

— that for the man, which I just defined as erection, on the level of jouissance,
— and that for the woman, for which I will find nothing better than this, something I was lucky enough to be entrusted with before ever becoming a psychoanalyst and which each of you can learn: it is the way young girls refer among themselves to what seems closest to what I’m indicating at this level, namely what they call “the elevator effect,” when it gives them a feeling like this [Lacan mimics the sensation], like what happens when something suddenly drops. They know—that is, they know very well—that this is something belonging to the order, the register, of what is at stake in the sexual act.

It is from there that we must begin to know how far to place desire—that is to say what is at stake in the unconscious—desire in its relation to the sexual act:
— it is not a relation of front to back,
— it is not a relation of epiphenomena,
— it is not a relation of things that stick together.

That is why it is indeed necessary to practice for a few years in understanding that desire has nothing to do except with demand, that it is what emerges as subject in the act of demand. And desire is only involved in the sexual act to the extent that a demand can be involved in the sexual act. Which, after all, is not necessary… well, which is common.

It is common insofar as the sexual act, which is what I defined for you: namely, that which never concludes, that which never results in making a man or a woman… well, let’s put it that way to provoke you: it is that the sexual act is inserted into something that is called the sexual market—or commerce. Then there, one has to make demands.

It is from demand, and fundamentally from demand, that desire emerges. That is precisely why desire in the unconscious is structured like a language, since it emerges from it! It’s unfortunate that I have to shout these things, which are absolutely within the grasp of anyone, and which are regularly omitted and forgotten in everything that is theorized in even the simplest theories of psychoanalysis. There you have it!

This also means, at the same time, that this desire, which is nothing but a by-product of demand—I don’t need to give you a theory of that—it is there that we grasp why it is in its nature not to be satisfied. Because if desire arises from the dimension of demand, even if the demand is satisfied on the level of the need that generated it, it is in the nature of demand—because it was articulated in language—to engender this gap of desire that comes from the fact that it is articulated demand, and which causes something to be displaced, which renders the object of the demand unfit to satisfy desire. Such is the breast, which is entirely… which is what displaces everything that passes through the mouth for a digestive need, which substitutes for it that something which is precisely what is lost, what can no longer be given.

There is no chance that desire will be satisfied: only demand can be satisfied. And that is why it is accurate to say that desire is the desire of the Other: its gap emerges at the locus of the Other, insofar as it is to the locus of the Other that demand is addressed. It is there that it finds itself having to coexist with that of which the Other is also the place, under the heading of truth, in the sense that there is no shelter for truth anywhere except where language has a place, and that language finds its place at the locus of the Other.

So? So, it is at this point that one must understand a little of what is at stake concerning desire in its relation to the desire of the Other. I tried, for that purpose, to construct for you a little allegory, which I borrowed—not by chance, certainly—but for reasons that are essential to what is called the art of the salesman. That is, the art of offering, in its aim of creating demand: one must make someone desire an object they have no need of, in order to push them to request it.

So, I don’t need to describe all the tricks used for that. One tells them they’ll be missing something, for instance, if another takes it, who by doing so will have the upper hand over them. I’m using words that echo my usual symbols. Yet it is literally in this way that it functions in the mind of what is called a good salesman. Or else one will show them that it will truly be a major external sign for the setting they wish to give to their life.

We believe in it… All in all, it is through the desire of the Other that every object is present when it is a matter… of buying it. Buying it, buying it… cowardice [l’acheter… lâcheté]. [Laughter] Well, well! [Lacan takes a small voice] That’s rather curious, it’s a word… cowardice, Feigheit… You are a coward, Sir! Tua res agitur: it is indeed a matter of cowardice, but it is yourself that is in question. Yes, it is indeed that… This can be seen in the fact that the principal result—you know it very well—that arises from this series of manipulations, which life summarizes under the sign of desire, this principal result will be that which pushes you always further in the direction of redeeming yourself. Redeeming yourself from cowardice. [Laughter]

I took care, all the same, before bringing in this dimension, always of course masked in the analytic intervention, but which the others, those who are in the know—I mean the one who holds analytic discourse—do not mask. It’s quite clear that the dimension of cowardice has been of interest, but I don’t know… I took care to reopen for you, just “like that”—any of the major case studies of FREUD.

I immediately came across, in The Rat Man, the fact that the patient brings up straight away this dimension of his cowardice! Only, what is not clear is where the cowardice is. It’s like the dimension from earlier, that of truth. The courage of the subject might precisely be to play the game of desire, and of the desire of the Other.

To give priority to something that is perhaps also the cowardice of the Other who buys him, and to find oneself there in the end. To find oneself again, because in the end the problem truly lies there when it comes to neurosis.

But for that, it is important to clearly grasp—or more precisely to recall, to bring back to the forefront—what I have said about desire, what I said at the time about desire, when I said: desire is its interpretation. Right?

One could still object. Because after all, this desire, this unconscious desire that no one really wants to know what it means—an unconscious desire! What should, in principle, be more conscious than desire? If one speaks of unconscious desire, it is indeed because it is the desire of the Other that it becomes possible!

If there is precisely what I just evoked, with a reference to the metaphor of purchase, whose hold on whom is unclear, to this art of captivation in the desire of the Other… it is because a step must be taken. Unconscious desire, if it is unconscious, we are told, is so because in the discourse that supports it, a link has been severed so that the desire of the Other becomes—what?—unrecognizable!

That’s the best trick we’ve found to stop this mechanism: there is a “not,” well then, we create, on this side of that “not,” not the non-desire but the desire-not.

The definition of unconscious desire: it’s that… which the subtleties of French negation allow us to express… namely that point of collapse that is designated by the “not,” the “point,” which I have already used on the topic of “nonsense” (pas de sens).

This “desire-not,” I would even go—if you give me just a little slack—so far as to make it a single written word, and that “des…” which governs it, to give it the same accent as dés-espoir (despair), or dés-être (de-being), and to say that the unconscious desire of the dés-irpas is something that declines from I know not what irpas.

Irpas, which designates quite precisely the desire of the Other, in relation to which interpreting it would be verbalized rather well as an “irpassed.” It is around this that inversion can occur. Interpretation, indeed, is what takes the place of desire, in the sense in which, earlier, you objected that it is there—however unconscious it may be—first. But it is also there, as something one returns to, because it is already articulated, and interpretation, when it has taken its place, fortunately does not resolve anything, since it is by no means certain that the desire we have interpreted will find its outcome. We even count on the fact that it will not, and that it will always remain, all the better, a “desire-not.” This even gives us, for the interpretation of desire, rather wide latitude.

But then, it would still be necessary to know here what is meant by what supports it under the name of “phantasm,” and what game we are playing in interpreting these unconscious desires, specifically those of the neurotic. That is where the question must be posed concerning the phantasm. We have posed it constantly; let us pose it again here, at the end, one last time. When the logicians, from whom all today’s discourse began, limit themselves to the formal functions of truth, I told you: they encounter a gap, they find a singular space between this principle of non-contradiction and that of bivalence.

And you find it already in ARISTOTLE, precisely in the book called On Interpretation, which—to be practical, I’ll point this out to you—is at paragraph 19a, in the notation used in classical manuscripts of ARISTOTLE, and which you find on page 100—it’s easy to remember—in the very poor translation I recommend to you, that of TRICOT, which is the standard one.

ARISTOTLE questions the function that the bivalence of true and false entails in its consequences. I mean what it entails when it comes to the contingent, to what is going to happen. What is going to happen, whether yes or no, if we state that it is true or false. Then it is already true or false immediately, that is to say, it is already decided. Naturally, that can’t work.

The solution he gives, that of casting doubt on bivalence, is not what is at stake here. I will not pursue the discussion further. But on the other hand, what I will point out is that the standard, commonplace logician’s solution, the one given for example in the volume by the KNEALEs—I believe I’m pronouncing their name correctly—The Development of Logic, the one that consists in saying that what is true cannot be the signifying articulation but what it means: that solution is false.

That solution is false, as the entire development of logic demonstrates. I mean that what is deduced from any formal establishment can in no case be based on meaning, for the simple reason that there is no possibility of fixing any meaning that is univocal, and that whatever signifiers you put forward to pin down true or false, it is always possible to involve them in a circumstance where the truth, most clearly stated as signified content, will be false—indeed more than false: a characteristic deception.

It is only possible to establish an order—speaking of logic—by attributing the function of truth to a grouping of signifiers. That is why this logical use of truth is only found in mathematics where, as Bertrand RUSSELL says, one never knows what one is talking about. And if one thinks one does, one is quickly disabused: one must swiftly clean house and eliminate intuition.

I recall this in order to question what is at stake in the function of the phantasm—I say: model: A child is being beaten—that the phantasm is nothing but a signifying arrangement, of which I gave the formula long ago, by coupling the little (a) with the barred S: S◊a.

Which means it has two characteristics: the presence of an object little (a), and on the other hand, nothing other than what engenders the subject as S (barred S), namely: a sentence. That is why A child is being beaten is typical: A child is being beaten is nothing other than the signifying articulation: “a child is being beaten,” except for—read the text, refer to it—except for what wanders over it, what hovers above it, nothing else but this, but impossible to eliminate, which is called the gaze.

Before putting into play the three stages of the genesis of this product called the phantasm, it is still important to designate what it is! It is not because FREUD had to deal with illiterates that it is any less worthwhile to establish the firm contours of the phantasm’s status and to say: it is strictly nothing else… in accordance with what I presented to you at the beginning of this year, concerning on the one hand the coupling of “I do not think,” with grammatical structure… to tell you that it is at the very place of this grammatical structure that at the fourth corner of the quadrangle the object (a) emerges, and to add—since we have already designated two, the two on the left—that the bottom-right corner, the one from which “I am not” leaves room—which it nicks at the level of the unconscious—for this, which is the complement of the purely grammatical signifying structure of the phantasm, namely that from which I began today and which is called: a signification of truth.

What must be retained, highlighted, in all that FREUD states concerning the phantasm, is simply this small clinical detail—this one here that he puts forward certainly to demonstrate so many things about its usage, in manipulating it—but what must be retained is a detail such as this: that this phantasm, the same one, appears in very different neurotic structures, but also—as you know—that this phantasm remains at a singular distance from all that is debated, all that is disputed in analyses, insofar as these seek to translate the truth of symptoms.

It seems to be there like a kind of crutch or foreign body, something for use, after all—as you know—that has a clearly defined function: it is to provide for what, after all, can be called by its name—a certain lack of desire. Insofar as it is brought into play, implicated—it must be, even if only to make the steps toward entry, to tidy up the room—at the entrance to the sexual act.

This “distance” of the phantasm from the zone where what I highlighted earlier as primordial is at play—the function of desire and its link to demand—and this, so evidently that it is from this that the entire inflection of analysis around the so-called registers of “frustration” and similar terms results, this is what allows us to pinpoint the difference between perverse structure and neurotic structure.

What do I mean when I say that the phantasm has the role of signification of truth? Well, I will tell you! I am saying the same thing that logicians say, namely: you miss the target by wanting at all costs to insert this phantasm into the discourse of the unconscious, when in any case, it resists that reduction perfectly well. And when you must say that, at the median time, the second moment of A child is being beaten, the one where it is the subject who is in the place of the child—that one, you only obtain it in exceptional cases.

It is because, in truth, the function of the phantasm… I mean: in your interpretation, and more specifically in the general interpretation you give of the structure of a particular neurosis, which must always, ultimately, be inscribed in the registers I have given, namely:
— for phobia: forewarned desire,
— for hysteria: unsatisfied desire,
— for obsession: impossible desire.

What is the role of the phantasm in this order of neurotic desire? Well, signification of truth, I said: that means the same thing as when you assign a capital T—pure convention in the theory given, for example, for some set—when you assign the connotation of truth to something you will call an axiom: in your interpretation, the phantasm has no other role, you must take it as literally as possible, and what you have to do is to find, in each structure, to define the laws of transformation that will ensure for this phantasm, in the deduction of statements from the unconscious discourse, the place of an axiom.

Such is the only possible function that can be attributed to the role of the phantasm in the neurotic economy.

That it should occur, that its arrangement should be borrowed from the field of determination of perverse jouissance—that is what, as you have seen, I have demonstrated, and of which I believe, in our previous discussions, I have sufficiently established the formula, in light of the disjunction, the field of the Other, of the body, and of jouissance, and of that part of the body preserved where jouissance can find refuge. That the neurotic finds, in this arrangement, the support suited to compensate for the deficiency of his desire in the field of the sexual act, this—accordingly—is something that should hardly surprise us.

And if you want me to give you something that serves at once as reading… I cannot say that this should be pleasant reading for you: it’s a pain in the neck!

…but still, as an example of a genuine piece of scientific filth, I would recommend reading, in HAVELOCK ELLIS, the famous case of FLORIE.

Nowhere can one better see to what extent a certain mode of approach to a field that one claims—on behalf of I don’t know what objectivity—to break into, while in fact one is entirely its slave, and in a particularly peculiar way: there is not a single line of this famous case study that does not bear, in some sense, the marks of the cowardice of the professor.

It’s a sensational text, this case of FLORIE. Certainly, it will appear to you with all the characteristics—after the reference points I’ve given you—of being a neurosis.

In no way is the moment when FLORIE crosses over… in the sense of that something which can, in a certain way, happen to the neurotic without ever there being for them anything equivalent to perverse jouissance, but “crosses” in the ambiguous sense which makes it at once a passage to the act and, for us who read, an acting-out… something that makes FLORIE, affected by her flagellation phantasms, come, one time, to transgress the prohibition they represent for her.

This is worth being confronted with the absolutely manifest deficiencies of that case study, to the point where, after FLORIE had confessed to him that it was only exceptionally that she introduced into her fantasies a real person, someone she admired and revered, it is truly incredible to see HAVELOCK ELLIS’s pen write: “I did not ask her who it was.” Whereas it is clear [Laughter]—just like in the case of PÈRE UBU, when you still see the pig’s tail hanging from his mouth—that of course, it’s HAVELOCK ELLIS himself who is being thoroughly duped by this patient, from beginning to end, obviously he’s the one in question! And after that, it’s better to play the grand figure in order to admonish members of the analytic community who dared to express their opinions on the same case, with a respect that is entirely unjustified, for the collection of this case study by HAVELOCK ELLIS.

This, nonetheless, is certainly of a kind to show you, all at once, all the difficulties I wanted to highlight today concerning what is at stake in the evaluation of the phantasm. If we may say so, I would say that from the phantasm—as we, poor neurotics, imagine it—from the phantasm in its function at the so-called perverse level, to its function in the neurotic register, there is exactly the distance—I will end on this note to “do clinical”—of the bedroom!

Are there bedrooms? There is no sexual act. That leaves, concerning the bedroom, right… setting aside that of ULYSSES, where the bed is a trunk rooted in the ground… that leaves, on the subject of bedrooms… and especially in our time, right, when everything is mounted on the wall!… that leaves a serious doubt, but at least it’s a place that, theoretically, exists.

Still, there is a distance between the bedroom and the bathroom. Be very attentive to the fact that everything neurotic essentially happens in the bathroom—it’s very important, these questions of logical arrangement!—in the bathroom or in the antechamber, it’s the same thing.

The man of pleasure in the 18th century as well, for him, everything happened in the boudoir. Everyone has their place! If you want specifics:
— Phobia, that can take place in the wardrobe, or in the hallway, or in the kitchen.
— Hysteria, that takes place in the parlor, the parlor of convent nuns, of course.
— What? Obsession? In the toilet!

Pay very close attention to these things, they are quite important. Yes, all of this brings us to the doorstep of what I will invite you to cross next year, namely: a bedroom where nothing happens, except that the sexual act presents itself there as foreclosure, properly speaking: Verwerfung. This is what is commonly called the analyst’s office.

The title I will give to my lectures next year will be: The Psychoanalytic Act.