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Jacques Lacan

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Jacques Lacan was a controversial French psychoanalyst, who discarded many of the ideas of Freud's various followers, and offered a radical "return to Freud".

Four Discourses

Real, Symbolic, Imaginary

Lacan's Theory of Time

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Lacan's Four Discourses

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Lacan's theory of the four discourses was initially developed in response to the events of 1968. He defined four discourses, which he called Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst, and showed how these relate dynamically to one another.

Discourse of the Master	Struggle for mastery / domination / penetration. Based on Hegel's Master/Slave paradox.
Discourse of the University	Provision and worship of "objective" knowledge - usually in the unacknowledged service of some external master discourse.
Discourse of the Hysteric	Symptoms embodying and revealing resistance to the prevailing master discourse.
Discourse of the Analyst	Deliberate subversion of the prevailing master discourse.

Slavoj Zizek uses the theory to explain various cultural artefacts, including Don Giovanni and Parsifal.

Master	Don Ottavio	Amfortas	inauthentic, inconsistent
University	Leporello	Klingsor	inauthentic, consistent
Hysteric	Donna Elvira	Kundry	authentic, inconsistent
Analyst	Donna Anna	Parsifal	authentic, consistent

This example happens to be in Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology (Duke University Press, 1993). Read chapter 5 - and see especially note 24 on page 274. There are similar examples in some of his numerous other books.

Other References

The original presentation of Lacan's theory is in his Seminar XVII, which is as yet only published in dense and difficult French.

For an introduction see: Robert Samuels, Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan’s Reconstruction of Freud (New York: Routledge, 1993). The clearest explanation I have found is by Mark Bracher. "On the psychological and social functions of language: Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourses" in Mark Bracher (ed) Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject, Structure and Society. (New York University Press, 1994) pp 107-128

There is a brief explanation in Dylan Evans. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. (Routledge 1996).

See also P. Boxer & V. Kenny, ‘The Economy of Discourses: A Third Order Cybernetics?’, Human Systems Management, 9 (4), 1990, pp 205-224.

Zone Theory

Real, Symbolic, Imaginary (after Lacan)

veryard projects > books > lacan > rsi

Subject	Source	Real	Imaginary	Symbolic	Ref
Causality	Althusser	transitive causality designates the senseless collisions of the real	expressive causality belongs to the level of the imaginary, it designates the logic of an identical imago which leaves its imprint at different levels of material content	overdetermination implies a symbolic totality, since such retroactive determination of the ground by the totality of the grounded is possible only within a symbolic universe	Z 140
Ground	Hegel	real ground	formal ground	complete ground	Z 140
History of psycho-analysis	Lacan	initial discovery of psycho-analysis by Freud	forgetting or repression of Freud by the school of ‘ego psychology’	Lacan’s own ‘return to Freud’	S 1
Level of experience	Sartre?	existential: the sensual existence of the isolated subject who is born into the world without any relation to any Other, without language, and without the ability to communicate	phenomenological: the pure experience of sensation becomes superseded by the unity of the ego and the intentionality of the individual	structural: the subject must sacrifice its sensual needs and its egotistical demands for the laws and values of its socio-historical environment	S 1
Intra-psychic agencies	Freud	id: instinctual sensation	ego: individual consciousness	superego: social law	S 3
History of philosophy	Karl Otto Appel	ontological: (Plato to Descartes)	epistemological: (Descartes to Kant)	linguistical: modern	S 3
		objects	subjects	language	S4
	Freud (Project)	sensation (perception)	consciousness	language (memory)	S 4
	Freud (Beyond Pleasure)	sexuality	narcissism	death drive	S 5
Logical categories	C.S. Peirce	firstness	secondness	thirdness	S 8
		psychosis	neurosis	perversion (borderline, normal)
		foreclosure (Verwerfung)	repression	denial	S 146

References

S	Robert Samuels, Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan’s reconstruction of Freud (New York: Routledge, 1993)
Z	Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the critique of ideology (Durham NC: Duke Univ Press, 1993)

Lacan's Theory of Time

veryard projects > books > lacan > time

Lacan offers an interesting analysis of hesitation. Logical time is divided into three "moments".

the instant of seeing
the time for understanding
the moment of concluding

Lacan illustrates this with a story of three prisoners. The prison governor shows them three green discs and two red ones. Then he puts a green disc on each prisoner's back. Each can see the disc on the other two prisoners' backs. The first one to deduce the colour of the disc on his own back will be granted his freedom.

The correct deduction appears to depend on the hesitation of the group. "If I had a red disk, then each of the other prisoners would not hesitate to deduce immediately that he was green. Since neither has done so, I must also have a green disk."

Delay, doubt, hesitation, procrastination, the ability to make nothing happen (ungeschehenmachen) - these characteristic features of decision-making are grounded by Lacan in the phenomenology of obsessional neurosis.

For a detailed discussion, see John Forrester, The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida (Cambridge 1990), Chapter 8. The prisoner story can be found on p178 ff.

Time
Decisions and Procrastination

Lacan's Theory of Repetition (Wiederholungszwang)

veryard projects > books > lacan > repetition

Keeping your options open is a form of neurosis, and leads to paralysis (Wiederholungszwang). Bateson calls this a narrowly homeostatic system, rigidly indecisive, and identifies it as a characteristic of schizophrenic families. Flexibility is achieved not by keeping your options open, but by making decisions.

> Nature and Nurture of Flexibility
> Bateson on Being Uptight

Jacques Lacan, Seminar II - The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954-55 (edited by J-A Miller, Paris, Les Editions du Seuil, 1978) (trans S. Tomaselli, Cambridge: CUP, 1988) Chapter 6

Web Links

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Lacan Online
Lacanian Links - Lacan related Resources on the Internet
Lacan

Boxer Research Limited - Theoretical Papers on Organizations, based on Lacan, Maturana and others

Reading

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Works by Lacan

Lacan's own writings are very difficult. Start by reading other people.

The main source of material is the transcripts from the annual Seminars which Lacan delivered in Paris from 1953 onwards. Some of these are now available in English translation.

Works about Lacan

Darian Leader and Slavoj Zizek have both written several reasonably accessible books inspired by Lacan.

Mark Bracher (ed) Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject, Structure and Society. (New York University Press, 1994)

Dylan Evans. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. (Routledge 1996).

John Forrester, The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida (Cambridge 1990)

Darian Leader & Judy Groves, Lacan for Beginners (Icon Books, 1995)

Robert Samuels, Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Lacan’s reconstruction of Freud (New York: Routledge, 1993)

veryard projects > books > lacan