Some Comments on Lacan's Concept of Temporal Pulsation

In his Seminar XI "The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis" (January - June 1964) and his article "Position of the Unconscious" written on March 1964, Lacan talks of "the temporal pulsation between opening and closing of the unconscious" (la pulsation temporelle entre l'ouverture et la fermeture de l'inconscient) on the basis of the topology of hole, for what matters is the apophatico-ontological hole of the unconscious which opens and closes.

We can pose the following correlations :

closing of the unconscious — alienation — discourse of university ;

opening of the unconscious — separation — discourse of analyst.

According to Lacan's unique interpretation of Cartesian cogito in his Seminar XI and in "Position of the Unconscious", in the logical movement of cogito (dubito) ergo sum, the dubito permits the forclusion of the S1 on the place of the truth (colored yellow) in the structure of alienation (the discourse of university) and thus permits the "progress" (cf. Autres écrits, p.447) of the discourse of university into the discourse of analyst where the master signifier S1 is harbored now as the impossible signifier (which doesn't cease not to be written) in the place of production (colored red) while the subject $ emerges now out of the ex-sistent place of Being (colored red : the Möbiusian surface) into the place of the edge (colored green) in the structure of separation (the discourse of analyst) and thus achieves the movement : ergo sum (therefore I am). This emergence of sum $ is the opening of the apophatico-ontological hole of the subject of the unconscious, the subject Lacan calls "Cartesian subject" too.

That is the phase of opening in the temporal pulsation of the apophatico-ontological hole of the subject $ in the process of "progress" from the structure of alienation (discourse of university where the subject $ is on the place of ex-sistence : Möbiusian surface, colored red) to the structure of separation (discourse of analyst where the $ is on the place of the edge, colored green).

And then there is the phase of closing in the temporal pulsation of the hole in the process of "regression" from separation (the $ on the edge) to alienation (the $ on the Möbiusian surface).

The process of "progress" from alienation to separation is what Freud calls "primary process". There is "resistance" (Widerstand) against this "progress" because of the defense (Abwehr) against anxiety provoked by the opening hole where the revelation of "there is no sexual relationship" (impossibility of genital organisation) occurs.

So there is the process of "regression" from separation to alienation where the pregenital jouissance (Mehrlust, plus-de-jouir) a functions as substitution of the impossible desire $ (the structure of the discourse of university).

Within and outside our psychoanalytical experience the temporal pulsation of opening and closing of the hole of the subject $ is repeated indefinitely until the end of our psychoanalysis where the jouissance of sublimation is achieved in the opening of the hole of the subject $, rejecting definitely the Mehrlust (plus-de-jouir) a.