8/13/2019 Heidegger Abyss http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/heidegger-abyss 1/27 ABYSSAL GROUNDS: LACAN AND HEIDEGGER ON TRUTH Author(s): Gabriel Riera Reviewed work(s): Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 9, No. 2, Special Issue on Lacan (Spring/Summer 1996), pp. 51-76 Published by: University of Nebraska Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20686047 . Accessed: 14/12/2011 10:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Qui Parle. http://www.jstor.org
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ABYSSAL GROUNDS: LACAN AND HEIDEGGER ON TRUTHAuthor(s): Gabriel RieraReviewed work(s):Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 9, No. 2, Special Issue on Lacan (Spring/Summer 1996), pp. 51-76Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20686047 .
Accessed: 14/12/2011 10:11
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Qui Parle.
In thinking the linkbetween philosophy and psychoanalysis, the re
lation between Heidegger and Lacan seems unavoidable. Yet, it is
far less clear what form this link should take and how itmight be
justified. Is itenough to say,with Elisabeth Roudinesco, that the rela
tionship between Lacan and Heidegger issimply an episodic event?'
Or, against this anecdotal reduction ofwhat appears to be a more
encompassing intellectual "exchange," is itnecessary, followingWil
liam Richardson, to put the Lacanian subject (the subject of the un
conscious) on the same levelwith Heidegger's Dasein?2 Or, insearch
ingfor n intermediateposition between these two approaches, mightone, with Edward S.
Casey
and Melvin
Woody,read in
Heidegger
a
relatively controllable thematic repertoire that Lacan appropriatesand reformulates to neutralize the "totalizing effects" of theHegeliandialectic?3 Anecdotal reduction, conceptual homology, thematic il
lustration.When thinking the relation between Lacan and Heidegger,it isnecessary to find a differentpath, a path thatwill allow one to
introduce the mark of a spacing. Given thatphilosophy and psycho
analysistoday rosspaths inthis pacing, Iwill follow he uestionof truth as the question inwhich Lacanian psychoanalysis and
Heideggerianthinkingonverge. hequestionof truthill provide
the necessary infrastructure o assess the relation between Lacan and
Heidegger.This essay focuses on thequestion of truth ecause Heidegger's
unfolding of the question presupposes a retrogression from
conceptuality to "determinations" which are more original than con
cepts. Following Rodolphe Gasche, Icall this unfolding an "infra
structure," that is, "a complex set of conditions which brings the
idealityof awhole or a system both into reach and out of reach, andwhich articulates the limits . . .of words and concepts."4 As Iwill
show, Heidegger's reflection on truth abandons the terrain of
conceptuality inorder to think "truth" as the unthought of philoso
phy. As the unthought of philosophy, "truth" renders possible the
condition of possibility of a series ofwords or concepts. ForHeidegger,these concepts include: Dasein, entities, Being, time, aswell as that
which "gives" Being and time their "relation"- Ereignis. Moreover,
because "truth" isnot a concept but ratherone ofHeidegger's "basic
words," the unfolding of itsunthought "contents" also supposes a
modification ofwhat has been traditionally conceived as the locus
of truth: language.In this paper Iwill pay close attention to the transformations
thatHeidegger's concept of language undergoes fromBeing and Time
to On theWay to Language, aswell as to his narrative of the historyof truth. By focusing on language and truth, and on language as
truth, Iwill show how Heidegger, inhis insistentdisplacements and
reinscriptions of these concepts, brings not only Being and time "into
its wn," but also language and truth inwhat he calls the "event of
appropriation" [Ereignis], that is,an abyssal infrastructure.
I call this infrastructureabyssal because, on the one hand,
Ereignis is the condition of possibility forwhat makes time and Be
ing, truth nd language possible, inasmuch as itbrings them to their
"own" or "proper" [eigen]; on the other hand, thisbringing them to
their w" amounts to theirdisappearance. The "own"~ or "proper"~isunderstood by Heidegger not as an immanent essence thatgroundsa permanence, but rather as that fromwhich Being and time come
to themselves, an other which cannot be attained inor by the lan
guage of Being. However, as a condition of possibility for the possi
bilities of Being, language and truth,Ereignis isneither theirgroundnor their foundation. Ereignis interruptsany possibility of keepingthose concepts as theywere and consequently points to another typeof thinking.
This abyssal infrastructure, Iclaim, isalso operative ina deci
sive moment of Lacan's teaching, namely, the seminar entitled The
Ethics of Psychoanalysis. This seminar ispunctuated by explicit and
implicit references toHeidegger - inparticular, Lacan's use of the
crucial concept of theThing [la Chose das Ding]. Nevertheless, on
theway toHeidegger, Lacan takes some decisive detours.
I
Lacan and Heidegger, or Thinking the Space Between
Inher Histoire de la Psychanalyse en France, Elisabeth Roudinesco
reduces the relationship between Lacan and Heidegger to an inci
dent: a scene inwhich Lacan masters the situation while theGer
man thinker remains both silent and motionless. She writes:
Heidegger stays at la Prevote, aftervisiting the Cathedral
at Chartres. Lacan drives his automobile at the speed of
his sessions. Seated in the frontseat, Heidegger remains
still,but his wife complains. Sylvie transmits her fears to
Lacan without success. On theway back, Heidegger re
mains quiet all throughout the trip and his wife's com
plaints grow while Lacan accelerates. The tripends andeveryone returns to their own homes [Le voyage prendfinet chacun retourne chez soi.] (H, 310)
For Roudinesco, this curious scene exemplifies the literal lack of
exchange between Lacan and Heidegger, which isfurther corrobo
rated in Lacan's teaching. Even if omething like an exchange did
not take place, Lacan nevertheless borrowed a "language" from
Heideggertowork throughomeof his earlier heoreticalroblems.
Lacan's own position regarding philosophical discourse is ambiguous. For instance, when developing and formalizing the mathemes
of the four discourses in his seminar L'Envers de Ia Psychanalyse,
Lacan characterizes philosophy as the discourse of themaster and
situates his own discourse as an "antiphilosophy." InEncore, more
over, Lacan reduces his relationship with Heidegger's thinking to a
"propaedeutic reference." Nevertheless, Lacan pays a last visit to
Heidegger afterhaving developed the theoryof the Borromean knot.5
These denegations and ambiguities, though, cannot obscure the fact
thatHeideggerian thinking and Lacanian psychoanalysis are coex
tensive since, as Jean-Luc Nancy claims, they respond to the "neces
sityof an epoch. . . inasmuch as the time of a general errancy of
meaning, of a passage to the limit f all possible signification."6Lacan's declarations have led to a general misunderstanding
about his relation with Heidegger's thought. This misunderstanding
appears inCasey and Woody's study, "Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan:
Dialectic of Desire," which traces Lacan's uses of Hegel's and
Heidegger's philosophy at the timewhen Lacan is articulating his
"return to Freud." Their main thesis isthat "psychoanalysis must find
a thirdway between, or beyond Hegel and Heidegger" (D, 105).
They conclude by claiming that Lacan dismisses both Hegelian and
Heideggerian resolutions as impossible or inadequate:
Of all the undertakings that have been proposed in this
century, that of the psychoanalyst isperhaps the loftiest,because the undertaking of the psychoanalyst acts in ur
time as a mediator between theman of care and the sub
ject of absolute knowledge.7
The authors point out that, since the dialectic of desire and the un
conscious as a riddle of the mind are both missing fromphilosophical resolutions, Lacan legitimately points to the insufficiencyof phi
losophy. However, even though Casey andWoody make the problematic relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy clear,the relation between Lacan and Heidegger needs further elucida
tion.
Casey's point of departure is to characterize the Lacanian sub
jectas a
"spoken subject," that is,a
subject "created by the play ofthe signifier" and understood as "an effect of speaking." AccordingtoCasey, this onceptionis rooted n he hilosophy fHeidegger,
who has insisted on the primacy of language over the speaking sub
Logos, consequently, would not be language (understood as a de
rivative concept) but discourse. InBeing and Time, Heidegger still
conceives of language in more traditionalway (as an instrumentof
expression), and words still have the character of things. In "L6gos,"
Heidegger undertakes a more "essential determination of language"
through an interpretationof Heraclitus' fragmentB50. This determi
nation of logos isone inwhich "the Greeks dwelt ... But they never
thought it Heraclitus included."9 In this essential determination,
Heidegger's equation of language and truthrequires a cancellation
and relegation of the classical predicates of language: vocalization
[phond] and signification [semainen]. It s ftersubmitting these predicates to a displacement that "the essential speaking of language"can be displayed: saying as a "letting-lie-together-before [legein
sagen]" (L, 64). The essential determination of language occurs as
the elucidation of an infrastructure f disclosure:
Logos lays thatwhich ispresent before and down intopresencing, that is, itputs those things back. Presencingnevertheless suggests: having come forward to endure in
unconcealment. Because the lgos lets liebefore uswhat
lies before us as such, itdiscloses what ispresent in its
presencing. But disclosure isAltheia. This and lgos are
the Same. Ldgein letsAldth4a, unconcealed as such, lie
before us ... All disclosure releases what ispresent from
concealment. The A-Ldtheia rests in Ldthe. L6gos is in
itself nd at the same time a revealing and concealing. ItisAldtheia. (L, 70-71)
It isprecisely this infrastructurethatwill be decisive inorder to un
derstand the relation between Lacan and Heidegger.There is n additional complication intheway thatCasey reads
the philosophical origins of Lacan's conception of the subject. For
Casey, language in Lacan provides the "structure and limit" of the
field nwhich the ubject omes tobe. Within his ield, he ubject
appears as "ex-centric," as "alienated from himself." The origin ofthese formulations, according to Casey, appears "in Heidegger's
analysis of subjectivity nBeing and Time. Inhis 1927 work,
ables Heidegger to think language, Being, and truthunder the name
of Ereignis.
Nevertheless, Richardson's placement of Lacan's Other in the
dimension of Being, as well as his attempt to bring together the un
conscious and the disclossive process signaled by the name of "Be
ing as Ereignis-Aletheia," need to be reevaluated, especially since
Richardson adds:
The Being of the symbolic order isnot an ontic Other of
theOther likea Super-Absolute, but the disclosure of the
Other as such inkindsis- inEreignis-Altheia- which,as Idgos, isaboriginal language and concealment . .. (P,
157)
Is this bringing together of the Being-question and Lacan's Other a
legitimateclaim?Would the "disclossive process" of Being as EreignisAltheia be, fromwithout, the "formal structure"
allowingus to
justify relationship between Lacan and Heidegger? Richardson's formulation suggests thata certain translatability ofHeidegger inLacanseems to be possible." The question now becomes the extent of this
translatability, that is,the question ofwhether the "formal structure"- if it is indeed a formal structure of Being's Ereignis-Aldtheiacan be translated fromHeidegger to Lacan without any alteration.
We must show whether this "formal structure" isappropriable, since
the question of appropriation is the question of Ereignis. Inorder to
explorethese
issues,attention must be
paidtowhat takes
placein
Lacan under the name of truth.
Before approaching the question ofwhether Heidegger's to
pology of Being iscommensurate with Lacan's, we must pay close
attention to Richardson's bringing together of "Being as EreignisAl6theia." What type of relation does "Being as Ereignis" establish?
Is it relation of identity, f sameness, or is itrathera determination
of Being understood as a more encompassing "concept," that is,
Ereignis? Inother words, is it determination thatwould still allowus
to think of Being as the "fundamental" question? What is the relation etweenBeing ndEreignis fne can say"Being s Ereigns" inthe sense indicated above? Furthermore,what does the hyphen be
the same: Being gives itself its wn figures by and through the his
toryof its wn granting. Inthis line of thought, the expression "Beingas Ereignis" could be understood as saying thatBeing, inasmuch as
it is the giver of its wn figures, behaves as Ereignis. However, this
understanding of Being may verywell be taken as one of the figuresof that same history. That is, ifEreignis points to the limitof this
history of Being, by assimilating Being to Ereignis, thenwe are on
the inside of the closure. Moreover, assimilating Being to Ereignis
compresses the thought of Ereignis; since Being isgiven by time, it
would then be more accurate to say "Being as Time," or better still,
"Time as Ereignis." Nevertheless this lastexpression fails to capturethe heterogeneity of Time and Ereignis. The thinkingof Ereignis asks
for n additional step back. The question- what gives the historyof
Being its wn provenance?-
points to a more "originary" giving of
Being and of itshistory,one that isnon-dependent upon time.
We must now follow Heidegger in his attempt to determine
the determination of time, the condition for the history of Being. Bynow it should be clear that the thinking of Ereignis involves two
"moments": first, he giving of Being (Esgibt Sein), that is,when the
Es (the "giver") points to time (to the Es gibtZeit.) And second, when
the Es points to an anteriority other than Being and time. As in the
case of Being, time "gives" itself its wn dimensions. And yet, that
which "unifies" time isanything temporal. In this case, the Es of Es
gibt Zeit points to an enigmatic anteriority, Ereignis:
Inthe sending of thedestiny of Being, inthe extending oftime, there becomes manifest a dedication, a deliveringover intowhat is theirown, namely of Being as presenceand of time as the realm of the open. What determines
both, time and Being, in theirown, that is, in their be
longing together,we shall call: Ereignis, the event ofAppropriation. One should bear inmind, however, that
"event" isnot simply an occurrence, but thatwhich makes
any occurrence possible . . .What lets the two matters
[Being ndTime]belong together,hat brings hetwointo theirown and, even more, maintains and holds them
Ereignis names what makes Being and time come into their own
[eigen], aswell as the relation of the belonging-together of time and
Being. But Ereignis is the name or the marker forwhat withdraws
itself inthe "event of (co)appropriation."
Ereignis points
to thethinking
of an
abyssal ground,but it isan
abyssal infrastructurethat cannot be thought "as Being." As the "es
sential" anteriority of Being and time, Ereignis could be referred to
as the "truth" of Being and Time, Ereignis-Aldtheia. After thisdetour,we come back to the question of "truth," albeit ina very different
"light."
II
Lacan with
Heidegger?A common point of departure for both Heidegger and Lacan can be
read in theway each unties the knot that traditionally has linked
truthto knowledge. This untying allows them to re-think their rela
tionwith tradition and origins. Heidegger's well-known untying of
truthfromknowledge leads him to assess the history of philosophyas the history of a dependency on a non-essential determination. In
Being and Time, Heidegger accomplishes a displacement insofaras
he thinks truth s being-uncovering, that is,as an ontological possi
bility of being-in-the-world. This reassessment of truth transformsthe traditional determinations of truth as intuition and assertion
[Aussage] into secondary determinations, and puts an end to the
history of philosophy as the history of thismutual dependency on
truth nd knowledge. Moreover, thedisplacement Heidegger accom
plishes inBeing and Time allows him to refine the "sameness" of
Ldgos-Aldtheia. He thus establishes a kind of primal scene of thought,a pre-Platonic scene anterior to the "fall" of truth in theweb of the
signifier.
However, this narrative of the history of truth remains too dependentupon thehistoryf theword "truth"aldtheia] nd cannotresist a number of philological objections. Thus, Heidegger later re
sitions have served to justifypsychoanalysis' function and purpose.In thisway, he opens an adjacent space fromwhich to think the
unthought of ethics, the Real. Lacan writes:
[A]s odd as itmay seem to that superficial opinion which
assumes any inquiry intoethics must concern the field of
the ideal, if ot of the unreal, I, n the contrary,will proceed instead from the other direction by going more
deeply intothe notion of the real [rdel]. Insofaras Freud's
position constitutes progress here, the question of ethics
is to be articulated from the point of view of the location
of man in relation to the real [rde/].To appreciate this,one has to look atwhat occurred inthe interval between
Aristotle and Freud. (E, 11)
It isclear that inhis displacement and reinscription of the questionof ethics, Lacan repeats some of theHeideggerian movements of the
destruction of the history of ontology. Heidegger writes:
We understand this task as one inwhich by taking the
question of Being as our clue, we are todestroy the tradi
tional content of ancient ontology untilwe arrive at those
primordial xperiences inwhichwe achievedour first
ways of determining the nature of Being . .. (BT, 22-3)
Lacan, therefore, elaborates an ethics of the analytic experience thatis "anterior" and "more original" than the ethics of themetaphysicaltradition. Lacan wants to determine how the economy of pleasure,whose horizon isthegood, is itselfetermined nd simultaneously
short-circuited by a more "original" dimension of jouissance or of
the "beyond pleasure." The articulation of an ethics of psychoanalysis supposes an additional gesturewithin thegeneral scope of Lacan's
return to Freud. From the viewpoint of Beyond the Pleasure Prin
ciple, Lacan dismantles some of Freud's insights, such as the pre
ponderant importance of the superego. Lacan must disentangle Freud
from Kant (the categorical imperative being a genealogical condi
tion of theOedipus complex) but notwithout using Kant to disen
tangle the Real fromany typeof ontic representational content, found,
forexample, inMelanie Klein's maternal figuration of theThing.Inhis attempt to disentangle jouissance from the dialectics of
desire, and to elucidate the relationship of jouissance to the objectcause of desire [objet a], Lacan invokes das Ding [laChose], throughan explicit reference toHeidegger. However, Lacan's elucidation of
das Ding, while reaching conclusions homologous to those of the
abyssal infrastructure of Ereignis-Al4theia, ismore Kantian than
Heideggerian. Although Lacan is led to a ground similar to that of
Heidegger, he arrives only byway of a double use of Kant. On the
one hand, a formal Kantian argument allows Lacan to separate the
objects of desire from das Ding. This separation sustains desire at a
distance and gives desire only its"motility."On the other hand, Lacan
unfolds Kant's aesthetic categories- the beautiful and the sublime
(the beautiful as the sublime or the beautiful as overflowed and in
terrupted by the sublime) - as a way of submitting the formal and
transcendental aspect of das Ding to a
quasi-transcendentalspace.
Inother words, the Kantian categories of the beautiful and the sub
lime are put intoplay not inorder to secure the homeostatic nature
of an economy of pleasure and of the good, but rather as a way to
indicate the provenance of "pure desire." The way inwhich Lacan
mobilizes the Kantian categories of the beautiful and the sublime
has some structural similaritieswith Heidegger's thinkingof thework
of art and the beautiful, that is,with Heidegger's non-aesthetic read
ingof Kant.
There isan additionalcomplication.
Theinsights
of The Ethics
of Psychoanalysis are put to the test inLacan's reading ofAntigone.
The tragedy acan confronts s ne ofphilosophy's rivileged elf
the chorus uses to refer o the young virgin daughter ofOedipus after
Creon makes his sentence public. The words are: "Imeros Enarg6s,"
(the visible desire thatemanates from thegaze of theyoung virgin);
or, as Lacan phrases it,"visible desire." As Heidegger reminds us,
enargds is the same word that Cicero translates as evidentia. The
word derives from ensrgeia: "thatwhich in itself nd of itselfradi
ates and brings itself o light.But it an only radiate ifopenness has
already been granted" (EP, 66). The relation between Lacan and
Heidegger depends on how thisOpenness is understood and on
how thisOpenness gives itself. nd as we will see, thatwhich givesitself o be seen does so inan inscription, tying together beauty and
truth, r beauty as the truth f desire.
After this overview of themain articulations of Lacan's Semi
nar, the overdetermined character of his project becomes clear: on
the one hand, Lacan aims to show that the economy of the goodbased upon the pleasure principle derives from an un-economic,
excessive logic jouissance and the death instinct.Only by takingintoaccount this dimension can psychoanalysis elucidate an ethics,
break themirror of imaginary solutions, and touch the Real. On the
other hand, the excess of a jouissance that points to das Ding is
neither apprehensible nor can be represented. And yet, this excess
may be hinted at through an artwork inwhich the interplay amongthe beautiful, the good and truthwill be mobilized.
III
Das Ding- Lacan with Kant: On theWay toHeidegger
C'est laChose qui se souvientde nous.
-Blanchot
InThe Ethics of Psychoanalysis, one of Lacan's goals is to elucidate
somethinghat, opologically peaking, s ituated eyondthe ymbolic order, that is, beyond the chain of signifierswhere desire is
articulated. Itshould be recalled that desire proceeds from some
thing that exceeds it the drive [Trieb]. Desire and drive belong todifferentimensions,nd the ircumscriptionf the hing dasDing]will allow Lacan to disentangle them:
symbolic order and therefore cuts off the subject from the Thing,
jouissance obeys the Law of the unmasterable Thing.As an absolute object of desire, das Ding opens thought to an
abyssal dimension (as itsa priori cause). In this sense, it ould be
said thatdas Ding is the truth [aldtheia] of desire. Das Ding unveils
itself inevery desire. But, inconcealing itselffromdesire, das Dingmanifests itself indesire only by its bsence. Das Ding is the absen
tee of desire's rendezvous; without thisplay of (un)veiling, however,desire could not articulate itself in the signifier and could not be
come a demand:
If heThing were not fundamentally veiled, we wouldn't
be inthe kind of relationship to itthat itobliges us ... to
encircle it r to bypass it [a la cerner, a la contourner] in
order to conceive it. (E, 118)
No object of desire can manage to represent das
Ding.
The irrecov
erable anteriority of theThing supposed by the order of the signifier
produces an unassimilable excess: a "lost" jouissance, which isboth
cause of desire or "objet a" and a surplus of the real [plus-de-jouir].Faced with this jouissance, the subject vanishes, as isthe case inthestructureof the phantasm ($o a). At this juncture, Lacan undoes the
knotwhich ties truth nd knowledge [connaissance]: das Ding can
not be known or represented since the objects of desire that teem
around the gap of das Ding are phantasmatic. Only a "discours de la
semblance" can
emerge regardingthe Real. Inother
words,no dis
course of knowledge ispossible, only a savoir.
We are now in a better position to re-evaluate Richardson's
formulation according towhich "Being as Ereignis-Aldtheia permitsus to think of the Other in the dimension of Being without
hypostasizing it .. inanyway, first nd foremost because itsuggestsaway to consider the unconscious as a disclossive process" (P, 147,
myemphasis).We havealready hownthat hetruthfdesire isnotan ontic truth, that desire always comes too late to its rendezvous
with dasDing and that asDing istheunpresentablenteriorityfan object "lost" after the fact. Thus, das Ding unveils itself indesire
but, at the same time, subtracts itselffrom theobject of desire. Bear
ingthese considerations inmind, theOther cannot be placed "in the
dimension of Being as Ereignis-Al6theia," as Richardson would have
it.Rather, the a priori and absolute condition of desire would oc
cupy this dimension. If his is the case, then "the disclosure . . .as
such inkindsis inEreignis-Aldtheia," to use Richardson's words,
has to be linked to the drive [Trieb], that death drive which, in its
pulsations and repetition, surrounds the empty space of das Ding
without touching it.
The subject seeks to fillthe empty space of das Ding, but fades
in the attempt. For Lacan, Antigone's figure illustrates "in an aes
thetic form" what takes place once the object of desire is raised to
"the dignity [dignitd] of theThing" (E, 112). Antigone is the sublime
figure of the sublimation of the drive. Antigone's jouissance trans
forms the object of desire, suppresses itssymbolic investment, and
disfigures it. he object of desire becomes theobject cause of desire.
In thisway, the
object
of desire isaffected
by
a strangesurplus
and
no longer refersback to the symbolic order, but ratherpresents itself
as thatwhich touches the void where desire originates.For Lacan, there are then twoways to assess sublimation, inas
much as itpresents uswith another side of the moral feeling and is
evaluated according to the modalities with which itdeals with the
void of the Thing. A first ssessment might be called a "reactive"
sublimation, an imaginary solution thatbars any hint of the field of
das Ding:
At the level of sublimation the object is inseparable from
imaginary and especially cultural elaborations . . . [It]
collectivity recognizes in them useful objects; itfinds
rathera space of relaxation where itmay in way delude
itself n the subject of das Ding, colonize the field of das
Ding with imaginary schemes [formations imaginaires].(E,99)
This imaginary solution leaves untouched the economy of pleasure
aswell as the ependency f the eautiful ponthegood.Anticipating n elaboration hat ill notbe fully ormalizedntilL'envers elapsychanalyse (themathemes of the fourdiscourses), Lacan argues
that hediscoursesof religionnd sciencebelong tothisregime f
The truth f Kant's Critique ofludgment is,to follow Philippe Lacoue
Labarthe, a "sublime truth." In its lettingcome into theOpen, this
"sublime truth" isalso the truthof Heidegger's artwork, given that
the artwork is, forHeidegger, the Un-geheuere (the uncanny, the
unbounded, the excessive.)4
The truthof das Ding isalso un-geheuere. For this reason, in
Lacan's analysis of the effects of the beautiful inAntigone, the beau
tiful isalways overflowed by the sublime: "the violent illumination,the glow of beauty, coincides with themoment of transgression or of
realization ofAntigone's Atd"(E, 281). It is t this limit "that the beam
of desire isboth reflected and refracted .. ." (E, 248, my emphasis).The truth of das Ding, the truth of desire, in its sublime glittering
gives [Esgibt] something to be seen, but only by withdrawing itself.
The Es of Es gibt subtracts itself from itsgiving. It isprecisely this
event, or rather,the form of thisevent, which may justifythe relation
between Lacan and Heidegger.
Iwould like to thank Juliet F.MacCannell for her generous comments on an earlier
version of this paper.
1 Elisabeth Roudinesco, La Bataille de cent ans: Histoire de la psychanalyse en
France, Vol. 2 (Paris: ?ditions du Seuil, 1986), hereafter cited as H, and JacquesLacan, Esquisse d'une vie, histoire d'une syst?me de pens?e (Paris: Fayard, 1993),
hereafter cited as JL.
2 William J.Richardson,"Psychoanalysis
and the
Being-Question"
in
Psychiatryand theHumanities, Vol. VI (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 139
59. Hereafter cited as P.
3 Edward S. Casey and Melvin Woody, "Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan: the Dialectic of
Desire" inPsychiatry and theHumanities, Vol. VI (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer
sity Press, 1976), 75-112. Hereafter cited as D.
4 Rodolphe Gasch?, Inventions of Difference: On Jacques Derrida (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1994), 7.
5 On this last point, see JL, especially the section "Vibrant hommage ? Martin
Heidegger," 291-306.
6 Jean-Luc Nancy, "Manque de rien" in N. Autonomova, et. al., Lacan avec les
philosphes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), 201-2.
7 Jacques Lacan, ?crits (Paris: ?ditions du Seuil, 1966), 105, quoted inD.8 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. JohnMacquarrie and E. Robinson (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1962), 204-5. Hereafter cited as BT.
9 Martin Heidegger, "L?gos" inEarly Greek Thinking: The Dawn of Western Phi
iosophy, trans. David Farrell Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi (San Francisco: Harperand Row, 1975). Hereafter cited as L.
10 Martin Heidegger, "The Nature of Language" [Das Wesen der Sprache] in n the
Way to Language, trans. Peter Hertz (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982). Here
after cited as NL.
11 This translatabilityas todo witha "formaltructure"ndgoes beyondthefactthat acan translatedhefirstpart fHeidegger's L?gos"for hefirstssue f the
journal La Psychanalyse.12 For a detailed discussion of the concept of closure in Heidegger and post
Heideggerian thinking,see Simon
Critchley, The Ethics ofDeconstruction: Derrida
and L?vinas (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
13 Martin Heidegger, "Time and Being" in n Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1972), 10 & 16. Hereafter cited as TB.
14 MartinHeidegger, TheEnd fPhilosophynd the ask fThinking" n n Beingand Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1972), 70.
Hereafter cited as EP.
15 "What oes ground ndprinciplendespecially rinciplef all principles ean?Can this ever be sufficientlydetermined unless we experience al?theia ina Greek
manner as unconcealment and then, above and beyond theGreek, think it s the
opening of self-concealing?" EP, 71.
16 Translation modified. Peter Hertz translates this locution as "it persists in itspres
ence," thus attenuating the active sense of the German Wesen. NL, 95.
17 In this context, it is important to note that an "overcoming [Verwindung] of Greek
experience," as well as the elaboration of an ethics as "firstphilosophy," has been
the task of Emmanuel L?vinas, who subtracts ethics from th?oria and transforms it
into the condition of possibility of religion. See, Alain Badiou, L'?thique. Essai sur
la conscience du Mal (Paris: Hatier, 1993).
18 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book VII. The Ethics of Psycho
analysis, trans. Dennis Porter (New York: Norton, 1997), 254. Hereafter cited as E.
19 "Le signifiant, c'est la cause de la jouissance. . .Comment sans le signifiant,
centrer ce quelque chose qui, de la jouissance, est la cause materielle ... le
signifiant c'est ce qui fait halte ? la jouissance." Jacques Lacan, Le S?minaire -
Livre XX. Encore (Paris: ?ditions du Seuil, 1975), 27.20 Lacan forged the neologism "extimit?" (extimacy) based on "intimit?." Jacques
Alain Miller has given a more formal treatment to the topological aporias at playinthat term; see his "Extimit?," Prose Studies 11:3 (December 1988), 121-31.
21 Martin Heidegger, Holderlin's Hymn "The /sfer/'trans.W. McNeill and JuliaDavis
22 Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of theWork ofArt," inPoetry, Language, Thought,trans. Albert Hofstadter (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1971), 65; translation
modified. Hereafter cited as OWA. See also JulietMacCannell, "Love Outside the
Limits of the Law," inNew Formations No. 23, Summer 1994, 32.
23 "Cette notion plus originaire de lav?rit?, sans doute peut-on en trouver l'indice
dans un terme qui revient sans cesse dans toute laCritique de la facult? de juger.le terme Einhelligkeit. . . Einhelligkeit dit, dans tous les cas, d'abord l'unit? du
vrai.Mais il it bien plus que l'unit? du vrai. Vers quoi, en effet, fait signe le hell de
VEinhel'igkeit?uelle situation onne lieu l'unanimit?e YE/hhelligkeit?'estla clart? du hell. {^Einhelligkeit, c'est le 'faire venir' (herstellen) en la clart?, c'est