🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

After what I have just put on the board for you, you might think you know everything.
You must guard against that precisely, because today we are going to try to speak about knowledge.

About that knowledge which, in the inscription of discourses…
those by which I thought I could exemplify for you that the social bond is supported
…in this inscription of discourses, I put, I wrote S2 to symbolize that knowledge.

Perhaps I will manage to make you feel why, why it goes further than a secondarity…
with respect to the pure signifier, to the one that is inscribed as S1
…that it is more than a secondarity [S2], that it is a fundamental disarticulation.
[to pose the relation of S1 to S2 one arrives at each product of discourse: S2◊a (H), a◊S(M),S◊S1(U)]

Be that as it may, since I have taken it upon myself to give you this support of this inscription on the board.
I am going to comment on it, I hope briefly.
Besides, I have not — I must confess it to you — written it anywhere, prepared it anywhere,
it does not seem exemplary to me except, as usual, in producing misunderstandings.

Nevertheless, since in sum the situation that results from a discourse like the analytic, which aims at meaning, it is perfectly clear that I cannot hand over to each of you anything other than what meaning you are in the process of absorbing, and that has a limit.
It has a limit that is given by… by the meaning in which you live and which — one can say it —
it is not saying too much to say that it does not go far [cf. the hula-hoop, but also the fantasy: S◊a].

What the analytic discourse brings to the surface is precisely the idea that this meaning is semblance.
If it indicates — the analytic discourse — if it indicates that this meaning [S1] is sexual,
that can only be precisely to — I would say — account for its limit [S1◊ S2].

There is nowhere a last word, except in meaning: ‘word’ is ‘motus’, I have already insisted on it:
‘no answer, word’ says La Fontaine somewhere, if I still remember.
Meaning indicates very precisely the direction toward which it fails.

This being posited, which must keep you…
up to the point where I will be able to push my elucidation of it this year
…from understanding too quickly what is supported by this inscription.

From there, that is to say, with all these precautions taken that are a matter of prudence…
of φρόνησις [phronesis], as one puts it in the Greek language, where many things have been said,
but which have remained far, in sum, from what analytic discourse allows us to articulate
…these precautions of prudence thus taken, here is roughly what is inscribed on the board.

The reminder of propositional terms, in the mathematical sense, by which any speaking being is inscribed
– to the left [‘masculine’],
– or else to the right [‘feminine’].
This inscription being dominated by the fact that on the left… on the left what answers to ‘every man’ [;],
it is in the so-called function ! that he takes as ‘all’ his inscription: ; !,
except that this function finds its limit in the existence of an X by which the function ! is negated: :§.

This is what is called ‘the function of the father’, from which proceeds, in sum by this negation of the proposition !,
what grounds the exercise of what supplants the sexual relation [phallic function]…
insofar as this one is in no way inscribable,
…what supplants it by castration.
The ‘all’ thus rests here on the exception posed as a term, on what — this ! — integrally negates it.
[the ‘all’ finds its consistency only in a territorial universality limited by the exception rejected beyond the border]

By contrast, opposite you have the inscription of this: that for a part of speaking beings, and just as well for every speaking being…
as it is formulated expressly in Freudian theory
…for every speaking being it is permitted, whoever he may be: provided or not with the attributes of masculinity,
attributes that remain to be determined, provided or not with these attributes, he can be inscribed in the other part,
and what he is inscribed as is precisely to permit no universality, to be this ‘not all’ [.],
insofar as he has, in sum, the choice of positioning himself in the !, or else of not being in it.

Such are the only possible definitions of the part said ‘man’ or else ‘woman’ in what turns out to be
in this position of inhabiting language.

Below, under the bar, the transverse bar where the vertical division crosses
of what is improperly called ‘humanity’ insofar as it would be distributed into sexual identifications,
you have the indication, the scanned indication, of what is at issue, namely that in the place of the sexual partner
on the side of the man, of that man whom I have — not certainly to privilege him in any way —
inscribed here as S, and of this Φ that supports him as signifier [S1]:

– This Φ which likewise incarnates itself in S1…
as being among all signifiers the one that paradoxically, by playing the role only of the function in the !
[!: ; !] — is precisely this signifier that has no signified, which as for meaning
symbolizes its failure, the mis-sense, which is the non-sense par excellence, or if you still like the re-sense.

– this S, this S thus doubled by this signifier [Φ] on which in sum it does not even depend [S:: §], this S
never has to do, as partner, with anything other than that object (a) [S◊a] inscribed as such on the other side of the bar.

He is given to reach this partner…
this partner who is the Other, the Other with a capital A
…only through the intermediary of this: that it is the cause of his desire, but that in this respect
as elsewhere in my graphs the dotted conjunction of this S and this a indicates [S◊a ]
…it is nothing other than fantasy.

This fantasy likewise makes, for this subject…
insofar as he is caught in it as such
…the support of what is expressly called in Freudian theory ‘the reality principle’.

What I am approaching this year is very precisely this that the theory, Freud’s theoretical articulation,
very precisely this that in Freud is left aside, is left aside expressly, in an avowed way,
the ‘Was will das Weib?’, the ‘What does the Woman want?’, which Freud’s theory as such expressly admits it ignores.

Freud advances that there is no libido except masculine.
What is that to say, if not that a field that is nonetheless not nothing, that of all beings who, as one says, assume…
if one can say so and insofar as this being assumes, assumes anything at all of its fate
…what is improperly called [The woman], since here I remind you of what I underlined last time
is that this ‘The’ of ‘The woman’, from the moment when it is stated only as a ‘not all’,
cannot be written… that there is here no ‘The’ except barred:

This , expressly is what has a relation…
and what I will illustrate for you today, at least I hope
…with this signifier of A insofar as barred: S(A), insofar as this place of the Other itself,
where everything that can be articulated of the signifier comes to be inscribed [but S(A), → everything cannot be articulated there:],
is in its foundation, by its nature, so radically the Other, that it is this Other that it is important to question
whether it is not simply this place where truth stammers, but whether it in some way deserves to represent what,
as last time and in a somehow metaphorical way I addressed to you, namely this:
that from the outset, from the outset from which the unconscious is articulated, woman…
woman, of whom we certainly have only sporadic testimonies,
that is why I took them last time in their function as metaphor
…woman has fundamentally this relation to the Other of being in the sexual relation…
with respect to what is stated, to what can be said of the unconscious
…radically the Other, she is what has a relation to this Other.

And that is what today I would like to try to articulate more closely.

It is to the signifier of this Other, insofar as as Other, I would say, it can remain only always Other; assuredly, here, we can proceed only from a path-breaking as difficult as it is possible to apprehend any.
And that is why, in venturing into it as I do each time before you,
I can here only suppose that you will evoke…
and for that I must remind you
…that there is no Other of the Other, that that is why this signifier…
with this open parenthesis: S(A)
…marks this Other as barred.

How can we then approach, conceive that this relation to the Other
could be somewhere what determines that a half…
since indeed it is roughly the biological proportion
…that a half of the speaking being refers to?

Yet that is what is written there on the board by this arrow starting from the , from the which cannot be said.
Nothing can be said of ‘ woman’. ‘ woman’ has a relation:
– relation [of radical ignorance] to this S(A) on the one hand [H discourse: What is a woman?],
– and it is already in that that she splits in two, that she is ‘not all’, since on the other hand she can have this relation
with this great Φ [unique alternative to the question ‘What is a woman?’] which in analytic theory we designate as this phallus such as I specify it to be the signifier, the signifier that has no signified [S1].

That very one which is supported, which is supported in man by this jouissance, by this jouissance of which, like that
to point it out, I will say, I will advance today that what best symbolizes it, what is it after all if not this:
that the importance of masturbation sufficiently in our practice underscores:
what is it if not this which is nothing other — in the cases, I might say, favorable — than the jouissance of the idiot?

Slight movement! [Laughter]
After that, to recover you [Laughter], I have nothing left but to speak to you of love. [Laughter]

What sense can that have, what sense is there in my coming to speak to you of love? [love is the sign of a change of discourse]
I must say that it is little compatible with the position from which here I state things to you…

What is it, is that not going? And like that, like that, is it better? Do those in the back hear? No!

This is little — I was saying — compatible with what one must indeed say that — for a long time now — I do not cease pursuing,
that is, this direction from which the analytic discourse can make semblance of something that would be science.
For after all this ‘that would be science’ you are very little aware of; of course you have a few reference points.
[love is not a ‘serious’ object of science, cf. L’étourdit: ‘science without conscience’ and the reference to Rabelais’s ‘gay sçavoir’]

You know…
I put it in, because I thought it was a good step to make you locate it in history,
you know that there was a moment when one could, not without foundation, award oneself this assurance
that scientific discourse, that, was grounded.

The Galilean turning point, I have — it seems to me — sufficiently insisted on it to suppose that at the very least
some of you have been to the sources, where it can be located:
the work of Koyré Alexandre, for a long time now, I think, is at least in the practice of part of this assembly.
But what must be seen is to what extent it is a step, a truly subversive step,
with regard to what up to then was entitled ‘knowledge’.

It is very difficult to sustain, to keep equally present these two terms [love (S1→nonsense) and science (S2)],
namely that scientific discourse has engendered all sorts of instruments that we must indeed,
from the point of view at issue here, qualify as what they are:
– all those ‘gadgets’ of which you are now the subjects — infinitely further than you think,
– all those instruments that — my God: from the microscope to radio-TV, isn’t that so? — become elements, elements of your existence.
[→objects of desire, substitutive a objects (‘More-of-jouir’) that aim to supplement the absence of the sexual relation, to plug the primordial lack → no place for love]

This, whose scope you cannot even measure at present, but which nonetheless is part
of what I call ‘scientific discourse’, insofar as a discourse is what determines as such a form,
a completely renewed form of social bond. [passage from M discourse: S1 → S2 → a↓◊S, to H (scientific) discourse: S→ S1→ S2↓◊ a]

The joint that does not take place is this: it is that what I called a moment ago ‘subversion of knowledge’
is indicated by this: that up to then, nothing of knowledge — it must be said — was conceived
without anything of what was written on this knowledge participating…
and one cannot even say that the subjects of the ancient theory of knowledge did not know it
…without anything of this theory — I say — participating in the fantasy of an inscription of the sexual bond.
[the M discourse ends up at: a◊S (formula of fantasy)]

The terms active and passive, for example, which, one can say, dominate everything that has been thought out
of the relations of form and matter…
that so fundamental relation to which each Platonic then Aristotelian step refers,
concerning, let us say, what the nature of things is
…it is visible, it is tangible, at each step of these statements, that what supports them is a fantasy
by which it is attempted to supplement what in no way can be said…
that is what I propose to you as what can be said
…namely the sexual relation.

The strange thing is that all the same, within this crude polarity…
the one that makes matter the passive of form, the agent that animates it [cf. Aristotle’s ‘unmoved sphere’ as ‘soul’: anima]
…something, but something ambiguous, has passed, namely that this ‘animation’ is nothing other than this a of which the agent ‘animates’ — what? — it ‘animates’ nothing: it takes the ‘other’ for its ‘soul’ [Cf. Aristotle: De anima (On the Soul)].

But that on the other hand, if we follow what progresses over the ages of the idea of a being par excellence, of a God,
– who is far from being conceived as the God of Christian faith, since indeed you know it is the unmoved mover, the supreme sphere,
– that in the idea that the ‘Good’ is that something that makes all other beings — less being than that one —
they can have no other aim than to be ‘the most being’ they can be [‘beings’ predicated of lack].

And that is the whole foundation of the idea of the ‘Good’ in this Ethics of Aristotle,
of which it is not for nothing that I reminded you that not only had I dealt with it,
but that I was urging you to refer to it in order to grasp its impasses.

It nevertheless turns out that this something [a as ‘soul’], if we follow the support of the inscriptions on this board,
it is revealed that it is nonetheless in this opacity, of what I expressly designated last time
as being the jouissance of this Other…
of this Other insofar as it could be, if it existed, ‘The woman’
…that it is indeed in the place of the jouissance of this Other that this mythical being is designated…
manifestly mythical in Aristotle
…of ‘the supreme being’, of ‘the unmoved sphere’ from which all movements proceed whatever they may be:
changes, generations, movements, translations, increases, etc. [on the terrestrial sphere].

How to approach, in this ‘ambiguity’ [between a and A], approach — in sum what? — by interpreting it,
by interpreting it according to what our function is in analytic discourse,
that is, to register, to scan what can be said as going, going to failure, toward the formulation of the sexual relation.

That if we manage to dissociate this: that it is insofar as her jouissance is radically Other that — in sum —
Lwoman has more relation to God than everything that can be said by following the path — of what? —
of what manifestly in all ancient speculation is articulated only as ‘the Good of Man’.

[a as ἄγαλμα [agalma] → Lwoman closer to A than to (a)]

If in other words we can…
what is our end, the end of our teaching insofar as it pursues that what can be said
and stated from analytic discourse is to dissociate this little (a) and this big A:

– by reducing the first to what belongs to the imaginary,

– and the other to what belongs to the symbolic.

That the symbolic is the support of what has been made God is beyond doubt.
That what belongs to the imaginary is what is supported by this ‘reflection’ of the similar to the similar, that is certain.

How in sum this a — by being inscribed just below this S(A) — could, in our inscription on the board, could up to a certain point, in sum lend itself to confusion, and this very exactly through the intermediary of the function of being, that is assuredly what in which something, if I may say so, remains to be unstuck, remains to be split,
and precisely at this point where psychoanalysis is something other than a psychology.
Psychology is that split not yet made.
[confusion of a with A → foundation of being in Reason, Consciousness, etc. → the unconscious as what is not (yet) known, cf. Hegel and ‘absolute knowledge’]

And there, to rest myself, I will allow myself — my God — to share with you…
I am not saying, properly speaking, to read to you,
because I am never sure of ‘reading’ anything at all,
…to read you all the same what I wrote to you, some time ago, wrote precisely — wrote on what? —
wrote there only from where one can speak of love, for speaking of love one does nothing but that in analytic discourse,
and after the discovery of scientific discourse, how can one not feel, not put one’s finger on, that it is a waste of time…
very exactly a waste of time with regard to everything that can be articulated as scientific,
…but that what analytic discourse brings…
and that is perhaps after all the reason for its emergence at a certain point of scientific discourse,
…is that speaking of love is in itself a jouissance.
[H discourse → A discourse: Freud situated himself of his own accord within the advance of ‘scientific discourse’; Cf. also the time it took Lacan to depart from this objective]

What is assuredly confirmed by this effect, tangible effect, that ‘saying anything at all’…
even the instruction of the analysand’s discourse
…is what leads to the Lustprinzip, and what leads to it in the most direct way, and without having any need of this accession to higher spheres, which is the foundation of Aristotelian ethics insofar as…
I was evoking it for you a moment ago briefly
…insofar as in sum it is founded only on the coalescence, only on the confusion of this (a) with the S(A).

It is barred, of course, only by us. That does not mean that it is enough to bar for nothing to ex-sist:
it is certain that if this S(A) I designate nothing other than woman’s jouissance,
it is indeed assuredly because it is there that I point out that God has not yet made his exit.
[if God exits → /§, the ‘not all’ remains: :. !]

So here is roughly what I was writing for your use; I was writing to you what in sum?
The only thing one can do that is somewhat serious: the love letter.

The supposed psychological notions thanks to which all this has lasted so long,
well, I am among those who do not give them a good reputation.

One does not see, however, why the fact of having a soul would be a scandal for thought, if it were true.
If it were true the soul could be said…
that is what I wrote to you
…only from what allows a being…
the speaking being, to call it by its name
…to bear the intolerable of its world, which supposes it to be foreign to it, that is, fantasmatic.

What this soul considers it there…
‘there’: in this world
…only from its patience and its courage to face it there; this is affirmed by the fact that up to our days,
it, the soul, has never had any other meaning.

Well then, that is where French must bring me a help, not as sometimes happens in the language, by homonymy:
– of this d’eux (d, apostrophe) with the deux (d.e.u.x),
– of this que, with the peut (p.e.u.t and p.e.u), il peut peu, which is nonetheless there to serve us for something
and that is where language serves: the soul in French, at the point where I am, I can use it only to say that it is what one ‘souls’: I soul, you soul, he souls; you see there that we can make use only of writing, even to include there ‘never’: I souled. / jamais: j’âmais. [wordplay: written j’âmais (as if ‘I âmed/souled’ in the imperfect of a fabricated verb âmer from âme) is graphically/phonically near jamais (‘never’); the point is that only writing lets ‘jamais’ be ‘included’ as a conjugated form]

So its existence, then, for the soul, can certainly be called into question [(a) as ‘object’ cause of desire],
it is the proper term to ask oneself whether it is not an effect of love.

For as long indeed as the soul ‘souls’ the soul [wordplay: French ‘âme’ (soul) is turned into a verb, echoing ‘aime’ (loves)], there is no sex in the matter [outside sex],
sex does not count there [sex brings in the heteros].
The elaboration that results from it is hommo — with two m’s [undifferentiated Man, non-sexed] — hommosexual,
as is perfectly readable in history.

And what I said a moment ago, about this courage, about this patience to bear the world, is the true counterpart of what makes an Aristotle come out, in his search for the Good, as being possible only through the admission of this:
– that in all the beings that are in the world, there is already enough ‘internal being’, if I may put it that way,
– that they cannot — this being — orient it toward the greatest being except by confusing its Good — its own Good —
with that very one from which the Supreme Being would radiate [confusion of a and A].
That within that, he evokes φιλία [philia] as representing the possibility of a bond of love
between two of these beings, that is indeed what, in manifesting the tension toward the Supreme Being, can just as well be reversed,
in the way I expressed it, namely that it is the courage to bear this intolerable relation to the Supreme Being
that the friends, the φιλοι [philoï], recognize in one another and choose one another.

The outside-of-sex of this ethics is manifest, to the point that I would like to give it the accent that Maupassant gives it
when he somewhere utters this strange term of the ‘Horla’ [wordplay: the title ‘Horla’ is leveraged with French hors- (‘outside’) to stress hors-sexe (‘outside sex’)],: The out-of-sex, that is the Man on which the soul speculated. There!
[love founded on pregenital partial objects (the 4 objects(a): oral, anal, vocal, scopic), the S→a of the board (structure of fantasy) → coalescence of a and S(A)]

But it turns out, it turns out that women too are in love, that is, that they soul the soul.
What on earth can this soul be that they soul in the partner,
yet hommo to the hilt [Laughter], and from which they will not get out?

It can indeed lead them only to this ultimate term…
and it is not for nothing that I call it that
…ὔστερον [hysteron: the last] as it is said in Greek: hysteria, that is, ‘playing the man’ as I said,
thereby being ‘hommosexual’, if I may put it that way, or ‘out-of-sex’ themselves as well.

[the S→a of the board (structure of fantasy) → coalescence of a and S(A) for them too → the hysteric ‘plays the man’]

It being difficult for them not to feel, from then on, the impasse that consists in their ‘same-ing’ themselves in the other [wordplay: French ‘mêment’ makes a verb from ‘même’ (same), echoing ‘aiment’],
for after all there is no need to know oneself other in order to be it, since where the soul finds a way to be,
one dif… one differentiates it from her, the woman, and that from the origin, isn’t it: one ‘says-woman’ [wordplay: ‘dit-femme’ (said-woman) echoes ‘diffame’ (defames)] [Laughter].
[She sometimes leaves the role assigned to her of partial object, of object of desire in S◊a, then one defames her].

What is most famous in History, in remaining women,
is, properly speaking, everything one can say of it that is defamatory [Laughter].
[they do not limit themselves to the hysterical position, ‘playing the man’ (masculine side of the board: S→a, structure S◊a), they ‘counter’ by L→Φ→ :§]

It is true that there remains to her the honor of Cornélie, mother of the Gracchi.
But that is precisely what for us analysts, I do not need to speak of Cornélie,
whom analysts hardly think about, but speak to an analyst of some Cornélie whatsoever,
he will tell you that it will not succeed very well for her children, the Gracchi!
They will pull ‘gracques’ [wordplay: ‘gracques’ echoes ‘craques’ (lies/boasts)] [Laughter] until the end of their existence.

Well there you go, that was the beginning of my letter, it was an ‘soulement’! Yeah…

So of course, there I could have…
I did it besides, but I don’t have the time
…in short, I made an allusion again to that courtly love.

To that courtly love where all the same, at the point it had reached, this ‘hommosexual soulement’,
at the point it had reached, one had fallen into the supreme decadence, into that sort of impossible bad dream called ‘feudalism’.

At that level of political degeneration it is obvious that something had to appear, something had to appear,
and that something is precisely the perception that the woman, on that side, there was something
that could no longer work at all.

So the invention of courtly love is not at all the fruit of what one is accustomed, like that in history,
to symbolize as ‘thesis, antithesis, and synthesis’: there is not the slightest synthesis of course, there never is any.

All one saw after courtly love was something that shone like that in history,
like a meteor left completely enigmatic, and then after that one saw the whole bric-à-brac come back,
all the bric-à-brac of a purported Renaissance of ancient old junk.

Yes there is a little parenthesis there, like that, it is that when One makes 2, well there is never any return,
it does not come back to making ‘One’ again, even a new ‘One’.
The Aufhebung is yet another of those pretty dreams of philosophy. [cf. above: ‘there is not the slightest synthesis of course, there never is any.’]

It is very obvious that if one had this meteor of courtly love, it is obviously from a 3rd,
fallen from a wholly other score, that this something came that threw everything back into its first futility. Yeah…
That is why something wholly other was needed, nothing less than scientific discourse,
that is, something that owes nothing to the suppositions of the ancient soul, for what psychoanalysis is to arise from it,
namely the objectification of the fact that being, as speaking being, still spends time speaking…
in pure loss, I told you so
…still spends time speaking for this office of the shortest [love]
‘of the shortest’ I say, from the fact that it goes no farther than being in progress, still [and in body] [wordplay: French encore (‘still’) is homophonic with en corps (‘in body’); the text flags this as ‘et en corps’],
…that is, the time it takes for it finally to be resolved…
for after all that is what is hanging over our heads
…for it finally to be resolved demographically. Yeah…

It is quite clear that that is not at all what [‘the speaking being in pure loss’ → before the disc. A] will fix relations between men and women. That is Freud’s genius, that he was carried by this turning point.
This turning point… well, it took time of course, I mean: it took time to come [the turning point].

There was a Freud, it is a name that well deserves, isn’t it,
Freud: well it is a jesting name: Kraft durch freudig [strength through joy] [wordplay: punning on Freud / German freudig (‘joyful’) and echoing the slogan-form ‘Kraft durch Freude’], it is the most jesting leap of the holy farce of history. One could perhaps, while it lasts [this turning point], see a little flash of it, a little flash of something
that would concern the Other, the Other insofar as that is what woman has to do with [L→ S(A)]. Yeah…

There is something essential in what I bring as a complement to what has been very well seen…
seen by paths that it would shed light on to see that it is that which was seen
…what was seen is nothing but on the side of the man, namely:
– that what the man had to do with was the object (a),
– that all his realization of this ‘sexual relation’ ended up in fantasy [S◊a],
…and it was seen, of course, with regard to neurotics: ‘How do neurotics make love?’ that is where one started.

On that, of course, one could not fail to notice that there was a correlate with perversions,
which supports my little (a), since the little (a) is the one that…
whatever they may be, the so-called perversions
…is there as the cause. Yeah… One saw that first, that was already not bad, huh?

The amusing thing — isn’t it? — is that… is that Freud originally attributed them to the woman.
It is… it is… it is very, very amusing to see that in the ‘Three Essays’.
It is really a confirmation, in short, that what one sees in the partner, when one is a man,
is exactly what one supports oneself on, if I may put it that way, what one supports oneself on narcissistically.

Fortunately, afterward he had, in short, the occasion to notice that perversions are…
perversions as one apprehends them in neurosis, as one thinks one can spot them
…that is not at all neurosis. It is the dream rather than perversion — neurosis I mean!
That neurotics have none of the traits of the pervert is certain,
they simply dream of them, which is quite natural, for otherwise how to reach the partner.

Perverts, one nevertheless began to encounter some, didn’t one, those whom Aristotle absolutely did not want
at any price to see [τερατῶδες : tératodès (monstrosities)]. One saw there that there is a subversion of conduct, supported…
if I may say so
…on a know-how that is linked entirely to a knowledge, and to the knowledge — my God — of the nature of things,
a direct clutching-in…
if I may say so
…of sexual conduct onto…
it must indeed be said
…what is its truth for sexual conduct, namely its amorality.
Put soul at the outset into that if you like: soul-morality [wordplay: ‘amoralité’ (amorality) split into ‘âme-moralité’ (soul-morality)]. [Laughter]

There is a morality, that is the consequence, a morality of sexual conduct that is the implied
of everything that has been said about the Good. Only by dint of saying, of speaking good, well it leads to Kant, where morality…
in two words this time
…morality confesses what it is…
and that is what I thought I had to advance in a small article: Kant avec Sade
…it confesses that morality is sade. [Universality: of the Good (Aristotle), of Ethics (Kant), of the Right to jouissance (Sade)]
You will write Sade however you like:
– either with a capital S [Sade], to pay homage to that poor idiot who gave us interminable writings about it,
– or with a small s [sade] to say that in the end it is her way of being pleasant, isn’t it, since it is an old French word that means that,
– or — better! — c.cedilla.a.d.e: ‘çade’, namely that morality, one must all the same say, ends up at the level of the ‘It’, and that this is quite short.

In other words that what is at issue is
– that love be impossible, yeah…
– and that the sexual relation sinks into non-sense, which in no way diminishes the interest we can have for the other.

It is because — it must be said — the question is this, the question is this:
in what constitutes feminine jouissance, insofar as she is not ‘not all’ occupied with the man,
and even, I would say, that as such she is not occupied with him at all, the question is precisely to know what it is with her knowledge.

If the unconscious has taught us so many things, it is first of all this: somewhere in the Other it knows,
it knows because it is supported precisely by these signifiers of which the subject is constituted.
That is where it lends itself to confusion, because it is difficult for whoever ‘souls’ not to think
that everything in the world knows what it has to do [every ‘being’ has its final cause in itself].

The ‘unmoved sphere’ on which the Aristotelian god was supported, if it is demanded by Aristotle in order to follow his Good,
in its image if I may say so, it is because it is supposed to know its Good [M: S2→/a].

Only there, that is precisely something that after all the fault of scientific discourse,
I will not say allows us, but obliges us to do without [H: S2◊ a].

Aristotle Science
(master’s discourse) (hysteric’s discourse)

[in M discourse: S1 (the master)→S2 (the slave: knowledge)→ a (the product)→ no barrier between knowledge and its ‘Good’
in H discourse: S (the subject)→S1 (the master)◊a (the product). S2◊a is the fault of scientific discourse: knowledge no longer knows anything about its ‘Good’]

There is no need at all to know why what Aristotle starts from at the origin… we no longer have any need to know
to impute to the stone that it knows the place it must reach, in order to explain to ourselves the effects of gravitation.
[scientific discourse cannot ‘know its Good’ (cut off from its object: S2◊a) → if the final cause is inherent in the object, it cannot be known in this discourse]

The imputation to the animal…
it is very striking to read in Aristotle the treatise ‘De l’âme’
…it is this point that makes knowledge the act par excellence — of what? — of something that…
one must not believe that Aristotle was so far off the mark
…of something that he sees as being nothing but the body, except that the body is made for an activity,
an ἑνέργεια [energeia] and somewhere the entelechy of this body can be supported by this substance that he calls the soul.

Analysis, in that respect, lends itself to this confusion, of restoring the final cause to us, of making us say that for everything that concerns at least the speaking being: reality is like that — that is, fantasmatic — for it to be like that!
[for Aristotle (M discourse) the final cause is inherent in the object → does the speaking being (of A discourse) also contain its final cause?]

It would still be a matter of knowing whether that is something that in any way can satisfy scientific discourse. It is not because there are animals who happen to be speaking, for whom inhabiting the signifier
results in their being its subjects, and for whom everything plays out at the level of fantasy…
and of a perfectly disarticulable fantasy [unstick S from a but also a from S(A)]
in a way that accounts for this: that he knows much more than he believes when he acts, he
…it is not enough that it be so for us to have there the start of a cosmology.

It is the eternal ambiguity of the term ‘unconscious’, isn’t it.
The unconscious is ‘supposed’ on the pretext that the speaking being, there is somewhere something that knows more than he does,
and of course what it knows has limits of course, the being of the unconscious.

But in any case that is not a receivable model of the world.
In other words, it is not because it is enough that he dream for him to see this immense bric-à-brac come back out,
this storage furniture with which he, particularly, has to manage, which assuredly makes a soul of him,
and a soul that is at times ‘lovable’ when something is willing to love it.

The woman can love in the man, I said, only the way he faces the knowledge that he ‘(a)-loves’ [wordplay: ‘(a)’ plus French ‘aime’ (loves)]. [the man captivated in S◊a].
But for the knowledge that he ‘is’, the question arises [S(A)?]. The question arises from this that there is something,
if what I advance is grounded, that there is something of which it is not possible to say whether this something — which is jouissance — she can say something about it, in other words what she knows of it.

And that is where I propose to you, at the end of this lecture today, that is, as always
I arrive at the edge of what polarized my whole subject, namely whether the question can be posed of what she knows of it.

It is not a wholly other question, namely:
– whether this term by which she enjoys beyond all this ‘playing’ that makes her relation to the man,
– whether this term that I call the Other in the signifier of A,
– whether this term, it, knows something, for it is in that that she herself is subject to the Other, just as much as the man.

Does the Other know?

There was someone named Empedocles…
whom, as if by chance, Freud, like that, uses from time to time like a corkscrew
…there was someone named Empedocles of whom we know only three verses on that, but from which Aristotle very well draws
the consequences when he states that, in sum, for Empedocles, God, God was the most ignorant of all beings, and this very precisely in not knowing hatred at all.

That is what Christians later transformed into deluges of love.
Unfortunately it does not fit, because not knowing hatred at all is not knowing love either.
If God does not know hatred, it is clear for Empedocles that he knows less than mortals.

So that one could say that the more the man can lend the woman to confusion with God, that is, with what she enjoys, the less he hates…
the two spellings ‘h.a.i.t’ and ‘e.s.t’ [wordplay: in French hait (‘hates’) and est (‘is’) are homophones; the ‘two spellings’ cue is the point]
…and in this matter too, since after all there is no love without hate:
the less he loves.