-
WRITING THE SUBJECTS KNOT
Graciela PrietoTranslated by Kristina Valendinova
Association Recherches en psychanalyse | Recherches en
psychanalyse 2011/2 - No 12pages 169-179
ISSN 1767-5448
This document is a translation
of:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graciela Prieto, Translated by Kristina Valendinova critures du
nud du sujet , Recherches en psychanalyse, 2011/2 No 12, p.
169-179.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Available online
at:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cairn-int.info/journal-recherches-en-psychanalyse-2011-2-page-169.htm--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to cite this
article:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graciela Prieto "critures du nud du sujet", Recherches en
psychanalyse, 2011/2 No 12, p. 169-179. DOI :
10.3917/rep.012.0169--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Recherches en Psychanalyse Research in Psychoanalysis 122011
172
Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies. Hosted by the Department of
Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot at Sorbonne Paris Cit
University.
Theoretical Considerations
Writing the Subjects Knot critures du nud du sujet
Graciela Prieto
Abstract: Lacans focus on jouissance in the nineteen-seventies
led to a fundamental revision of his entire theoretical work. The
structure of jouissance, incompatible with the principles of
non-contradiction and the exclusion of the third, requires the use
of ternary logic. This logical necessity led Lacan to approach the
question of structure with the help of Borromean topology and to
rethink psychoanalysis in the light of writing and of the written
traces a subject produces based on his knowing-what-to-do with his
sinthome. This article shows the foundations of this logical
necessity and the forms of writing which result from it.
Rsum : Labord de la Jouissance dans les annes 70 produit un
remaniement fondamental dans llaboration de Lacan. La structure de
la jouissance nadmettant pas les principes de non-contradiction et
de tiers exclu, implique une logique ternaire. Cette ncessit
logique conduit Lacan penser la structure selon une topologie
borromenne et repenser la psychanalyse en fonction de lcriture, des
traces quun sujet crit partir de son savoir-y-faire-avec le
Sinthome. Il sagira dans cet article de montrer les ressorts de
cette ncessit logique et les formes dcriture qui en rsultent.
Keywords: topology, clinic of the Borromean knot, writing,
sinthome
Mots-clefs : topologie, clinique borromenne, criture,
sinthome
Plan: Introduction: The Spinning of Jouissance and the Weaving
of Jouissances
The Logical Necessity of the Borromean Knot in
Psychoanalysis.
Nodal Writing
Nodal Writing in the Psychoanalytic Clinic
Conclusion: Erasures and Rewritings
122011 Psychoanalysis, the Body and Society Psychanalyse, corps
et Socit
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University.
Introduction: The Spinning of Jouissance and the Weaving of
Jouissances
While Lacan introduces the field of jouissance as early as 1959,
by adopting, in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Freuds term Das Ding,
it is only in the later Seminar The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
(1969-70) that he introduces the notion of the Lacanian field and
marks a change in his axiomatic system, moving from the axis of
desire to that of jouissances. A distinction has to be made between
phallic jouissance, which is dominant in the speaking being and
from which the signifying function always slips away, and the
jouissance of the body, which in itself only has an identity by
virtue of enjoying itself, suggesting that this jouissance is of
another order than phallic jouissance and is linked to the essence
of life [lavie].1 However, while the body as such enjoys itself, it
only enjoys itself by corporizing [corporiser] the body in a
signifying way.2 It is therefore lalangue that animates the
jouissance of the body, a parasitic animation therefore, because it
originates from a jouissance that is distinct from that of the
body, i.e. the phallic jouissance, carried by semes. The problem
stems from what is added to the body: lalangue, which Lacan writes
as one word, as a reference to the term lallation, i.e. the bath of
sounds, both heard and emitted, that the child is immersed in
before he acquires articulated language, and which is both joined
with and separate from meaning. Lalangue is the reason why one
language cannot be compared to another and why this
incommensurability cannot be expressed in words: we could say that
it is the way in which a given language produces equivocation. The
unconscious, Lacan writes, on account of being structured like a
language, i.e. lalangue that it inhabits, is subjected to the
equivocation by which each lalangue is distinguished.3 The real
makes itself heard through what undoes the differential system of
language (slips of the tongue, witticisms, etc.). Lalangue, this
too much, this echo that contingently exceeds language, renders
obsolete the notion of the
excluded third as required by grammatical and linguistic methods
of analysis. Since classical logic proves unable to account for the
unconscious and therefore for the analytic experience, the field of
jouissances calls for a logic that goes beyond the pair, beyond the
yes or no of binary logic. This call is answered by the topology of
knots, which reveals the object a as what is wedged in by two
intersecting continuities that rein in a third continuity, and
which cannot be located in any point. The manner in which the three
registers are tied together implies no particular order.
The Logical Necessity of the Borromean Knot in
Psychoanalysis
Lacan went on to rethink psychoanalysis in the light of this
topology which deploys a ternary logic and which entails the fourth
dimension. In the Seminars XXV: Le moment de conclure and XXVI:
Topologie et temps this theorization results in the creation of a
combinatorial system of surfaces and knots, which weaves together
mathematics, psychoanalysis and poetry, opening a field rich in
clinical implications. The definition of the symptom changes,
including a return to its archaic way of spelling Sinthome: it is
no longer either a message or a metaphor but the jouissance of an
element of the unconscious, an arbitrary element, which Lacan calls
a letter because it is outside the signifying chain and thus
outside meaning. In its function of nomination, the sinthome
belongs to the order of saying, i.e. to the symbolic, yet it
occupies a real function, a function of ex-sistence that creates
the nodal link between the three registers. Within this field of
jouissance, the impossibility of establishing a sexual relationship
creates the need for an invention, by the unconscious, of a
knowledge that might make up for it. The modalities of jouissance
of each individual are organized around this hole-point. These
multiple jouissances cannot be reduced to a pair of opposites;
although they are heterogeneous, they are not mutually exclusive.
The structure of jouissance therefore rules out the principles
of
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non-contradiction and of the exclusion of the third, instead
implying a ternary logic:
[] language does not allow a notation such as x has a certain
type of relationship with y, and no other; which is what authorizes
me, since Peirce himself says that for this one would need a
ternary logic, instead of the one we use, a binary logic [].
4
This logical necessity leads Lacan to rethink structure from the
perspective of a Borromean topology. As opposed to science, which
pursues its project by manipulating the elements of the symbolic
system it operates with, theoretical construction in psychoanalysis
originates from the clinic, which is formalized in its mathemes. By
including the hole that brings them into existence, these mathemes
do not form a system; their writing differs from one to another,
which means that they cannot link up in a rational way and hence
they forbid imaginary capture. Reduced to their pure literality,
they are the indivisible fragments of knowledge and as such they do
not let themselves be absorbed by any demonstrative theorization.5
The Borromean knot cannot be reduced to demonstration: because no
complete mathematical formalization of it is possible, it can
however become the basis of another kind of writing.
Nodal Writing
Lacan defines mathematics as a science of the Real in other
words as impossible. Any formalization which fails to take this
impossibility of demonstration into account runs the risk of
sliding towards the algebraic theory of knots elaborated by
mathematics. This algebraic notation seeks to replace the plastic
object by a polynomial or by an algebraic group, reducing the
volumetric notation of the knot to a one-dimensional notation, by
quantifying the linearity of some of its invariants. However, Lacan
does not choose this writing to account for the use of the Real of
the knot in the field of psychoanalysis: [] the analytic thing will
not be mathematical.6 He uses drawings, i.e. flat schemes, for the
purposes of transmission, but
he urges his students to construct his knots with actual strings
and to manipulate them, in order to escape the imaginary capture,
which would make them lose sight of the Real of their structure. He
seems to wish to prevent the use of graphs, since they require a
topology of (flat) surfaces that remains trapped in two-dimensional
logic. Graphical or algebraic methods, which can retrospectively be
correlated with the gaze and the voice, are able to capture what
constitutes the knots specificity, i.e. the hole it clasps. The
Borromean knot [] is a writing, a writing that supports a real,7
and as a result it changes the meaning of writing.8 Writing becomes
volumetric; inscribing, in the real of the enjoying substance
[substance jouissante], the product of the operation of introducing
the signifier as a cut. Using a piece of string requires
three-dimensional writing, which is true even for the flat scheme
where we mark the over-and-under movements of the string. Because
they are made of actual pieces of string, these knots are subject
to continual twisting and also to wedging. In this way, the knot
exceeds the narrow static frame of the flat scheme, which is only
an artifice of representation expressing a point of view, a trick
of perspective.9 The continual twisting of the string involves a
fourth dimension, whose imperceptibility to those that inhabit it
makes its ex-sistence no less real. In order to make up for the
deficiencies of mathematical notation, Lacan highlights the
existence of a no-space [nespace], which plays a role he had
previously assigned to linguistery in relation to linguistics, i.e.
marking a specific domain which is not part of science and of which
he says in Ltourdit that it is in no sense metaphorical. This
no-space in which nodal writing unfolds, provides us with another
way to grasp the structure of the subject and therefore of the
analytic experience. This experience shows us that insofar as he
speaks, the subject is only a subject by virtue of the signifier.
This subject, divided by the signifier, is the logical consequence
of the lack in the Other. Lacans research aims to identify this
non-symbolizable point of inconsistency. As he
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says in Ltourdit, structure is the real brought to light in
language.10 Structure is the result of the living body being caught
in the Symbolic, i.e. the result of the manner in which the Real,
the Symbolic and the Imaginary are knotted together; a structure
that connects the places and relations on which a topology is
based. By breaking with binary propositional logic, nodal writing
opens up the field of writing. The image, insofar as it is
constructed as linked to both the word and the letter, can thus
turn itself into writing; this is the case especially in artistic
creation, where it can become the scriptural basis of a style: []
The concept of style refers as much to the inclusive element
through which art becomes language [] and to a constraining element
that was somehow compatible with particularization.11 This
particularization manifests the singularity of a jouissance of
lalangue, which eludes language. It also allows Lacan to challenge
the status of psychoanalysis as a science: [] psychoanalysis is not
a science, it is a practice,12 whose object is [] the unconscious
as participating in the real [of which.] there exist only fragments
that cannot be formalized.13 Jean-Claude Milner describes the
homophonic play which, beginning in the 1970s, weaves through
Lacans theorization as atom[s] of poematic calculation [] as
mathemes supplied by lalangue itself.14 It is closer to an art,
which tries to describe what the stumbling of the bene dicere may
be able to identify regarding the real of lalangue, what may be
said about what escapes language: The unconscious is a knowledge
articulated by dint of lalangue, the body that speaks there only
being held together by the real it enjoys.15 A knowledge without a
subject, an invented knowledge, which, thanks to the half-said
truth, can engender new kinds of knowledge. In what the work of art
says beyond the words of the artist himself, we are dealing with
the same type of knowledge. In psychoanalysis, knowledge is also []
a knowledge under construction,16 which shows [] only by being
legible,17 a knowing-how-to-deal-with lalangue, of which the
psychoanalyst must remember [] that in this matter, the artist is
always
ahead of him [],18 paving the way for him. A way Lacan
explicitly takes in Linsu where he argues that poetry, rather than
logic, can produce the effect of a hole that must be targeted by
interpretation. The capture of the body by language, which echoes
in the various gaps of the body as an imaginary, constitutes the
different objects a. Although an object a can be imagined, it does
not belong to the Imaginary the object a has no being,19 it is only
an unbeing [dstre], a real hole and as such irreducible to a
signifier. Topology is only ever a mode of setting up the hole. A
hole brought into play in lalangue, lalangue being constituted by
the odds and ends of the Real that are transmitted by the torn
fragments of writing. A Real that Lacan tries to grasp through
topological notation, a form of writing that would not depend on
the signifiers precipitation. The writing of the Borromean knot
provides precisely that.
Nodal Writing in the Psychoanalytic Clinic
Starting from Lacans formulation that there is no sexual
relationship, the symptom is redefined as what acts as a
supplementation of the sexual non-relationship, a singular fixation
of jouissance, an answer to the void left behind by the inexistence
of any Other that might inscribe a secondary, complementary form of
jouissance that would establish a relationship. The topology of
Borromean knots allows the symptom to be inscribed in the structure
in a different way. Lacan uses the archaic spelling sinthome which
produces multiple resonances, particularly with the English sin:
the equivocation is used to emphasize the role of the symptom as a
correction of an error in the original binding of the Borromean
knot. The symptom is partially an invention, a creation authorized
by neither the subject nor the Other; this is true whichever the
subjects structure may be psychotic or neurotic. For the neurotic
it is the paternal metaphor that provides the living being with
meaning in his relationship to sex and to death. By
substituting
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itself for the signifier of the mothers desire, the
Name-of-the-Father is responsible for quilting discourse and
binding the Imaginary to phallic signification. The
Name-of-the-Father introduces the prohibition of incest, which
creates the hole of the sexual non-relationship in the Symbolic. It
therefore introduces the temporal dimension into generational order
and therefore a historicizing discontinuity, which separates the
subject from the vacillation of identification proper to the
specular relation, where the child remains stuck to the mother.
While occupying a position of exception, the signifier of the
Name-of-the-Father is crucial to the constitution of the signifying
chain, since its function is to give names to things and []
nomination is the only thing of which we can be sure that it makes
a hole.20 Lacan will therefore make the Name-of-the-Father the
neurotics symptom, as the fourth ring which binds together the
three others. Its foreclosure in psychosis leads to the signifier
separating itself from the chain. Some of the subjects
identifications assuming the mothers desire can appear to cover
over this void, producing what Colette Soler has called a fake
identification [identification postiche].21 It is therefore
necessary that an incidental encounter, by calling upon the
Name-of-the-Father, reveal the latters deficiency. In psychosis,
the eroded identification dissolves the relation to the Imaginary
since the latter is not tied in with the other two registers, but
only held in place, contrary to neurosis where the identification
is substituted by another. This substitution is made possible by
the fact that the Imaginary is tied to the two other consistencies
by the ring of the Sinthome. Already in 1958, in his text On A
Question Prior to, Lacan argues that the deficiency of the
Name-of-the-Father can be supplemented in its function of quilting;
he thus anticipates the later pluralization of the
Names-of-the-Father and the essence of his theorization based on
the introduction of the Borromean knot as a writing relying on
ternary logic: the Symbolic, the
Imaginary and the Real [] This is what the Names-of-the-Father
are, the first names, insofar as they name something [].22 This
multiplication of the Names-of-the-Father leads Lacan to rethink
nomination as something that only has to do with the Symbolic. At
the end of the Seminar RSI, three pages23 are devoted to imaginary
and real nomination, which, Lacan argues, concern inhibition and
anxiety respectively. Imaginary nomination is supported by the
infinite straight line:
[] this line is very precisely not what
names anything whatsoever in the Imaginary but what, precisely,
acts as a bar, inhibiting the handling of all that is
demonstrative, of all that, articulated as Symbolic, creates a bar
at the level of imagination itself and yields what is at stake in
the body []
24
This statement in fact seems to reject the term nomination when
referring to the Imaginary. As for anxiety, it constitutes the
nomination of the Real. How should we then understand a nomination
that would be outside the signifying function? In Le moment de
conclure, Lacan will stress the necessary gap between these two
registers. Inhibition and anxiety as the effects of, respectively,
the imaginary and the real invasion, are no longer associated with
nomination but instead with what appears in the gap between the
Imaginary and the Real. The Symbolic is the only register that can
divide [se ddoubler]. This has to do with the double essence of
language: it is simultaneously the letter, linked to the glottal
and phonetory jouissance outside meaning, and a system of
signifiers, which, in their combinations, form a chain and produce
meaning. The Imaginary and the Real cannot divide because the field
of their intersection, where the Other Jouissance [Jouissance
Autre] is produced, does not exist as a closed field; it is here
that Lacan situates the true hole. The opening of this field
results in their notation as straight lines stretching to infinity,
but interlaced in the knot:
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The only register that can divide and form a circular link with
the fourth term is the Symbolic. In the flat scheme, this can be
represented as follows:
Lacans discussion of the case of Joyce leads him to elaborate
the question of the possibility of repairing an error in the
tying-in of the three registers, as well as to limit nomination to
the sinthome as a fourth term. The question of the plurality of the
Names-of-the-Father now seems to indicate that the
Name-of-the-Father as sinthome is not the only signifier able to
function as what joins the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary
together. The idea of the sinthome as something that is produced at
the exact same place where the error in the knotting occurred opens
up the possibility of constructing a sinthome in psychosis, that is
to say in a situation where the Name-of-the-Father has been
foreclosed.
The subjects structure results from the type of knotting that
exists between the three registers: Real, Imaginary and Symbolic;
the last, as Lacan says, always misfires, hence the necessity of
the sinthome. The original knotting results from a cut applied to
the projective plane. The signifier is a cut [] the structure of
the subject has the structure of a surface, at least when defined
topologically.25 The move from the projective plane to the
Borromean knot is a simple operation, regardless of the type of the
latters immersion in three-dimensional space: a cross-cap or a Boys
surface, which is another form of immersing the projective plane in
three dimensions, starting from a Mbius strip with three
half-twists.
The Surface of the Boy
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The duplication of the Mbius strip with three half-twists, where
the cut operates a passage from the projective plane to the trefoil
knot; the latter, though it only has one element, [] is the same
knot as the Borromean knot, even though it does not have the same
appearance.26
This movement shows us the three singular points where Boys
surface intersects with itself in more than three-dimensional
space; its immersion implies a non-traversability of the surface by
itself and therefore the hole. Duplicating the Mbius strip with
three half-twists gives us the trefoil knot:
Here we see the three singular points that the duplication
transforms into crossing-points:
The knots possibility or impossibility of intersecting itself in
a double point, a traversability that involves a moment of
indecision neither yes nor no inscribes the knot in the field of
ternary logic. This property of knots necessitates a space of
immersion of more than three or even four dimensions, since the
topological flexibility of the knot entails the fourth dimension.
The immersion of the knot in three-dimensional space projects the
temporal dimension across an expanse as a succession. The
possibility of auto-intersection allows us to suppose that
accidents may happen when the plane is immersed in the
three-dimensional space produced by the signifying cut in enjoying
substance, and allows us to conceive of how two of the three
registers may become interlaced:
This interlacing entails the necessity of the construction and
subsistence of the Sinthome, so that something of the imaginary
fabric of the
body can be maintained in its consistency, which Lacan calls
body-sistency [corps-sistence]: The corde is also the corps-de.
This corps-de is
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parasited by the signifier [].27 The corps-de of the Symbolic
grants the neurotic subject, who inhabits language, a body. On the
other hand, the psychotic subject, who has not made language his
habitat, resides outside discourse but not outside language. The
question remains as to [] what kind of invention, what kind of
machine he will construct (machina means invention) based on this
discourse, in order to delimit the real.28 This is what Lacan
observes in the case of James Joyce, who was able to construct a
Sinthome through literary creation and, as a result, repair and
stabilize his psychic structure. By establishing a ternary link
between the two interlaced registers, the Real and the Symbolic,
the Sinthome allows him to hold the Imaginary register in place;
this concerns primarily the imaginary aspect of the body, which in
the beating scene29 slips outside the structure. If in Joyces case
the Sinthome holds, it is thanks to its being linked to the
Name-of-the-Father, metaphorically absent yet metonymically
functioning through the bond of the letter. The initials of Joyces
proper name, James Joyce J.J., are the same as those of his father,
John Joyce; hence they seem perfectly suitable to act as a stand-in
for the foreclosed Name-of-the-Father, thus remaining rooted in
what he rejects. By making this Name his ego, which Lacan
designates as Joyces Sinthome, he constructs a wholly singular ego,
one that is
woven from the signifier, and is therefore of a different
substance than the Imaginary of the body that usually imparts it
its consistency. Joyce constructs this proper Name by means of a
singular style of writing; we can glimpse the interlacing of the
Real and the Symbolic in the phenomenon of the epiphanies, which
have a necessary role in Joyces writing: [] all of his epiphanies
are invariably characterized by the same thing, which is very
precisely the consequence of the error in the knot, namely that the
unconscious is connected to the real.30 The fact that the Sinthome
is limited to a single point leaves room for much more wavering
between the registers, and the fact that the Imaginary is simply
withheld does not constitute a possibility of separation. The
contiguity between John and James, produced by their initials, is
reflected in the reproduction of the fathers alcoholism, as a means
of retaining an element of the body image. In psychosis, the
Sinthome does not function as a metaphor: in order for it to
persist as a letter of jouissance capable of producing a proper
name it must maintain a link with the father. This link is not
metaphorical but metonymic, a trait of the father or of his name is
extracted and plays a role in the subjects own naming of himself.
The Sinthome can thereafter function as a stopping point outside
the Oedipus myth, in a sort of jouissance closed in on itself, a
jouissance outside meaning.
This interlacing between two registers can also occur between
the Real and the Imaginary, leaving the Symbolic adrift; however,
in such a case no Sinthome can produce a new tying-in.
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University.
The subject, having lost all anchoring, is left to stray. The
body [] is first of all what can carry the mark conducive to
arranging it in a series of signifiers31 a body of the Symbolic,
which, once it has been incorporated, produces the body in the
common sense of the word, the one [] whose Being is thereby
sustained does not know that it is language that grants this body
to him, to the extent that it would not even be there, were it not
capable of being spoken of.32 This impossibility has to do with the
necessary condition of the persistence of the sinthome, namely that
it can only subsist as hooked onto to the Symbolic, since it is
here that the function of naming can be extracted, which limits
jouissance. By granting the subject a proper name a signifier
without a signified nomination both
reveals and covers over the void of the Thing, of the opaque
jouissance linked to life, to the living, which belongs to the
order of the Real. The Real can therefore never be the excluded
order because it is inherent to the living being and so is
inevitably part of any knotting. The neurotic structure presupposes
the occurrence of an error [ratage] at two different points,
leaving the three registers simply superimposed:
Hence the necessity of constructing a sinthome, which can tie
the three registers together in a Borromean fashion: By dividing
the defective Symbolic, Lacan constructs a new type of Symbolic, a
[] circle:
+ S, which gives us a new type of S,33 and the fourth term is
given a singular position, which specifies its function in neurosis
as the Name-of-
the-Father, the father as a name and as naming: [...] there must
be four because the four is what in this double loop supports the
Symbolic by what it is in fact made for, namely, the
Name-of-the-Father.34 The Symbolic is nonetheless
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Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies. Hosted by the Department of
Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot at Sorbonne Paris Cit
University.
necessary in order for something to appear that has this
function of nomination: [] what is involved in the distinction in
the Symbolic of name-giving is included in this Symbolic.35
The Name-of-the-Father as a Sinthome permits of distinguishing
between the three registers which are tied together in Borromean
fashion, forming the central triskele knot, where the void of the
cause of desire can be circumscribed and clasped, introducing the
subject into the temporal dimension implied by the knot and thus
inscribing him in the generational order.
Conclusion: Erasures and Rewritings
The Borromean knot corresponds to the writing of a discursive
logic which cannot be restricted to the affirmative or negative
statements of binary propositional logic but makes room for
interrogative, suspensive and even equivocal statements, thus
allowing for the manifestation of the unconscious. In this way, it
separates off from the psychiatric discourse, which tends to be
increasingly reduced to the descriptive classification of phenomena
understood as a series of lines of behavior. In the final years of
his teaching, Lacan situates the Borromean knot inside the torus a
reversal
[retournement] of the Symbolic which brings about equivocation.
The question of turning the torus inside out following a cut should
be connected to the reversal of the orientation of the knot, which
Lacan discussed earlier in Seminar XXI: Les non-dupes errent. This
reversal of the knot, brought about by equivocation, changes the
sens(e) in both senses of the word: as meaning and orientation.36
Turning the torus inside out involves cutting and splicing.
Equivocation itself is an operation of cutting a cutting off of
meaning and its splicing, which reconnects it in a different way.
It can therefore function as the operator of a writing of
separation, in which the voice makes itself heard by an effect of
jous-sens,37 releasing the subject from his fixed position. This
separation, which concerns the Other of desire, [] brings the
subject back to the opacity of the being he receives through his
advent as a subject.38 The opacity refers to what holds the three
registers of the Borromean knot together when they are not linked
with each other but nonetheless clasp the triple central point, the
void of the Thing, which the different objects designated by the
letter a come to cover over. Separated from the signifier, the
letter can join the living body to language because it is part of
the Real due to the glottal jouissance it delivers and
simultaneously of the Symbolic, insofar as it carries the
signifier, as well as of the Imaginary, by virtue of being not only
an acoustic image but also a picture. Consequently, the invention
of unconscious knowledge can only be of the order of the written,
defined by Lacan as the knowledge presumed to be a subject [Le
savoir suppos sujet],39 thus producing a new rewriting of the
subjects knot.
Bibliography: Adorno, Theodor W. (1997). Aesthetic Theory.
Transl. Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: The Athlone Press. Lacan, J.
(1962). Le sminiare IX, Lidentification. Unpublished.
Lacan, J. (1974). Le sminaire XXI, Les non-dupes errent.
Unpublished. Lacan, J. (1975). La troisime. Lettres de lcole
freudienne, 16. Lacan, Jacques (1975). Lecture at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (2 Dec 1975). Scilicet, n 6-7.
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-
Recherches en Psychanalyse Research in Psychoanalysis 122011
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Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies. Hosted by the Department of
Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot at Sorbonne Paris Cit
University.
Lacan, J. (1975). Le sminaire XXII, R.S.I. Unpublished. Lacan,
J. (1976). Neuvime congrs de lEFP Strasbourg. Lettres de lcole
freudienne, 19. Lacan, J. (1977). Le sminaire XXIV, Linsu
Unpublished. Lacan, J. (1999). The Seminar, Book XX. Encore. On
Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge. (1975).
Transl. Bruce Fink. New York: Norton Lacan, J. (2001). Autres
crits. Paris: Seuil. Lacan, J. (2005). Le sminaire livre XXIII, Le
Sinthome. Paris: Seuil. Lacan, J. (2006). crits. Transl. by Bruce
Fink. New York: Norton. Milner, J.-C. (1995). Luvre claire, Lacan,
la science, la philosophie. Paris: Seuil. Normand, M. (2003). Les
vhicules du sujet. Hulak, F. (Ed.). Pense psychotique et cration de
systmes. Paris: rs. Soler, C. (2008). Linconscient ciel ouvert de
la psychose. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail.
Notes: 1[Transl. note: lavie is Lacans transcription of la vie
or
life, which he uses especially in the Le sminaire, XXI, Les
non-dupes errent: Lavie that on this occasion I would write indeed
as I did with lalangue, in a single word. This would only be to
suggest that we do not know much about it except that it needs
washing (elle slave). 24 April 1974, unpublished. ] 2Lacan, J.,
(1999). The Seminar, Book XX, Encore. On
Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge, (1975).
Transl. Bruce Fink. New York: Norton, p. 23. 3Lacan, J., (2001).
Ltourdit. In Autres crits. Paris: Seuil,
p. 490. 4Id., (11 January 1977). Le sminaire XXIV, Linsu...,
unpublished. 5Milner, J.-C. (1995). Luvre claire, Lacan, la
science, la
philosophie. Paris: Seuil, p. 132. 6Id., Encore. Op. cit., p.
117.
7Lacan, J. (17 December 1974). Le sminaire XXII, R.S.I.,
Unpublished. 8Lacan, J., (2005). Le sminaire, livre XXIII, Le
Sinthome.
Paris: Seuil, p. 144. 9Ibid., Op. cit., p. 83.
10Id., Ltourdit. Op. cit., p. 476.
11Adorno, T. W. (1997). Aesthetic Theory. Transl. Robert
Hullot-Kentor. London: The Athlone Press, p. 205. 12
Lacan, J. (1975). Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (2 December). Scilicet, n 6-7, p. 53.
13
Id., (1976). Neuvime congrs de lEFP Strasbourg.
Lettres de lcole freudienne, n 19, p. 558. 14
Milner, J.-C. Luvre claire. Op. cit., p. 165. 15
Lacan, J. (1975). La troisime. In Lettres de lcole
freudienne, n 16, p. 189. 16
Id., (12 March 1974). Le sminaire, XXI, Les non-dupes
errent. Unpublished. 17
Id., Lacte analytique, Rsum du Sminaire, XV. Autres
crits. Op. cit., p. 376. 18
Id., Hommage Marguerite Duras. In Autres crits.
Op. cit., p. 192. 19
Id., (4 April 1974). Les sminaire XXI, Les non-dupes
errent. Unpublished. 20
Id., (15 April 1975). Le sminaire XXII, R.S.I. Unpublished.
21
Soler, C. (2008). Linconscient ciel ouvert de la
psychose. Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, p. 17.
22
Id., (11 March 1975). Le sminaire XXII, R.S.I.,
Unpublished. 23
Ibid., (13 May 1975). 24
Ibid. 25
Id., (30 May 1962). Le sminiare IX, Lidentification.
Unpublished. 26
Id., Le sminaire livre XXIII, Le Sinthome. Op. cit., p. 42.
27
Ibid., (15 February 1977). Le sminaire XXIV, Linsu.
Unpublished. 28
Normand, M. (2003), Les vhicules du sujet, in Pense
psychotique et cration de systmes, edited by Fabienne Hulak,
Paris: rs, p. 233. 29
[Transl. note: Lacan discusses this scene from The
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, of Stephen enduring a
beating at the hands of his classmates, in Le sminaire, livre
XXIII, Le Sinthome, Op. cit.] 30
Id., Le sminaire, livre XXIII, Le Sinthome. Op. cit., p. 154.
31
Id., Radiophonie. In Autres crits. Op. cit., p. 409. 32
Ibid. 33
Id., (2 December 1975). Lecture at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In Scilicet, n 6-7. Op. cit., p. 59.
34
Id., (15 April 1975). Le sminaire XXII, R.S.I. Unpublished.
35
Ibid., (11 March 1975). Unpublished. 36
[Transl. note: the French sens means both meaning,
signification and direction, orientation changer le sens can
therefore mean to change the meaning but also to turn in a
different direction.] 37
[Transl. note: this pun on jouissance, jous-sens or I
hear meaning appears in Le sminaire X, Langoisse.] 38
Id.,Position of the Unconscious. crits. Op. cit., p. 844. 39
Id., (9 April 1974). Le sminaire XXI, Les non-dupes
errent. Unpublished.
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Recherches en Psychanalyse Research in Psychoanalysis 122011
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Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies. Hosted by the Department of
Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot at Sorbonne Paris Cit
University.
The author:
Graciela Prieto, PhD
Clinical Psychologist, Practicing Psychoanalyst. Member of the
cole de Psychanalyse des Forums du Champ Lacanien & associated
researcher at the Center for Research in Psychoanalysis, Medicine
and Society. cole de Psychanalyse des Forums du Champ Lacanien
France 118 rue dAssas 75006 Paris France
Translated by Kristina Valendinova (revised translation).
Electronic reference:
Graciela Prieto, Writing the Subjects Knot, Research of
Psychoanalysis [Online], 12|2011 published Dec. 22, 2011. This
article is a translation of critures du nud du sujet Full text
Copyright All rights reserved
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