What Is Letter In Lacan’s Teaching ?

Medusa Rondanini, Glyptothek in München

What Is Letter In Lacan’s Teaching ?

Luke S. Ogasawara

What is letter in Lacan’s teaching ? ‒ if you pose the question in that way, you cannot find the answer because he doesn’t use the term “letter” univocally. In general he doesn’t care for univocality and coherence of his terminology because a psychoanalyst supposes always equivocality of what is uttered. On the contrary what is coherent and constant in Lacan’s teaching is the topology implied in Heidegger’s Denken des Seins (thinking of Being) on which Lacan is always based and which I call “apophatic ontology”.

For example the first text of Lacan’s Ecrits “Seminar on The Purloined Letter” as well as that of his Autres écrits “Lituraterre” seem to concern letter. In the former, as I pointed out in my article “The Signifier Phallus in Lacan’s Teaching”, the purloined letter which can be found nowhere and which is “the veritable subject of the conte” is the barred subject $, i.e. Being (Sein), situated in the locality of ex-sistence (Möbius surface, coloured red, in the topology of projective plane, cf. Fig 1).

Fig. 1

However in the latter Lacan says : “letter is more properly... littoral, isn’t it ? that is, it figures that an entire domain becomes a frontier for another domain in that those two domains are foreign to each other to such a degree as they are not reciprocal. Edge of the hole in the knowledge : that is what a letter draws” (La lettre n’est-elle pas... littoral plus proprement, soit figurant qu’un domaine tout entier fait pour un autre frontière, de ce qu’ils sont étrangers, jusqu’à n’être pas réciproques ? Le bord du trou dans le savoir, voilà-t-il pas ce qu’elle dessine : in Autres écrits, p.14).

Fig. 2

So we draw, as represented in the Fig. 1 and 2, an edge (le bord : green) of a hole (le trou : yellow) on the surface of knowledge (le savoir : blue). Möbius surface (red) represents the ex-sistent locality of Being (être, Sein) where the barred subject $ dwells.

In the Fig. 1 the edge is drawn as that of the Möbius surface (red), but on the projective plane formed by the identification of the edge of the hole of the discoid surface (blue) and that of the Möbius surface (red), the two surfaces have one and the same edge in common.

The structure depicted by Lacan is that of the university discourse as the structure of alienation (cf. Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

The letter which makes the edge (green) of the hole (yellow) which I call “apophatico-ontological hole” and which opens on the surface of Other’s locus (blue) is the object a which is something material supporting the structure of the university discourse.

When Lacan talks of “The Instance of Letter in Freudian Unconscious”, he talks of the letter as the object a in the university discourse.

The right side part of the structure of the university discourse a / $ is the structure of what Lacan calls “formations of the unconscious” (formations de l’inconscient), for example dream, fantasy, various kinds of lapsus, Witz (wit, joke) and symptom. Certainly that object a is a letter, but not a phonogram like a Latin alphabet letter, but an ideogram like a character of hieroglyph or sinogram, as Freud says at the beginning of the chapter VI of his Dream Interpretation : “dream content [ what is given manifestly as images or representations in our dreams ] is presented to us as a translation of dream thought [ what is supposed to be a latent meaning of dream ] into another way of expression (...). Dream content is given, so to say, in an image-script (Bilderschrift) each sign of which can be translated into the language of dream thought”.

The a is a letter, in other words, a signifier in its materiality or consistency. The a is made of firm materiality of signifiers belonging to Other’s locus which Lacan calls “treasury of signifier” (le trésor du signiant) and which is the locus of consistency. But the signifier (letter) a doesn’t signify a Seiendes (something that is there) like other signifiers belonging to Other’s locus. The a represents the subject $ which ex-sists in the locality of Being, and the a also gives a firm material support to the ex-sistent subject $ which can not ex-sist without such a support. That is what is formalised by the mathème : a / $  

Instead of signifier and letter Lacan uses some other terms like symbol, sign, cipher. In all of those what matters is the materiality a signifier or a letter can offer to the apophatico-ontological structure. His neologism lalangue introduced in the Seminar XIX ...ou pire (1971-1972) also denotes such materiality of signifier.

It seems that, when we hear what is uttered, we understand immediately it in its meaning, but in fact it is not so, especially for psychoanalysts who abstain from understanding to keep open the possibility of interpretation. In the first place we hear fragments of lalangue in their materiality and in their equivocality or in their meaninglessness. Then we put them into letters (that is, interpret them) to notice that the way of transcription can be plural because they are equivocal or meaningless in themselves. Lacan gives us many examples of such fragments of lalangue : “a letter - a litter” of the Joycean circle, lettre - l’être, l’a-chose (la chose), y a d’l’Un (il y a de l’Un), a-mur (amour), les non-dupes errent (les Noms du Père), le sinthome (le saint homme, le symptôme), l’insu que sait de l’une-bévue s’aile à mourre (l’insuccès de l’Unbewußt c’est l’amour), etc.

So on the occasion of his second trip to Japan in 1971 Lacan, sorry for Japanese translators of his Ecrits who can understand nothing of what he says or writes because they are not interested in psychoanalysis per se, declares nevertheless in front of them : “all depends on this : with what kind of ear you can read the things [ i.e. letters as fragments of lalangue you listen to ]”.

Finally why interpret the letter (i.e. fragments of lalangue) which is situated in the structure of the university discourse as the object a representing the subject $ ? In order that the ununderstandable Bedeutung (significance) of the letter a ‒ i.e. the subject $ ‒ comes out from its place of hiddenness (Verborgenheit) into the place of unhiddenness (Unverborgenheit), because the purloined letter (la lettre en souffrance : $) desires to be delivered finally to the destination.

In Poe’s conte Dupin formulates the hidden message destined to the Minister D (who might be his brother because in the Greek myth Atreus and Thyestes are brothers to each other) quoting one and a half verses of Crébillon’s piece of tragedy, but Lacan modifies there a word subtly :

... Un destin si funeste, 

S'il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.

(Such a funest destiny,

if not Atreus, does become Thyestes.)

This letter, when unhidden, will be as fatal as Medusa’s head ( « la face médusante de ce signifiant » : Ecrits, p.40) for the Minister D because it is by the action of the death instinct (Todestrieb) that the purloined letter $ which is nothing but the death itself will finally arrive at its destination. Lacan calls this fatal moment “subjective destitution” (la destitution subjective). But we can recall also Heidegger’s term “Austrag” (to bring an antinomy to an Aufhebung). That destitution is also the rise (Resurrection) of the dead subject $ from the place of hiddenness to that of unhiddenness. This is what expected to happen at the end of psychoanalysis. We can schematise the process as follows (cf. Fig. 4) :

Fig. 4

The Fig.4 represents the psychoanalytical process Lacan calls “progress” form the university discourse to the analyst discourse, where the subject $, hidden in the locality of ex-sistence (red) rises to the place of unhiddenness (green) to become the sublimated desire.

It is this sublimated desire that Lacan calls “analyst’s desire” : the condition of possibility of psychoanalysis.

This conclusion (Austrag) at the end of psychoanalysis corresponds also to what Heidegger calls Ereignis : the Being, fallen to be alienated in quotidianness, now separates itself from its alienating covering and opens itself out as Lichtung (clearing).

In other words the Ereignis consists in assuming the most proper possibility of being ‒ i.e. the death ‒ not in the form of suicide but in endurance of death anxiety. Heidegger might have thought that the war would provide das Volk with a decisive opportunity of such trial. Instead, for us, our own experience of psychoanalysis will make us capable of enduring that extreme anxiety of Being.

The Signifier Phallus in Lacan’s Teaching ‒ in reference to the apophatic ontology and its topology as the pure foundation of psychoanalysis

Caravaggio, Giuditta e Oloferne (ca 1597), nel Palazzo Barberini, Roma

The Signifier Phallus in Lacan’s Teaching ‒ in reference to the apophatic ontology and its topology as the pure foundation of psychoanalysis

Luke S. Ogasawara

I. Introduction of the apophatic ontology as das Denken des Seins (thinking of Being)

This text is written to answer to the question someone posed me to know what is the phallus as signifier in Lacan’s teaching. That person is serious enough in his or her interest in Lacan to have read the first text in his Ecrits : The Seminar on “The Purloined Letter”. So I will begin with its first paragraph :

(...) the automatism of repetition (Wiederholungszwang) gets its principle in what we have called insistence of signifier chain. We have taken out this notion as correlative of the ex-sistence (that is, the eccentric place) where we must situate the subject of the unconscious (...). (...) it is in the experience inaugurated by psychoanalysis that we can seize by what mediation of the imaginary the grip of the symbolic can reach even into the most intimate place of human organism.

There, in the first paragraph of the first text of his Ecrits, we can see how Lacan is formulating ‒ explicitly referring to Heidegger’s term “ex-sistence” (Ek-sistenz) ‒ the fundamental of his teaching : not the triad of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real, but the tetrad of the symbolic, the imaginary, the real as insistent repetition of what doesn’t cease to be written (necessary) and the real as ex-sistence of what doesn’t cease not to be written (impossible).

The entire teaching of Lacan is consisting in his effort to found psychoanalysis purely, i.e. non-empirically, with no reference to empirical sciences such as biology, psychology, sociology, etc. What he is referring to is : mathematical topologies of closed surfaces and Borromean knot, Hegel’s dialectic phenomenology and, as we’ve seen above, Heidegger’s thinking of Being (das Denken des Seyns).

This formulation “das Denken des Seyns” with the word “Seyn” crossed out, which is Heidegger’s own expression, seems now to be recognised officially as emblematic of Heidegger’s après-guerre thinking because it is used in the editorial notice on the cover paper of the Gesamtausgabe 98 (the latest volume of his Schwarze Hefte).

I estimate that it is very probable that Lacan invented his mathème of barred subject $ in 1958 out of Heidegger’s Sein which we can find only in one article published in his life time with the title : Zur Seinsfrage (1955, in GA 9).

So in the mathème of barred subject $ we can see how Lacan was already aware in 1958 of the essential importance of thinking of Being in Heidegger’s teaching.

I baptise this thinking of Being “apophatic ontology” after “apophatic theology” (negative theology) where God’s mysterious Being is kept outside the created world of things which are there.

And I think the apophatic ontology and its topology are exactly what Lacan had in his conception as the pure foundation of psychoanalysis.

According to Lacan’s own indications and suggestions in his Seminars in the 1970s, we can formulate as follows :

where we can find correspondence in the topology of projective plane, the structure of alienation, the topology of Borromean knot and the structures of the four discourses.

And we can find also correspondence between Lacan’s topology and Heidegger’s terminology :

the imaginary ‒ consistency ‒ das Seiende als solches im Ganzen (Being as such in whole) ;

the symbolic ‒ hole ‒ die ontologische Differenz (ontological difference) ;

the real as necessary ‒ nodality ‒ der Austrag ;

the real as impossible ‒ ex-sistence ‒ das Sein (Being).

II. The impossible phallus φ

On the basis of the apophatic ontology and its topology we can now make some elucidation on the problem of phallus in Lacan’s teaching.

Because the person who posed me the question read already the Seminar on the Purloined Letter, I refer to that text.

At the end of the session of the 10 March 1971 (the Seminar XVIII) Lacan says that when he talked of the purloined letter which can be found nowhere and which he calls “pure signifier” and “the veritable subject of the conte” he talked in fact of the phallus.

That phallus is defined by Lacan as “signifier of lack-of-being” (signifiant du manque-à-être : in Ecrits, p.710).

Because that phallus is the veritable subject we write it as barred phi like the subject $ :

Because of technical facility we write it also as φ

What Lacan calls “lack-of-being” (manque-à-être) is exactly Heidegger’s Sein (Being).

The phallus φ, pure signifier of Being which can be found nowhere in the locus of Seiendes (things which are there), is what doesn’t cease not to be written, that is, the real as impossible. It can be found nowhere because its locality is ex-sistent to the locus of Seiendes. It is situated in the locality of ex-sistence (coloured red).

And now we can remark that the symbole φ in the schema R (Ecrits, p.553) denotes in fact the impossible phallus φ 

because the S which is situated in the same place as φ in the schema R and which is the same S as in the schema L (Ecrits, p.53) denotes “the subject in its reality, foreclosed as such in the system and entering only under the mode of the dead in the signifier play but becoming the veritable subject as the signifier play lets it be signified” (le sujet dans sa réalité, comme telle forclose dans le système et n’entrant que sous le mode du mort dans le jeu des signifiants, mais devenant le sujet véritable à mesure que ce jeu des signifiants va le faire signifier : in Ecrits, p.551), that is, the S in those schemata is in fact the barred subject $ in the ex-sistent locality of Being (Sein), and correspondingly the φ too.

We can add a remark : if in the schema R what is the real (the real as impossible) is the S and the φ situated at the upper left angle, what is the central zone R ? It is : the real as necessary (what doesn’t cease to be written) of symptoms. We can see also there the tetradic structure implied in Lacan’s teaching.

III. The phallus ( − φ ) as imaginary function of castration

There is another phallus which Lacan denotes with the mathème ( − φ ) [ minus phi ] and defines as “imaginary function of castration” (fonction imaginaire de la castration . in Ecrits, p.825), in other words : imaginary correlate of castration.

The castration complex concerns the anxiety in front of the hole of lack-of-being which opens up in Other’s locus (le lieu de l’Autre) as mother’s body.

The phallus ( − φ ) is a hallucination of lack of phallus at the hole of lack-of-being in Other’s locus. We can say it’s a sort of hallucination because one sees a lack of phallus in place of nothing which can be found at the hole (coloured yellow).

IV. The phallic functions of the sexuation formulae

We have also the phallic functions of the sexuation formulae introduced by Lacan in the Seminar XIX (1971-1972) :

In the standard symbolic logic the bar above a formula means negation. But it’s not exactly so in Lacan’s formulae of sexuation. So we’d better give them other formulations, for example :

Male : ("x) φ(x) Ù ($x) Φ(x)

Female : Ø("x) φ(x) Ù Ø($x) Φ(x)

where the symbole Ø denotes negation.

Here we take into consideration only the male formula and locate it in the schema of alienation as follows :

where the formula ($x) Φ(x) denotes the ex-sistence of the patriarchal phallus (the phallus of the Urvater in Freud’s myth of primitive tribe) in the place of truth (coloured yellow). This schema means : there can be the sexual relationship by means of the patriarchal phallus Φ : “the symbolic phallus, impossible to negativate, signifier of jouissance” (le phallus symbolique, impossible à négativer, signifiant de la jouissance : Ecrits, p.823).

This patriarchal phallus Φ is the male ego-ideal, the identification to which defines the condition of being a man, which condition is formalised as φ(x).

Lacan’s formula : “there is no sexual relationship” (il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel) says this : the patriarchal phallus Φ is only a paranoiac fiction denying the impossible phallus φ .

The fact is : there is nothing in the place of truth occupied by the S1 in the structure of alienation. The place of truth in the four discourses is nothing but the hole in the apophatico-ontologic topology.

From Heidegger’s History of Being (Geschichte des Seyns) we could say that the paranoiac belief of the ex-sistence of S1 (e.g. τὸ ὄντως ὄν, ἰδέα, οὐσία, essentia, substantia, the God of philosophers and theologians, conatus, Wille zur Macht, Übermensch, etc.) which obturates the apophatico-ontologic hole determines metaphysics.

Now there should remain nothing like such metaphysical delusions anymore, nor the patriarchal phallus Φ the identification to which has been the determinant of the “being a man” in the History of Sexuality.

Philosophers could declare the end of metaphysics. Perhaps an abolition of that paranoia of very long duration ‒ metaphysics and patriarchalism ‒ can be achieved only in one’s own experience of psychoanalysis.

L’École pratique des hautes études の1965年版紀要のために Lacan が書いたテクスト

L’École pratique des hautes études の1965年版紀要のために Lacan が書いたテクスト (Autres écrits, pp.187-189)

精神分析の四つの基礎概念 ‒ 1964年のセミネールの要旨

L’École normale supérieure から受けた歓待，とても人数の増えた聴衆は，我々の言説［Lacan のセミネール］の戦線の変化を指し示していた．

［1953年から］十年間，それは，専門家たち［精神分析家たちと，精神分析家になる養成を受けている者たち］の能力に合わせて展開されていた；おそらく，彼らだけが，精神分析が彼らに提供する特別な作用の証人として容認され得るだろう．しかし，彼らは，また，精神分析家候補生の募集条件のせいで，精神分析の作用を統御する弁証法的次元に対しては，とても閉ざされたままである．

［1953年から十年間］，我々は，彼ら［精神分析家たちと，精神分析家になる養成を受けている者たち］が利用し得るよう，ひとつの ὄργανον を作り上げた ‒ ひとつの予備教育法（それは，ある段階が良く根拠づけられてあることを学習者たちが測知し得る前には，次の段階には進まない）にしたがって，その ὄργανον を［年々，段階的に］発表しつつ．

［しかし，今回，つまり，セミネール XI においては］，我々には思われた：そのような提示のしかたを，我々はくつがえさねばならない ‒ 危機［IPA からの追放］のなかに，ひとつの総合の機会を見出すよりは，むしろ，Freud によって我々の手へ遺贈された場のなかに我々が回復する〈実在の〉絶壁を明らかにすべき義務を見出しつつ．

我々の努力は，その実在のヘーゲル的還元ではまったく（その実在を「理性的」なもの［ロゴス的なもの］* と再肯定することになるとはいえ），しかして，知の主体のなかに生じたくつがえしに，その規定を与えた．

1964年の我々のセミネールは，四つの概念 ‒ そのくつがえしのなかで開基を与える機能を果たしている四つの概念：無意識，反復，転移，本能 ‒ を選び出し，それら各々を再定義し，そして，それらをひとつの共通の関数において支えるトポロジーによってそれらが結び合わされていることを示した．

したがって，我々の根本的な計画を成す問いは，常に残されたままであった：その問いは，「精神分析はひとつの科学であるか？」と問うことから，「精神分析を包含する科学は何か？」と問うことへ向かう．

無意識 ‒ それは，我々の始原的な命題のとおり，徴示素の効果として維持され，そして，ひとつの言語として構造化されている ‒ は，1964年のセミネールにおいては，時間的な拍動［無意識の閉じと開き］として取り上げ直された．

反復においては，αὐτόματον の様相の背後に匿われた τύχη の機能が，明らかにされた：そこにおいて，出会いそこねが，実在との関係として取り出される．

転移は，愛［Verliebtheit, amour narcissique としての愛］という欺きに関連する［無意識の］閉じの時として，［無意識の閉じと開きの］拍動に統合された．

本能については，我々はひとつの理論を与えたが，それは，この1965年なかばの時点 ‒ そのとき，我々は突然，この要旨を提出するよう急かされた ‒ においては，まだ「フロィト製」の標が取れていない．

本能の恒常性の理由，身体の開口部の特権を説明するいわゆる「エッジのトポロジー」，再帰作用の規定，目標と客体との解離 ‒ それらは，このセミネールにおいて初めて論ぜられた．

そのような成果の一覧は，それらを繋ぐ結び目とその結び目が緊縛するものとを保証するに必要な輪郭を言いはしない．

このセミネールにおいて，我々は，改めて，デカルト的主体 ‒ 確実さの主体として，認識の主体とは区別されるものとしてのデカルト的主体 ‒ の先取りを強調し，また，如何にデカルト的主体は，無意識［が我々の存在の内奥に措定されること］によって再評価されて，精神分析の作用の前提の地位へ移るかを，強調した．

同様に，視覚本能 ‒ それは，我々にとって［部分本能の］範例として役立った ‒ について，特に展開を行った．視覚本能について，視力とまなざしとの二律背反を証明することは，失われた客体の次元 ‒ それは，Freud の思考にとって根本的なものである ‒ に到達する目標を有していた．

この「失われた客体」を，我々は，幻想に従属する主体の位置の原因として公式化した．

しかし，Merleau-Ponty の遺著『可視と不可視』‒ そこにおいて，彼の問いの明白な方向転換は，到来したと同時に，中断されている ‒ が［遺稿断片の］恭しい貼り合わせにおいて同時期に出版されたことによって，我々は，次のことを強調するよう要請されることになった：存在事象の次元から［存在の在所へ］到達しようとするあらゆる試みにおいては，構造論的な特徴へ優位が帰せられる［構造論的な特徴が優位となる］．そのような取り組みを，我々は中断した ‒ 翌年のテーマとして「存在の主体的位置」を告知しつつ．

この転機において，［Lacan が独自の精神分析家養成機関 École freudienne de Paris を設立したことにともなう精神分析に対する社会的な関心の］拡散は，我々にとって驚きであった．しかし，そこには限度がある：そのような拡散につれて，我々の［精神分析という］テマティックは，弛緩の効果を被るだろう．そのことを，我々は，我々の言の含意によって，その限度のうちに入れておいた．人々は，時とともに，その限度を読み取ることになるだろう．そのような修正は，構造主義という旗印のもとに ‒ 今や，あまりにも多数 ‒ 集まったもの全体の命運にも関わっている．

科学の進歩における倫理との相関［の必要性］が，改めて確認される．精神分析は科学と倫理との相関の鍵を保持しているが，それゆえ，その鍵の命運は確かなもではない．

それゆえ，1964年のセミネールの最後の部分において，我々は，［精神分析の］大論理学的な基礎［の問題］へ立ち返った ‒ 主体を定立するものとして我々が登用した「大文字の他」[ le Grand Autre ] の場所にもとづいて，異状［疎外］の概念 ‒ それは，政治評論の時流によって貶められた ‒ を問い直しつつ．

1965年

訳注 *『法哲学基礎論』の緒言のなかで，Hegel が，哲学の根本原理として ‒ すなわち，絶対知の可能性の条件として ‒ 公式化した命題への言及 : « Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich ; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig »［理性的であるものは実在的であり，実在的であるものは理性的である］．この場合，「理性的」は「ロゴス的」と解される．

原文 (Autres écrits, pp.187-189)

Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse

Compte rendu du Séminaire 1964

L’hospitalité reçue de l’École normale supérieure, un auditoire très accru indiquaient un changement de front de notre discours.

Pendant dix ans, il avait été dosé aux capacités de spécialistes ; sans doute seuls témoins recevables de l’action par excellence que leur propose la psychanalyse, mais, aussi bien, que les conditions de leur recrutement laissent très fermés à l’ordre dialectique qui gouverne cette action.

Nous avons mis au point un ὄργανον à leur usage, en l’émettant selon une propédeutique qui n’en avançait aucun étage avant qu’ils aient pu mesurer le bien-fondé du précédent.

C’est la présentation que nous devions renverser, nous parut-il, trouvant dans la crise moins l’occasion d’une synthèse que le devoir d’éclairer l’abrupt du réel que nous restaurions dans le champ légué par Freud à nos soins.

Bien loin d’être une réduction hégélienne de ce réel (sinon pour le réaffirmer comme rationnel), notre effort avait donné son statut à la subversion produite dans le sujet du savoir. Notre exposé de cette année choisissait les quatre concepts qui jouent dans cette subversion une fonction originante : l’inconscient, la répétition, le transfert, la pulsion ‒ pour les redéfinir chacun et les montrer noués par la topologie qui les soutient en une fonction commune.

Permanente donc restait la question qui fait notre projet radical : celle qui va de : la psychanalyse est-elle une science ? à : qu’est-ce qu’une science qui inclut la psychanalyse ?

L’inconscient maintenu selon notre propos inaugural comme effet de signifiant, et structuré comme un langage, fut ici repris comme pulsation temporelle.

Dans la répétition fut mise au jour la fonction de τύχη qui s’abrite derrière son aspect d’αὐτόματον : le manque à la rencontre ici s’isole comme rapport au réel.

Le transfert comme temps de fermeture lié à la tromperie de l’amour, s’intégrait à cette pulsation.

De la pulsion nous donnâmes une théorie qui, en cette miannée 65 où soudain l’on nous presse de livrer ce résumé, n’a pu encore être démarquée.

Raison de sa constance, topologie dite de bord, expliquant le privilège des orifices, statut d’action en retour, dissociation du but et de l’objet, sont ici apparus pour la première fois. Ce tableau de chasse ne dit pas les contours nécessaires à assurer un tel noeud, ni ce qu’il enserre.

Nous y marquâmes une fois de plus la préemption du sujet cartésien en tant qu’il se distingue du sujet de la connaissance comme sujet de la certitude - et comment, revalorisé par l’inconscient, il passe au rang de préalable de l’action psychanalytique.

De même, la pulsion scopique, pour nous servir de paradigme, reçut-elle un développement particulier. Y démontrer l’antinomie de la vision et du regard avait le but d’y atteindre le registre, fondamental pour la pensée de Freud, de l’objet perdu.

Cet objet, nous l’avons formulé comme la cause de cette position du sujet que subordonne le fantasme.

Mais la parution simultanée, en une récollation pieuse, de l’oeuvre Le Visible et l’Invisible, où s’interrompait à l’heure même de son avènement la conversion manifeste de l’interrogation de Merleau-Ponty, devait nous solliciter de marquer la priorité qui revient aux traits structuraux, dans tout essai d’atteinte ontique. Nous en suspendîmes l’approche, tout en annonçant les « positions subjectives de l’être » pour l’année à venir.

On lira avec le temps les limites où nous avons fait rentrer, par l’implication de nos dires, l’effet de relâchement subi par notre thématique à mesure d’une diffusion qui fut notre surprise à ce tournant. Cette correction intéresse le sort de tout ce qui se rallie, trop largement maintenant, sous l’enseigne du structuralisme.

Une fois de plus s’y confirme, dans le progrès de la science, la corrélation éthique dont la psychanalyse a les clefs, et dont le sort donc est précaire.

C’est pourquoi notre dernier temps est revenu à un fondement de grande logique, en remettant en cause sur la base de ce lieu du Grand Autre, promu par nous comme constituant du sujet, la notion, avilie par l’à-vau-l’eau de la critique politique, de l’aliénation.

1965