85:"In a hundred years, 'drizzle' might be pronounced 'dritszel', but that will be of no importance as long as the place occupied by the consonant in the middle of the word is filled by something that allows us to continue to differentiate the word from other similar words in the English language, such as 'dribble'."
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and the slide of signifiers above the bar, 'indicating that it is the connection between signifier and signifier that permits the lesion in which the signifier installs the lack-of-being in the object relation...in order to invest it with the desire aimed at the very lack it supports'. This produces
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during sleep in order to produce thoughts which have been censored during the individual's wakened life. Using Lacan's concept of the letter, we should be able to see how, in Fink's example, the unconscious cleverly produces the censored thought associated with the word "algorithm". (Of course, this
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are separated by a bar: 'the signifier over the signified, "over" corresponding to the bar separating the two stages'. The signifiers can slide over the top of this bar, with the signified elements beneath. This means that there is never an easy correlation between signifier and signified and, as a
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and displacement with metonymy'. Critics would contend that we see here a typical example of the way 'Lacan was...an intellectual magpie', illegitimately borrowing the intellectual kudos of linguistics to give a respectable veneer to his psychoanalytic theories, without submitting to the actual
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is predicated upon this fact about desire: because desire is never satisfied and yet, always sliding from one signifier to the other, the capitalist subject finds him or herself making an endless series of purchases in order to satisfy their desire.
77:
The essay's first section, 'The
Meaning of the Letter', introduces the concept of "the letter", which Lacan describes as 'the material support that concrete discourse borrows from language'. In his commentary on the essay, the Lacanian psychoanalyst
228:
The way out of this metonymical chain of unsatisfied desire, for Lacan, is a "crossing of the bar" by a signifier: Lacan emphasises 'the constitutive value of this crossing for the emergence of signification'. Lacan aligns this operation with
48:
Lacan begins the essay by declaring it to be "situated halfway" between speech and writing. By doing so, he foreshadows both the essay's notorious opacity and its theme: the relationship between speech and language and the place of
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rigors of the discipline itself. It should be noted, however, that a criticism such as this remains a point of extreme controversy, and is not at all acknowledged as an informed criticism by
Lacanian theorists.
249:: "Wo Es war, soll Ich werden" (usually translated as: "where the id was, the ego shall be"). Rather than strengthening the ego as the great intellectual and ideological rival of Lacanian psychoanalysis,
217:- of metonymy' Partly for this reason, one's desires can never be identified in a statement along the lines of: 'I desire x, y and z'. Instead, desire is slippery and metonymical.
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theory of the subject and a "post-Saussurian" conception of the unconscious...alone would earn him a place among the great theoreticians of the twentieth century'.
233:. When a signifier crosses the bar, from above it to under it, it becomes a signified. But this leaves a space or gap above the bar which, according to Lacan, is
237:. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the subject only appears fleetingly, on those rare occasions when a signifier crosses the bar, leaving an empty space above it.
264:'Whereas Saussure placed the signifier over the signified, dividing the two by a bar of "meaning", Lacan inverted this arrangement, placing the signified
253:, encouraged the patient to do, Lacan claims that the analysand 'must come to the place where that was...modifying the moorings that anchor his being'.
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relationship between signifier and signified is further complicated by the fact that the bar between them cannot itself be signified: 'the S and the
88:
Lacan indicates that the letter, when thought of as a "material medium" in this way, cannot be directly manipulated so as to alter language or
128:- in other words, literally to the letter (or, more specifically, the concept of the letter which Lacan's essay seeks to introduce).
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152:
Because Lacan's use of the concept "the letter" requires a concept of materiality different from anything previously found in
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concludes that 'this extraordinary intellectual operation, by means of which Lacan endowed psychoanalytic doctrine with a
132:
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algorithm are not on the same level, and man only deludes himself when he believes his true place is at their axis'.
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a situation in which desire is never satisfied, 'being caught in the rails - eternally stretching forth towards the
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is a signifier...not a phantasy... even less the organ, penis or clitoris, that it symbolizes'. Theorists such as
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this particular hypothetical analysand has consciously censored a thought associated with the word "algorithm".)
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argues that "the letter" is best thought of as the differential element which separates two words, noting that:
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523:(New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2002), page numbers refer to the French pagination in the margin.
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With the fleetingness of the subject established, Lacan closes the essay by developing a maxim of
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Calum Lister
Matheson, "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud" in
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result, all language and communication is actually produced by the failure to fully communicate.
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for rejecting the idea (promoted by some communist philosophers) of creating 'a new language in
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Jacques Lacan, "The
Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud" in
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the signifier, to which he ascribes the primary role'. In the same way, 'like
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have frequently pointed out this fact in order to defend Lacan against his
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society with the following formulation: language is not a superstructure'.
41:
534:
Ed. Derek Hook, Calum Neill, and Stijn
Vanheule (London: Routledge, 2019).
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in relation to both. The paper represents a key moment in 'his resolutely
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This means breaking out of the metonymy of desire by crossing the bar.
185:
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124:, Lacan insists that we must read the productions of the unconscious
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The
Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud
541:, Transl. by Kevin Repp (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999)
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Such a formulation enabled Lacan subsequently to assert that 'the
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Lacan uses his concept of the letter to distance himself from the
29:
135:, the individual's unconscious takes advantage of the weakened
61:', as well as in his gradual 'incorporation of the findings of
532:: From 'The Freudian Thing' to 'Remarks on Daniel Lagache'
356:(Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2004) p. 78
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Relays. Literature as an Epoch of the Postal System
328:The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis
92:meaning. In a footnote to the essay, he praises
220:Lacanian theorists often note that capitalist
200:Metonymy and desire, metaphor and the subject
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354:Lacan To The Letter: Reading Écrits Closely
26:L'instance de la lettre dans l'inconscient
116:. Whereas Jung believes that there is a
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272:Lacan associated the Freudian idea of
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69:...in the rise of structuralism'.
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330:(London 1994) p. xxiv and p. xxii
326:, "Introduction", Jacques Lacan,
148:The signifier and the signified
1:
500:Roudinesco, p. 273 and p. 277
231:metaphor rather than metonymy
104:The letter in the unconscious
241:"Wo Es war, soll Ich werden"
112:approach to symbols and the
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140:does not actually tell us
120:which works with symbolic
215:desire for something else
73:The Meaning of the Letter
156:, Lacan argues that the
59:structure of the subject
158:signifier and signified
555:Works by Jacques Lacan
118:collective unconscious
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369:(London 1997) p. 176n
343:(London 1997) p. 147
314:(Oxford 1997) p. 268
308:Elisabeth Roudinesco
286:Élisabeth Roudinesco
489:Lacan for Beginners
460:, p. 171 and p. 174
367:Ecrits: A Selection
341:Écrits: A Selection
537:Bernhard Siegert,
491:(London 1997) p. 8
478:Roudinesco, p. 272
469:Roudinesco, p. 270
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67:anthropology
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560:1957 essays
324:David Macey
235:the subject
222:consumerism
154:linguistics
131:In Freud's
126:à la lettre
114:unconscious
63:linguistics
51:the subject
549:Categories
296:References
174:Saussurian
122:archetypes
80:Bruce Fink
519:, trans.
290:Cartesian
260:Criticism
196:critics.
98:communist
278:metaphor
270:Jakobson
210:metonymy
194:feminist
28:) is an
521:B. Fink
456:Lacan,
443:Lacan,
430:Lacan,
417:Lacan,
404:Lacan,
391:Lacan,
378:Lacan,
186:phallus
180:Phallus
172:of the
110:Jungian
32:by the
530:Écrits
515:Écrits
458:Ecrits
447:p. 164
445:Ecrits
434:p. 167
432:Ecrits
421:p. 164
419:Ecrits
408:p. 285
406:Ecrits
395:p. 166
393:Ecrits
382:p. 149
380:Ecrits
206:desire
42:Écrits
22:French
276:with
266:under
208:with
30:essay
164:The
65:and
142:why
137:ego
20:" (
551::
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24::
170:s
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