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The Object of Psychoanalysis 1965 - 1966

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The Object of Psychoanalysis 1965 - 1966 15.6.66 XXII 1 THE OBJECT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 1965 - 1966 1 December 1965 (I) Science and truth 8 December 1965 (II) The subject and lack 15 December 1965 (III) Topology and the subject 22 December 1965 (IV) A Green on the o-object 5 January 1966 (V) The o-object 12 January 1966 (VI) Subject of science and of psychoanalysis 19 January 1966 (VII) Mirror stage and the Divine Comedy 26 January 1966 (VIII) Discussion on Conrad Stein’s work 2 February 1966 (IX) Pascal’s Wager I 9 February 1966 (X) Pascal’s Wager II 25 February 1966 (XI) LACAN ABSENT 23 March 1966 (XII) Lacan on America 30 March 1966 (XIII) Topological discussions 20 April 1966 (XIV) Summary of Crucial Problems; Jouissance 27 April 1966 (XV) Jones’ Female sexuality 4 May 1966 (XVI) Visual structure of the subject 11 May 1966 (XVII) Perspective: Las Meninas I 18 May 1966 (XVIII) Michel Foucault: Las Meninas II 25 May 1966 (XIX) Summary of Object of psychoanalysis; Las Meninas III 1 June 1966 (XX) Re-thinking Freud; Las Meninas IV 8 June 1966 (XXI) Jouissance and castration 15 June 1966 (XXII) o-objects; Safouan’s case http://www.lacaninireland.com 15.6.66 XXII 21 18 May 1966 (XVIII) Michel Foucault: Las Meninas II 25 May 1966 (XIX) Summary of Object of psychoanalysis; Las Meninas III 1 June 1966 (XX) Re-thinking Freud; Las Meninas IV 8 June 1966 (XXI) Jouissance and castration 15 June 1966 (XXII) o-objects; Safouan’s case Seminar 2: Wednesday 8 December 1965 The last time you heard from me a sort of lecture which was not like the others because, as it happens, it was entirely written out. It was entirely written out so that it could be printed in roneotyped form as quickly as possible so that you could have it as a guide as regards my teaching. Some people have expressed a certain regret, let us say, a disappointment. It is worth while pausing on this. In order to put a little humour into things, I would say that the way in which this disappointment was expressed was something like the following - I am forcing things a little - people preferred this sort of struggle, it appears, that is represented by being present - I scarcely dare to say it - at the birth of my thinking. Do you really think that my thinking is coming to birth when I am here - in the process of wrestling with something which is far from being exactly that. (2) Like everyone else it is with my speech (parole) of course that I explain things. Moreover you have perhaps heard that my cogito, which does not mean, moreover, that it is in any way in contradiction with the cogito of Descartes, might be perhaps rather: “I think, therefore I cease to be”. So then, since I do not cease to be, as you can clearly see, that proves that I have less reason than others to believe in my thinking. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that this is what we have to deal with. This is what does not make any easier relations with those to whom it is very particularly addressed, namely, the psychoanalysts. http://www.lacaninireland.com 15.6.66 XXII 22 And the fact that the earlier remarks came to me, I repeat, with a hint of humour, very specially from them, proves well, confirms, that it is also they who prefer what I would call the show-biz aspect of this display. This does not make relations any easier. It is also indeed from this point of view that there should be understood the fact that I believed I should, on several occasions in my last presentation, allude to what constituted a certain moment in my relations with the psychoanalysts and for example that I spoke (3) about what I call the Freudian thing, or one or other analogous point. It is not a question here of what I have heard qualified as useless recollections about the past, which is quite curious for analysts because, moreover, this past forms part properly speaking of a history in the sense that I tried the last time to specify what is involved for us in history, what we bring to it in terms of an essential contribution by showing what is involved in the fracture, the trauma, in something that is specified by the moments of the signifier, and it would really be to overlook completely the function that I give to the word, and what I very specially affirmed the last time, if I did not attempt, in some way or other, to include in what I am teaching about it, what I note and record about the effects of my word and very specially what happens to those to whom it is addressed. That is why, in the measure that we are advancing this year around a more radical point, this cannot fail to end up by highlighting something which must give the key to the passage or not of my teaching to where it ought to have its impact. There must be some very close relationship between what we could call these phases or these very difficulties, to call things by their name, and what precisely I was able to say and put forward (4) about the subject in so far as it is divided between truth and knowledge. The last time, I did not, for all that, entitle this discourse: A courteous debate between truth and knowledge. I spoke about the subject of science and not that of knowledge. It is indeed here that there lies something of which I also said that there is something not quite right, in other words something that does not fit together in a way that is altogether adequate or comfortable. This indeed is why, moreover, that the real title of this lecture, this presentation, is the subject of science but as he ought to be put on sale, the law of an object that can be sold is what the label covers, what I would call the merchandise and since it obviously involves, on the inside, science on the one hand and truth, on condition that you put the and in the brackets that it deserves, namely that it is a term which does not at all have a univocal sense, that it may well, moreover, include the asymmetry, the oddity that I spoke about earlier, Science and truth will be the title of this presentation. Or indeed if you wish, Science, truth. http://www.lacaninireland.com 15.6.66 XXII 23 What there is in this presentation is just as important for what it leaves blank as for what it contains. In the enumeration of the different phases, of the different moments of the truth as cause, you will see that there are put forward in it the aspects described as efficient causes and final causes, I left in the discreet suspense of what is going to be called (5) henceforth the debate between psychoanalysis and science, the interplay of the relationships between material causes and formal causes. This is what we are going to approach today. In what is obtained as an effect of what I teach, in the practice of those who receive it, I can note a certain tendency, a certain aspect which is the one, a curious consequence of the particularly strict form that I try to give to the term of subject, and which culminates in a singular laxity, properly speaking the one that could be qualified from the outside and according to the ordinary usage of these terms, as subjectivism. Namely, that each one in turn and, what is more, following some up to date style or other, which may be fashionable, for example, by being a little bit behind the fashion, people have successively used as a reference point for the position they take in psychoanalytic activity, being and having, desire and demand - I am not saying them in the order that I produced them - indeed even the final term, of knowledge and truth. This is one of the ways of escaping, as I might say, - I hope that it is only mythical, approximate, that I am only designating and highlighting here a tendency - this is indeed one of the most radical ways of escaping from what I am trying to obtain, since what sense (6) would there be to the formulation that I give of the function of the subject as cut, leaving perhaps a certain indetermination in its choice at the origin, but is afterwards an absolutely determining fact, if it were not a question, precisely of obtaining a certain accommodation of the position of the analyst to this fundamental cut which is called the subject. Here, here alone, as identical to this cut, the position of the analyst is rigorous. Of course it is not tenable. I am not the one who first said this, it is Freud who had no doubt about it. This indeed is the reason why in holding their place, the analysts indeed do not hold it. There is, properly speaking, no way of remedying this but there is knowledge which may be a way of getting round it. Here there is uncovered the difference between Wirklichkeit, namely, the possible realisation of my relationships with the psychoanalyst in so far as he leaves me at the place where I am and where I try to circumscribe a certain type of formula, and Realität which is beyond in so far as being impossible, it is what determines our common failure (échec).
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