THE SEMINAR OF JACQTJESLACAN

BOOK IX

ldentification

1 9 6 1- 1 9 6 2

Translated by cormac Galragher from

unedited French manuscripts

FORPRIVATE USE ONLY

 15.11.51

Seminar 1: Wednesday 15 Novenber 1951

rdentification - this Ls my title and ny subject for this year.

I! is a good title but not an easy subject. f an sure you do not
think that it is an operation or i process that Ls very-easy to
conceptualize. If tt Ls easy to recognise, it would perhapi
nevertheless be preferable, Ln order to recognise it correctly,
for us to nake a little effort in order to conceptualize it. It
is certain that we have encountered enough of lts effects even
if we remain at somethLng rather surmary, I nean at things which
are tangible, even to our internal experienea, for you to have a
certain feeling about what lt is. This effort of
conceptualization wJ.ll appear to you, at least this year, nanely
a year which is not the first of our teaching, to be without any
doubt Justified retroapectively because of the places, the
problens to which this effort wlll lead us.

Today lte are going to take a very first little step in this
direction. f apologise to you, this is perhaps going to lead us
to nake efforts which are properly speaking called efforts of
thinking: this will not often happen to us, to us any more than
to others.

If we take identification as the title, as the theme of our

remarks, it would be well for us to speak about it otherwiee than
in what could be called the nythical form on which f left it last
year. There was sonething of this order, of the order of
(2) identification in partl.cular, involved, you rernember, in this
point at which f left ny renarks last year, namely where - as f
night aay - the hunid layer with which you represent for
yourselves the narcisstic effects which ci.rcunscribe this rock,
what was left emerging from the water In ny schena, this
autoerotic rock whose emergence the phallus slmboliees: an island
in short battered by the waves of Aphrodite, a false island since
moreover like the one in which Claudel'g Proteus figures, it is
an island without.moorings,.an island that a r i t f i " g _ . 1 ? Y :
f1 IP"
know what Claudel's Protde Is. It is the attenpt to cornplete The
Orestia by the ridiculoEE-farce which in Greek tragedy is obligEl
Eo conplete it and of which there renains in the whole of
Iiterature only two pJ.eces of jetsan by Sophocles and a Hercules
by Euripedes, if f renember correctly.

It is not unintentionally that I arn evoking this reference in

connection with the fashion in which last year my discourae on
transference ended on thig inage of identification. Try as I
night I could not find a beautiful way to mark the barrier at
 15.11.61
15. 11. 61

different was expected from ne. Let this person be under no

r{hich transference finds ite limtt and its pivoting point. No illusions. His Expectation, !n effect, of seeing ne avoid the
doubt, this was not the beauty which I told you was the limit of topic, as I night iay, wil.l be disappoLntld, _because I hgne -
the tragic, the point at whlch the ungraspable thing pours its indeed to treat lt and f hope also ttrat the fatLgue which_ this
topic suggests to hin ln advance w111 be dissolved. I will
euthanasia over us. I am enbelllshtng nothJ.ng, whatever may be
indeed sp-at about identification itself. In order to epecify
imagined fron the runours one sonetines hears about what I am
teaching: I am not overdoing thlngs for you. This is known to what I understand by that, I would say that when one speaks about
the one in identification what-one thinks about first is the other to whon
those who formerly listened to my seninar on Ethics,
which I exactly approached approiched the funEtlon-of this one is identified, and that the door is easily opened for ne to
barrler of beauty under the forrn of the agony which the thing (la put the accent, to insiat on thie dlfference between the other
chose) requires of us for us to Joln it. lnd the Other, between the snalL other and the big Other, which
is a thene with which I Bay indeed say that you are already
(3) Here then is where transference ended last-ypar. I lndicated faniliar.
to you, to all of those who attended the Journies provinciales in
October, I htghlighted for you, without b@ It is not however fron this angle that f intend to begin. f will
put the accent rather on that which, in identilicati9n, poses
mo!e, that what we had here was a reference hidden in something
comic which is the point beyond which I could not push any tS) iteelf innediately as identical, as founded on the notion of
further what I was aining at in a certain experience, an €be game, and even of the sane to the sa^ne, wlth all the
indication as f nay say which is to be rediscovered in the hidden difficulties that this@
neaning of what one could call. the crlptogrannes of thls senJ.nar,
and after all I do not give up hope that will You surely knoet and can even rather quickly spot what
a conmentary one
day separate it out and highttght difficulties have always been presented for thinking by the
it, because moreover f happen
to have heard a certain testLnony following: A = A. Why separate it from ltself in ord'er to
which, in this regard is a sign
of hope: Lt is that the seml.nar of the year before last, the one replace it there so guickly? l{hat we have here Ig_not purely and
slnply a jeu d'esprit. You can be surG, for example, !h?t, algng
on ethics had effectively been taken up again - and accordJ.ng to
those who have been able to read, the work in a conpletely the- line 6f a novenent of conceptual elaboration, which is called
successful way - by soneone who went to the trouble Logical-positivisn, where one or other peraon strives to ain at a
of rereading
it in order to sumrnarise the elenents ceitain goal which would be, for exanple, that of not posing a
of it, I aln talking about
!t. Safouan, and I hope that perhaps these things logical probtem unlesg Lt has a meaning that can be located as
may be able to
be put at your disposal fairly rapidly so that there can be such in lone crucl.al experiment, it would be decided to reject
linked onto then what I a.n going to bring you this year. any J.ogical problem whatsoever which could not l-n some etay offer
Jumping
from one year onto the second next one after thls final gruarantee by saying that it is as such a meaningless
it nay seem to give
rise to a guestion for you, or even to constitute problen.
a regrettable
delay; this however is not altogether justified, as you will see
if you take up this It nevertheless remains that if Russell can give a value to these
sequence of ny seminars since 1953: the first of A
mathernatical principles, to the equatlon, to the equivalence
on the technical writings, the one which followed on the ego:
technigue and FreudLan psychoanalytic
; Ar someone -lse, Ylittgensteln, opposes it because precisely of
theory, the third on the fron it in the nale of
Freudian structures of p s y c h o s i s , the irnpasses which seen to hirn to result
the fourth on obJect relations, refusal will even be
the fifth the principles he starts wlth and tbat this
on the fornations of the unconscious, the sixth on
desire and its set torth -lgebraically, such an equality reguiring then a change
interpretatlon, then ethics, transference,
identification at which rre are arriving: that is nine, you can of notation in order to find what can setve as an eguivalent of
easily find in them an alternation, a pulsation, you will the recognitlon of the identJ.ty A is A.
see
that in every second one there dominates the thernatlc of the
subject and that of the signifier, which, given that it was with For our part, we are going, having posed the fact that it is not
the signifier, with the elaboration at all the path of logical-positivisn which apPears to us, in
of the function of the
slmbolic that we began, makes us land thls logical matters, to be in any way the one which is justified, to
year also on the
(6) question ourselves, f nean at the level of an experience of
signifier because we are at an odd nurnber, even though what Ls in
guestion words, the one in which we put our trust despite its
in identification ought to be properly the retationship
equivocations, even its ambiguities, about what we can tackle
of the subject to the signifier.
under this term of identiflcation.
This identification then, which lre propose to attempt to glve an
You are not unaware of the fact that one observes, in al.l
adequate notion of this year, has no aoult been rendered iather tongues, certain rather general, even universal historical
trivial for us by analysis; as someone who is rather close to me
'rEo turning points so that one can speak about modern syntaxes
and understands ne v?ry well said to me, this year you are
doing identificglion", opposing to then in a global way syntaxes whlch are not archaic,
and this wlth a pout: "the ill-purpose
explanationrr, allowing but sinply ancient, by which f nean the tongueE of what one can
there to pJ.erce Lhrough at the larne ttne
some disappointnent about the faCt ln short that something rather
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15.11.51

I believe that for us it is not a bad Point of entry for this "I
call Antiquity. These gorts of general turning points, as f told think therefore I a.nt'to mark the first step of our research. It
is understood that this "I think tberefore I am" is on the path
Iou, are those of syntax. It Is not the same with the lexicon
where things are nuch more changeable; in a way each tongue taken by Descartes. I thought of Lndicating it to you in
contributes, as conpared to the general history of language, passingr, but I will tell you right aeray: it i3 not a conrnentary
vacillations which are proper to Lts own genius and which render on Descartes that I can try to tackle today in anlmay ethatsoever,
one or other of then nore propitious for hlghlighting the history and r have no intention of doing it. The "r thinl therefore I
of a meanlng. Thus lt is that we can pause at what l.s the term, an", naturally if you referred to Descartesr text ls, both in the
or the s u b s t a n t i v a l n o t i o n of the term, of identity ( i n identity, Discourse and in the l{editations, infinitely more fluid, more
ldentification, there is the Latln tern iden), and thls will go sEFpery, more vacirraEhEi-E-this kind of lapidary expression
to show you that sone signifLeant experiEnEE Ls supported in the with which it is narked, both in your menory and in the passive
common French tern, which is the support of the sane signifying or surely inadequate idea that you nay have of tbe Cartesian
function, that of the mene. It seens, in effect, that it is the process. (How would it not be inadequate because noreover there
€r, the euffix of L tt-E the is not a single comnentator who agreeB with another one as
, in which we flnd operating
function, f would say of the radical in the evolution of fndo- regards its exact sinuosity).
European at the level of a certaln nunber of italic tonguesl this
en is here redoubled, an anclent consonant which is rediscovered. It is therefore arbitrary to some extent, and neverthelegs there
EEen as the residuer-the remaind,er, the return to a primitive are reasons enough for it, the fact is that this fornula which
has a meaning for you and has a weight which certainly goes
thematic, but not wLthout having collected in passing the
intermediate phase of etlmologry, posittvely of the blrth of this beyond the attention that you nay have granted it up to now, I an
thene whl.ch Ls a commonpl.ace Latin net ipsum, and even a going today to dwell on it in order to show a kind of
(7) metLpsissinum fron the expressL-e-[ow ,Latin, pushes us then introduction that rte can redigcover in Lt. It is a guestLon for
to recoginLse in what direction here experience suggests we should us, at the point of the elaboratLon that we have arrived at, of
search for the meaning of all (9) trylng to articulate in a more precl.se fashion sonethlng that
Ldentity, at lhe heart of what is
designated by a sort of redoubltng of moL-m6ne, this nyself we have already advanced more than once as a thesis: that nothing
supports the traditional phJ.losophical. idea of a subject, except
being, as you see, already this netipsissinun, a sort of au jour
ot aijourainui which we d6 not noFIcc-ifThTch is indeed-E6re the existence of the slgnifier and lts effects.
in the moi-meme.
Such a thesis, which as you will see will be essential for every
It is then in an metJ-psissimun that there are afterwards engul.fed incarnation that we will subseguently be able to give to the
the me, the thou,-Ehe-E-Ehe she, the them, the we, the yoi and effects of identification, requires that we should try to
even oneself, which happens then In French to be a soi-meme. articulate in a more precige fashion how effectively we conceive
Thus we see there, in -hort of this dependence of the formation of the subJect on the
in our tongre a sort of-
identificatlon existence of the eff,ects of the signlfLer as such. l{e wilL even
through the operation of a speclal signifl-cant
go further by saying that if we give to tbe word thinking a
tendency, that you will allow me to qualify as "mihilisme" Ln so
far as to this act, this experience technical meaning: the thlnking of those srhose trade is thinking,
of ttre-ego 1s-rEtETi-ed.
one can, by looking closely at it, and in a way retrospectively,
tfaturally, this would only have an incidental interest perceive that nothing of what is called thlnking ever did
if we were
not to rediscover in it another feature in which there is anything other than to position itself somewhere within this
revealed this fact, this difference which is clear and easy to problen.
locate if we thinh that in Greek, the auton of the self is the
one which serves to designate also the sane, just as in German From this, we wJ.lI state that we cannot say that, at the very
and in English the selbst or the self will come into play to Ieast, ete contenplate thinhing on1y, in a certain fashion,
designate identity.--Tf,Eiefore that it whether we wish it or not, whether you knew it or not, every
r il6Tot believe ts for
nothing that we pick up here and that we interrogate regearch into, every experl-ence of the unconscious, which we have
thie kind of
permanent metaphor in the French expression. lfe will allow on this occasion about what this experience is, is sonething
it to
be glinpsed that it tg perhapa not unrelated which l-s placed at this Level of thinkLng where, in eo f,ar as we
to what happened at
a quite different level.: are no doubt going there together, but not al1 the eane without
that Lt should have been in French, I me leading you there, the tangible relationship which is the most
mean ln Descartes, that being wag able to be thought of as present, the most innediate, the roost incarnated of this effort,
inherent in the subject, in a node in short which we will
is the question that you can pose yourselves in this effort about
describe as captivating enough to ensure that ever cince the
forrnula eraa proposed the "who an I?r',
to thought, one night say that a good share
(8) of the efforts of philosophy consists Ln trying to extricate
oneself from it, and in our own day ln a nore and more open l{hat we have here is not an abstract philosophical gane: for, on
fashion, there being, as I night say, no thenatic of philosophy the subject of "who am I?" what I a.n tryJ.ng to initiate you lnto,
you doubtl.ess know - at least sone of you - that f nean it Ln
which does not begin, with some rare exceptions, by trying to
naster this famous: "I thLnk therefore I an'r.
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15.11.61

n o w , l e t u s e n t e r i n t o the identity-relatl.onships of the subject,

(10) every possible aense. Those who know it nay be, natural.ly, a n d l e t u s e n t e r i n t o it through the Cartesian fornula and you
those from whom f hear it, and I am not going to embarrasa anyone are going to see how I intend to tackle it todaY.
by publishing here what I hear of it. t{oreover, why would I do
it since I am going to grant you that the question is a It is quite clear that there is absolutely no question of
legitinate one? f can lead very far along this track without pretending to go beyond Descartes, but rather indeed to draw the
there being guaranteed for you for a sl.ngle instant the truth of (12) naximun effect fron the utilization of the inpasses whose
what I am telling your even though in what I anr telling you there foundatLon he connotes for us. If you follow me then in a
is never a question of anything but of the truth and, ln what I critique which is not at all a textual connentarY, You should
hear of it, why not aay after all that this carries over into the clearly renenber what I intend to tatre fron it for the good of ny
own discourse. rrl think therefore I ar['r appears to me under this
dreams of those who address thenselves to ne. r renembcr one of
the then - one can_ guote a dreal -: ',tdhy?,,, dreernt one of my form to go against conmon usages to the point -of beconing this
analysands, "does he not tell the truth about the truth?rr. worn down money without a figtrre that Mallarm6 nakes an allusion
to somewhere. If we hold onto it for a monent, and try to polish
I was the one in- question In thl.s dream. Thls dream ended up up its sign function, if we try to reanimate its function for our
nevertheless with,my subject in a fully awake state conpraining purposeB, I would like to remark the following: the fact is that
to ne about this discourse in which, according to hin, the tasi this formula, which f repeat le only found in Ltg concentrated
word was arways missing. rt does not resolve the guestion forn in Descartes at certain points of the Discours de la
to
say: you are children who are always wanting -to believe that f u6thode, Lt is not at all in thta way in thl[3--lGiEE-1E6fr-that it
an telling you the real truth (la viaie veritd): because thig Es exlt-essed. Thl-s "r think therefore I asrr, encounters this
obJection - and I believe that lt hag never been nade - which is
term, the real truth, has a neaniffig-, afrifFoEld further say: it
is on this neaning that the whole credit that rrf think'r is not a thought. Descartes, of courEe, proposes
of psychoanalyis his
been built. Psychoanalyis presented Ltself ttrese formulae at the end of, a long process of thinking, and it
at first to the world
as b_eing that which brought the real truth. is quite certain that the thinking involved ls the thinking of a
Naturally, one fal!.s
guickly lnto all sorts of netaphors which allow the thing thinker. I would go even further: this characteristic, it is a
to
escape. This real truth is what is concealed. There wirl
thinking of a thinker, is not required for us to tal.k about
always
be one, even in the nost rigorouE philosophical thought. A thought, in a word, in no way reguires that one
discourse: it is
on this that there is founded our credit in the world and the thinks about the thought.
stupefying thilg ie that this credit stirl persists even though,
for a good_while now, not the least effort has been nade to giv6 For us in particular, thinking begins with the unconscious. One
even the slightest start to sonething which would respond to-it. cannot but be astonished at the tinidity which makes us have
recourse to the fornula of psychologists when we are trylng to
(11) under these circumstances r feel nyself quite honoured to be say sonething about thinking, the formula of saying that it is an
guestioned on this theme: 'rwhere is the real -truth of your action at the state of being outll-ned, at a reduced state, the
dlscourse?". And I can even, after all, ftnd that it il snall economic nodel of action. You will telL ne that you can
precisery indeed in so far as r an not taken for a philosopher, find that somewhere in Freud, but of course, one can find
but for g psychoanalyst, that r am posed this guestion. (13) everything in Freud: in some paragraph or other he may have
B6cause
one of the nost remarkrble things in philosophical nade use of this psychologlcal definition of thinking. 8ut after
literature, is
the degree to which a.urong philosopher-, l meln in so far as tirey all, it is extrenely difficult to eliminate the fact that it is
are phirosophislngr_ when all is siid and done the sane guestion in Freud that we aleo discover that thinking is a perfectly
is never posed to philosophers, unless it is to adnit with a efficacious mode, and in a way one that is sufficient to Ltself,
disconcerting facility that the greatest of then have never of masturbatory satisfaction? This to say that, aa regards what
thought a word of what they have-comnunicated to us in brack and ig in guestion concernlng the meaning of thinkinlt, we have
whlte and allowed themserves to thlnk perhaps a slightly broader span than other workerg. This doeE
Ln connection with
Descartes, f,or example, that he had only the nost uncertain not exclude that in questionlng the formula we are dealing with:
faith
in God because this suits one or other of fris comnentators unless "I think therefore I anrr, we could say that, as regards the use
it is the opposite that suite hin. that is nade of it, it cannot but pose us a problen: because we
have to question this word "I thinkrr, however large may be the
There is one thing, in any case, which has never seened to shake field that we have reserved f,or ttrinking, to see the
for anyone the credit of phtlosophers, which is that Lt has bean characteristics of thinking being satisfied, to see being
possible to speak, with r-spect Lo each of then, and even the satisfied the characteristics of what lre can call a thinking. It
greatest, about a doubre truth. That then r wtro, entering could be that this word proved, Ltself guJ.te insufficient to
into
psychoanalysis, put ny feet ln the platter by poiing this sustain in any way, anything whatsoever that we may at the end
question about truth, should suddenly feel the-aforesaid platter discover of this presence: "I am'r.
gltting-warn under the soles of my f-et, is sonething aboirt which
after arl r can rejoice, since, ii you ieflect on itl r am ar1 This is precisely what I arn claining. To clarify my account, I
the salne the one who turned on the gas. But, let us'leave this
 15.11.51
15.11 . 61

would point out the fact that "I think'f taken slnrply Ln thls
# 1)
2)
he glories ln it
he wants by that to unsettle you by really warning you
form-,- Is rogically no more sustalnable, no nore supportable than \ about his method; but thls has no other intentlon, this has the
the "I am 1yJ.ng", which has already created probleni for a sane success as this other procedure whlch consists in announcing
certain number of logicians, this 'tr an Lying" which can that one is oneself a plain blunt man, that one is absolutely
only be
sustained because of the no doubt enpty but iustainable logilal frank. This is the tlpe who suggests to you that you should
vacllration which this apparent meaning unfolds, gulte sufiicient endorse all his bluffing.
moreover to find its place in formal logtc. "f an lyingr", if r
say it, it is true, therefore I an not lying, but nevertheless t tlhat I mean, is that evety univcraal affirnative, in the formal
an indeed lying because in saying "I am lylng,' I affirn sense of the category, has tha sane obligue goals, and it is very
the
contrary. interesting to see these goals nanlfesting themeelves in the
classical examples. That it ghould be Aristotle who takes the
(14) ft is very easy to disnantl.e ttrls so-called logical trouble to reveal that Socrates is nortal should all the eane
difficulty and to show that the so-called difficulty on whlch inspire sone Lnterest in us, which means offer an opening for
this judgment reposes depends on the forlowl.ng: the-judgeraent what we can calL a^nong ourselves an interpretation, in the sense
that it invorves cannot refer to its own enuniiatlonl it ts a that this term c.lalms to go a lLttle further than the function
collapsing: it is on the abgence of distinction between two which is found precisely in the very title of one of the books of,
planes, because of the fact that the accent J.s put on the "f am ArLstotl.e's Loqic. Because if obviously it is qua h"nan anlmaL
lying'r itself without making a distinction in iL, that this that he whon Athens names Socrates ls agsured of death, it is all
pseudo-difficulty comes about; this in order to tell you, that (15) the sane well and truly in so far as he is named Socrates
without this dietinction, ere are not dealLng with a real that he escapes fron it, and thie obviously not alone because his
proposition. renown stiU endures for as long as there lives the fabulous
transference operation operated by Plato, but again nore
These-little parad.oxes, of whlch the logicrans make a great deal, specifically because it is only as having succeeded in
in order noreover to reduce then immediately to their proper constituting hinself, beginning from his social. identity, as this
measutcr mal/ seem to be simple alusements: they have all the sarne atopical being which characterises hin, that the person called
their interest: they should be retained in ordir to pinpoint in Socrates, the one so naned in Athens - and that is why he could
not go into exile - Ita6 able to sustaln himself in the desire of
short the true position of alr fornal logic, up to and including
this famous logLcal-positivLstn of which r spoke earlier. ny thit his orn death even to the extent of rnaking of his life an -actjng
r mean that in ny opl.nion not enough use precisely has been-made out of, it. There is also to be added thi- final touch of
of the famous aporia of Epinenides - whlch is only a more EEEtting up for Asclepios' fanoug cock of which there wouLd be
dev-eloped- form of what r have just presented to you in connection guestion if the recommendation had to be nade of not doing any
with the "I an lying" - that c ; e t ans are 1iirs". Thus harm to the chestnut-seller at the corner.
"AIl
speaks Epinenides the cretan, and you innediately see the littre
whirltgig that is engendered. Not enough use hai been made of it There is therefore here, in Aristotle, sonething which we can
to denonstrate the vanity of what is called the fanous universal interpret as some sort of attempt precisely to exorcise a
affirnative proposition A. Because in effect, one notlces lt in transference whlch he believed to ba an obstacle to the
thls connection, it is indeed here, aE we will see, the most developnent of knowledge. ft was noreover an error on his part
interegting forn for resolving the difficulty. Because, observe slnce its failure is obvious. It would have been surely
carefully what happens, if one poses the following which is necessary to go a bit further than Plato in the denaturing of
possible, which has been posed in the criticisn of the famous desire for things to have ended up otherwise. Modern science is
universal affinnative A of which sone people have claimed, not born in a hyper-Platonisn and not at all in the Aristotelian
without foundation, that its substance hai never been othilr than return to, in short, of the function of knowl.edge according to
that of a universal negative proposition ig no cretan who the status of the concept. It reguired, in fact, sonething which
"there
(15) is_ not capable of lying", frorn then on there is no longer we can call the second death of the Goda, namely their ghostly
any problem. EpimenJ.des can say it, fot the reason that re-emergence at the tLne of the Renaissance, for the word, to show
expressed ln this way he does not say at all that there Ls us its real truth, the one which dissipates, not the illusl.ons,

II
someone, even a cretan who is able to lie in a continuous strean, but the obscurities of meaning fron which modern science emerged.
especially when one notices that tenaciously lytng irnpll.es a
suetained memory whlch ensureB that it ends-up by ori-nting the (17) Therefore - as we have said - thie sentence of: rrl thinkl
discourse in thc sense of being the equLvalenl oi an admis-ion, has the interest of showing us - it ie the least that we can
so that, even lf, "a11 Cretans are llais' neans that there is no deduce fron it - the voluntary dimension of judgenent. We have
cretan who does not wish to lie in a continuous stream, the truth no need to say that nuch about it: the two lines that we
lndeed will finish up by escaping hin and, in the precise neasure distinguish as enunciating and enunciation are sufficient to
allow us to afflrn that Lt is in the neasure that these two lines

J
of the rigolrr of this will; the nost plauslble neanlng of the
avowal by the cretan Epinenides that ill cretans are tlars, this are mixed up and confused, that we find ourselves before a
neaning can only be the following, which is that:
'i
li
a-
 15.11.51 1.1
15.11.51 10

wlth, and how this is given us gince we are paychoanalysts, is to

paradox which culminates in this inpasse of the "r atn Iying" on radJ.cally subvert, to render irnpossible this most radical
and the proof that preJudice, and therefore it is the preJudice which is the true
wtrictr f made you pause for an Lnstantl this is
really what is in question, is the fact that f can at the sarne support of this whol.e development of philosophy, which one can
tirne lie and say in the same volce that I an lying; if I say is the limit beyond which our experience has gone, the linit
dlstLnguish these voices it ls qulte admissable. If I say: he beyond which there conmences the possibility of the unconscious.
says r arn lying, that is easily adnitted, there is no obJection
to it, anymore than lf I saLd: he is lyLng, but I can even say I The fact is that there has never been, in the philosophical
say f am lying. lineage which has developed fron what are called the Cartesian
investigations into the cogito, that there has never been but a
the same something here which ought to retaln us, it single subject which f would pinpoint, to terminate, under,this
There is all
is that lf r say "r know that r ann lying", this has again form: the subject who is supposed to know (le sujet supposd
something quite convlncing whLch ought to retain our attention ag q4yolI).Youshouldhereplovidethisforn@cia1
analysts since, precisely as analysts, we know that what is iEE6iince which, in a way, carries wlth it its itony, its
origlnal, Iiving and gripping in our lntervention is the fact guestion, and notice that by referring it to phenometiology and
that we can say that we are there to speak, to displace ourselves specifically to HegeJ.ian phenomenology, the function of the
in the exactly opposite but strictly correlative dinension which subJect who is supposed to know takes on its value by being
is to say: "but no, you do not know that you are telling the appreciated in terms of the synchronic function which is deployed
truth", which inmediately goes nuch further. lfhat Is note: in this connection: its presence always there, from the beginning
"you point,
only tell it so well Ln the measure that you think you are lying of phenonenological questioning, at a certain at a certain
and when you do not want to lle tt is to protect yourself from knot of tbe structure, will allow us to extricate ourselves from
that truthr'. the diachronic unfolding which is suppose to lead us to absolute
knowledge.
(18) It seems that one cannot reach this truth except through
This absolute knowledge itself - as ere will see in the light of
these glimmers, the truth Ls a girl in this - you recall our - takes on a singularly
terns - that like any other girl it can be nothing but a stray, this question refutable value, but today
well, it is the sa.me for the "I thinkr'. It appears indeed that only in this: let us stop ourselves fron posing the notion of
(20) distrust at attributl.ng thie supposed knowledge to anyone
if it has such an easy run among those who spell it out or who
whatsoever, or of supposing (subjicere) any subject of the
re-broadcast Lts nessage, namely the professors, that can only be
by not dwelling too much on it. Tf we have for the "f think" the knowledge. Knowledge is interCrDjective, whicb does not nean
same exigencies as for the "I an lying'r, either lndeed this that it is the knowledge of all, nor that it is the knowledge of
means: "I think that I an thinking", which is then absolutely to the Other - with a capital O - and the Other we have posed. It
speak of nothing other than the "f think" of opJ.nion or is essential to maintain it as such: the Other is not a subJect,
imagination, the "I think" in the way you say it when you say it is a locus to which one strives, says AristotJ.e, to transfer
"I
think she loves me" which means that trouble is on the way. the know@6 of the subject.

Follosring Descartes, even in the text of the lle{itations, one is Naturally, of these efforts there remains what Hegel unfolded as
surprised at the nu^nber of incLdences in whicf,-TEfsTThink'r is the history of the subject; but this does absolutely not mean
nothlng other than this properly inaginary dinension on which no that the subject knows a whit more about what he is returning
so-called radical proof can be founded. Or indeed then thig from. He is only stirred, as I night say, in function of an
neans: 'rI am a thinking being" - which is, of course, to upset unfounded supposition, nanely that the Other knows that there is
ln ad.vance the whole proceBs for what is aiming precisely at an absolute knowledge, but the Other knows even less about it
making emerge fron the "I think" an unprejudiced statuB, not than he, for the good reason precisely that it is not a subject.
infatuated as it were by my own existence. If I begin by saying: The Other is the refuse dunp of the representative
representations of this supposition of knowledge, and this is
"I ann a beingr', that means: I am of course a bel.ng essential to
being, there is no need to throw out anything else, one can what we call the unconscious in so far ag the subject has lost
preserve hinseJ.f in this supposition of knowledge. He drags it (gg) along
one's thinking for one's personal use.
without his being anare of it, it is the debris that cones back
This having been hlghlighted, we find ourselves encountering to him fron what his reality undergoes in this thing, a more or
sonething which is inportant: we find ourselves encounterLng this less unrecognisible debris. He sees it coning back, he can say
level, this third tern that we raised in connectLon with the I arn or not say: it is indeed that or indeed it is not at all that:
lying, nane1y that one could say: "f know that I am lying", and all the same it is altogether it.
this is sonethLng whlch should retain you. In effect, this
indeed is the support of everything that a certaLn phenonenology The function of the subject In Descartes, it is here that we will
has developed concerning the subJect, and here f putting forwai8 take up our discourse the next tine, with the resonances of lt
a formula which is one on which we wl-ll be led to begin agaLn on that we find in analysis. t{e will try, the next tlme, to map out
the next occasions, which is the following: what we ate deallng
 22.LL.6L rr1
15. 11.61 L2

the references to the phenomenology of obsessionar neurosis in a

signifying scansion in which the subject finds hinrself imrnanent
in every articulation.

Seminar 2: t{ednesday 22 November 1951

You have been able to see, to your satisfaction, that I was able
to introduce you the last tine to the remarks we are going to
make this year by neans of a reflection which, in appearance,
night have seemed to be a rather philosophical one because it
dealt precisely with a philosophical reflection, that of
Descartes, without it giving rise on your part, it seens to me,
to too many negative reactions. trar fron it, it seens that I
have been trusted as regards the legitimacy of what night f,ollow
fron It. I an delighted at this feeling of confidence whl.ch I
would like to be able to translate as saying that you at least
sensed where I sranted to lead you by that.

l{evertheless, so that you nay not develop, fron the fact that I
am going to continue today on the sane theme, the feeling that I
an delaying, I would like to pose that such indeed is our goal,
in this mode that we are tackling, to engage ourselves on this
path. Let us say it right arf,ay, in a fornula which all our
future development wiII subseguently clarify: what I mean is
that, for us analysts what we understand by identification -
because this ls what we encounter in identification, Ln what is
concrete in our experience concerning identification - is a
signifier-identification (une identification cle sig4ifiant).

Reread in the Coulse ln__lingulstics one of the nunerous passages

where de sauss@er to, as he continuoirsly
(21 tries to do by circurnscribing it, the function of the
signifier, and you will see ( f arn saying this in parenthesis)
that all his efforts did not finally avoid leaving the door open
to what I would call less differences of interpretation than
veritable divergences in the possible exploitation of what he
opened up with thls distlnction which is so essential of
signifier ani signified. Perhaps I could touch on it in passing
for you so that you can at least note the exi.gtence, the
difference there is between one school and another: that of
Prague, to which Jakobson, to whon I so often refer, belongs and
that of copenhagen to which HJenslev gave its orientation under a
title which f have never yet evoked before you, that of
Glossematics.

You will see: it is alnost bound to happen that I will be led to

come back to it because we cannot take a step without trylng to
deepen this function of the signifler, and conseguently its
relitionship to the sign.
 22.LL.6L II 3
22.LL.6L II 2

It is a very conceivable formula, and one which can be lPpliea

- I think just as much to the effect that I have Just nentioned, for
You ought all thc eamc to know already that even those
-xanple, as to that of the fornation of an inage, even a vlrtual
anong you who nlght have believed, even to the extent of
reproaching me for Lt, that I was repeating Jakobson - that in one, in nature through the nediation of a plane surface, whether
fact, the position which I take up here ls in advance of, ahead it be that of a nirror or of the one that I have for a long tine
of that of Jakobson as regards the prl.macy whlch f give to the evoked, of the surface of the lake which reflects the nountain.
function of the signifier in every realisation, let us say, of
the subject. The passage of de Saussure, to which I aLluded Does that mean that, as is the tendency and a tendency which is
earller - I an only privileging lt here because of itg value as expanding under the influence of a kind, _I would !9y, 9{ -
intoxicaEion, whieh recently took hold of ecientific thinking
an inage - is the one in which he tries to show what sort of
fron the faci of the iguption of what is only at bottom the
identity that of the signlfier is by taking the exanple of the chain_as such
(3) 10.15 expless. The 10.15 express, he says, is sonething
(5) discovery of tbe dinension of the signifying
perfectly defined in its bui which, in all sorts of ways, is going to be reduced by this
identity: it is the 10.15 express
despite the fact that obviously the dlfferent 10.15 expresses, thinking to rnore simple terng - and very precisely thls_is what
is expr-ssed in what are called infornation theories - does this
which succeed one another Ln an always identical lray every day,
rnean Lhat it is correct, without any other connotation, for us to
have absolutely nothing either in their materlal, indeed even in
the composition of the train, but Lndeed a different real resolve to characterize the Liaison between the two systens, one
structure and components. of which is an inage with respect to the other, by this idea of
infornation, which is very general, irnplying certain paths taken
Of course, what is true in such an affirmation aupposes by this sonething which carries the bi-univocal concordance?
precisely, in the constitution of, a being lLke the 10.15 expresE,
a fantagtic Lnterlinktng of signifying organisatLon entering J.nto This indeed is where there exists a very great anbigruity, I mean
the real through the nediation the one which can only end up by naking us forget the proper
of spoken beings. It remains that
this has ln a way an exemplary value, Ln order to well dcfine levels of what information shoul.d involve if we want to give it a
what f mean when f put forward first what I an goLng to try to value other than the vague one which would only end up when a1I
articulate for you: these are the laws of identification qua is said and done by giving a sort of re-interpretation, a false
consistency to what had up to then been subsumed, and this from
signifler Ldentification. Let us even highlight, as a reminder,
Antiquity up to our own day, under the notion of the form,
that to renain with an oppostion which is a sufficient support
something which captures, envelopes, determines the elements,
for you, what Is opposed to it, what it is distinguished from,
what nakes it necessary its functl-on, gives then a certain tlpe of finality which is the one that in
that we should elaborate is
that the identification that it thus distances itself from is the whole ascension fron the elenentary towards the conplex, from
that of the imaginary, the one whose extreme forn I tried to show the inaninate towards tbe aninate, is sonething which has no
you a long tine ago in the background of the mirror stage in what doubt its enigura and its own value, its order of reality, but
I would call the organic effect of the image of our fellows, the which is distinct.
effect of assimilation that we grasp at one or other point of
natural history, and the exanple which f was happy to ehow in If this is what r intend to articulate hete with all the force of
vitro under the form of this llttle animal, which is called-Ehe the new things that are brought to uB, in the new scientific
nigratory locust, and of whon you know that the evolution, perspective, by the highlighting, the separating out of what is
the
growth, the apparition of what is called the totality of the contributed by the experience of language and of what the
sJ.gnifier relationship allows us to introduce as an original
(4) phaneres, of the way in which lre can see it - depends in its
forn Ln some way on an encounter d,imension that it is a matter of radically distingruishing fron
which happens at one or other
moment of its the real in the fonn of the slmbolic dinension, it is not, as you
development, of the stageE, of the phases of the
larval transformation see, in this way that I am tackllng the problen of what is going
or accordlng to whether there have appeared
to it or not a certain (6) to allow us to split up this arnbiguity.
nrrmber of traits of the inage of its
feIIow, lt will evolve or not, in different cases, according to
the forn which is called solitary or the forn which is called
Already all the sarne I have said enough about it for you to know,
gregarious. for you to have sensed, apprehended, in these elenente of
signifying information, the originality tbat is contributed by
l{e do not know everythingr er€ even know rather little about the the trait, let us say, of seriality, that they involve, the trait
stages of this organic circuit which brJ.ng wLth then such also of discreteness, f nean of cutting, something which Saussure
effects. I{hat we do know is that lt is experinentally certain. in no way better articulated than by saying that what
Let us classify it under the general rubric of the effects of the characterizes them with regard to one another, is to be what the
image of which we wiLl fLnd all sortg of forms at very different others are not.
levels of the physical and even the inanlmate world, as you know,
if we define the image as any phystcar arrangenent whlch has as a Diachrony and synchrony are the termg to which I pointed out you
resurt the constitution between two systeme of a bi-univocal should refer, even though all of this is not fully articulated,
concordance, at whatever level it may be.
 22.LL.6t rr5
22. Ll.6L II 4

nane, either traglc, o! comic, of belng able to say to ourselves,

the distinctlon having to be drawn with this de facto dLachrony: at the moment of leaving our livee that we have always been in a
too often it iE simply what is ained at ln thE-Er-fEnation of certain measure strangers to our own lives. fhlg indeed is what
the laws of the signifier. There Ls a rightful dLachrony through is at the botton of the nost nodern philosophical interrogation,
which we rejoin the structure; in the sane way for synchrony' one that through which, even for those who as I night say are only
is not saying everything about it, far fron it, by inplying in lt very little fettered by it, even those very peopJ.e who proclaim
the vl.rtual siurultaneity of the code in each supposed subject, their feelings about this obscurity, alt the s.ne sonethlng is
because that ls to rediscover here something which I showed you happening, whatever nay be said about it, something different is
the last time is for ue an entity which ls untenable. f mean happening than the popuLarity of a fasbion in the formula of
that we cannot be satisfied in any etay with having recourse to Heidegger recalling us to the existential foundation of, being for
it, because it ls only one of the forng of what f denounced at death. llhatever its causes uay be, whatever its correlations, or
time under the name of the even its impact - one can say - what one can call the profanation
the end of my dLscourge the last
subJect who is supposed to know. Here is why this year I am of the great phantasies forged for desire by the style of
beglnnJ-ng ny introductLon to the guestion of identification Ln religious thinking is not a contingent phenomenon, this mode of
thls way, the fact is that tt is a guestion of starting fron the thinking is here what will leave ui uncovered, disarmed, giving
very difficulty, from the one which is proposed to us by the very rise to this hollow, this void, to which this modern
fact of our experience, fron what it begins with, fron that whieh philosophicll neditation etrives to respond, and to which our
as a starting point we must articulate it, theorise it; the fact experience has also something to contribute, hecause this is its
is that we cannot, even in terms of our aims, of, a future pIace, at the instant that r am designatlng sufficiently for you
pronise, in any way refer ourselves, as Hege1 did, to any the sane- pJ.ace at whl.ch this subject constitutes hirnseli as not
(7) possible termination, precisely because we have no right to bging able to know precisely why-there is a guestion for hirn here
pose it as possible for the subJect in some gort of absol.ute of the Al1.
knowledge or other.
This is the varue of wbat Descartes brings us, and that is why it
l{e must learn at every nronent to dispense wlth this aubject who was good to start with hln.
is supposed to know. l{e cannot at any moment have recourse to
(9) That
it, this is excluded: through an experience which we already have is why I am coning back to it today, because it is
since the seminar on desire and on interpretation (the first appropriale to go over it agaJ.n in order to-neasure again what is
trimester which was publishecl) it Ls very precisely what seemed involved in what you nere abre to hear me designating-for you as
to me in any case could not be omitted from this publication, an-impasse, nanely the inpossibleness (l'irnposiible) of tha "r
because tbis is the tern of a whole phase of this teaching that think therefore I a m " .
we gave: the fact is that thls subject of ours, this subJect
rt- is precisely
which I would like today to interrogate for you in connection _tlris inpossJ.bleness which gives its price and its
with the Cartegian way forward, is the Bane one that in this value to this subJect which Descartes prop6ses to usl even if it
first trinester f told you we could not approach any closer than is_onJ.y the subJect around which the a-ge-61d cogitations tuinea
is done in this exemplary d,rea.n which is entirely artlcul-ated before, turn since, it is crear that oir obJections i n o u r i a-s t
around the eentence: "he did not know that he had died". discourse take their weight, the very weighi, inplied in trre
etymoJ.ogy of the Fr-ench verb penser which-rneans- nothing other
To be absolutely rigorous, it is indeed there, contrary to the pggg (to weigh). w h a t f f i - E E b a s e d o n t h e ' , r t h lnk", it w.
.than
oplnion of Politzer that ere can designate the subject of knoer, we analysts, that this'rwhat r an thinking about,'which we
enunciating, but in the third person. This is not to say, of may grasp, refers back to a "from which and from where r think"
course, that we could not approach it in the first person, but which necessarily slips away,. and this is indeed wtry oe-ciit.='
this would be precisely to know that Ln doing so, and in the most formula guestlons us Lo know whether there Lg not at least this
pathetically accessibLe experience, privileged point- of the pure "r think" on which we night
it slLps away, because by bai-
translating lt lnto this first percon, it is precisely at thig ogrselvesr fnd this is why it was at the very least ifrportani
sentence that we will end up: by saying what we can say that r shourd make you pause for an instant. this for;nula seens
precieely, in the practical neasure that we can confront io ilgry that it would te necessary for the subject to le-ciretur
ourselves wLth time's chariot, as John Donne [stc] says [hurrylng to think at every instant Ln order-to assure hliself of beinq.
near": it is at our heels, and in this pause ln which we can rs it sufficient for hin to think that he is for hin to toucf,
foresee the ultirnate moment, the one precisely at which already this thinking_being? For it is indeed on that that Descartes, in
(el everything will leave us, to say Lo ourselves: this incredible nagic of the discourse of the two first
"I did not
know that I was livtng_as_-a nortal being, (je ne savais pas que neditations, suspends us. He manages to nake stand up, r mean in
je vivaie d'€tre nortil) his text, not that once- the profesior of phirosophy hii prct-a
".
out its signifier and shown too easily thl artifici whicL
It is_quite clear that it is in the measure that Ire can say to results from formyl?tl"g that in thinklng thus r can say that r
ourselves that we have forgotten am a thing which thinks - it is too easy to refute - bui which
it at alnost every instanl that
we will be placed l-n this uncertainty, for which there Ls no
 22.tL.6L II 7
22.LL.6L II 6

The other nethod, which is the one that brings us closer to the
of the text' except Cartesian approach, is for us to perceive precisely the properly
takes nothJ.ng from the force of the prggress
(10) for the-fact that we nugt interrogate thig thinklng belng, speaking vanishing character of thia "I", to nake us see that the
isk'ourselves lf it ls not the particiile of an Etre-Penser (to real rneaning of the first Cartesian approach ig to articulate
(L2l itself as an r r l think and I am not". Of course, one can
be written tn the lnfinitive and Ln a aingle word): j'Etre-pense'
as one says j'outrecuide (I overween), as our anal'ytic habits delay at the approaches of thls assumptl.on and perceJ.ve that I
ilT compensaEe (Je conpenee), even f deconFensate, I spend all the being I nay have Ln thlnking. Let lt be clear that
nake us sty
in in the final analysis it is by stopping tbinklng that f can
overcompenlate". rt is the-Effiffifr-and Just^as leg_itimate glimpse that I qulte simply an; these are only approaches. The
its cornlositlon. Fron then on, the "je Pense-6tre" which is rrl think
thie and I am not" introduces for us a wbole series of
pi"po".h to us to introduce us'to 1t,-rnEf*l!!Eil-tn
because remarks, precisely sone of those which I spoke to you about the
prolpective, an artifice that is hard to tolerate
last tine concerning French norphology, first of all that about
nore6ver to formulate things in this way, the being already
my whole progress; this "I", so nuch more dependent in our tongue in its fonn on the
deternines thq register in which I lnaugurate
first person than in EngJ.ish or in German, for example or Latin
thls "je pens6trefi - as I told you the Last time - cannot even ln
k
pescarEEir-EEFEI-be except with traits of lure and where to the guestion "who did it?'r you can reply: f, Ich, eso,
connoted
but not je in French, but "ctest noit'orttpas molt'. 8ut je is
appearance. "Je pens€tre'r does not brLng with lt any greater
Descartes at something different, this ie so easily elided i n s p e ech tbanks to
consLstency thilEhlF-oF-dreams at which effectively
The "Je what are called tle nuted properties of its vocalisation, this je
several noments of his progress has left us suspended.
pensEtre" buE-it which can be a chrsais pas (don't know), nanely that the e
can for Lts plrt alsg be eonjugatqd like a verb,
doe--T6T go very far: ?'je pensAtre, tu-pEngAtres, wftlr I'i Lf you disappears,b.'t-@ei|'iBgometiringdiflerent-yoGcan
wish at the end,, that n@, elen "11 pene€tre". rea1ly sense it because you are .rnong those who have an original
A11 that we can say is that if we make of it the tenses of the
experience of French - to the rrje ne sais" the ne of the "je ne
we can only s3is" is brought to bear not on'TEE-m-(know)-Eut on theE;-
verb with a sort oi lnflnitive of "pens6trer",
That is also why that, contrary to wFat happens in these
connote it with what is written in tlFFI6naries that all the
neighbouring tongues to which, without going any further, I
other fonns, except the third person singular of the present, are
not used in French. If we want to be humouroug we will add that allude for the moment, it is before the verb that there is
they are supplenented-ordinarily by the sanne fomn of the verb brought to bear this deconposed part - let us call it that for
conllenentailr to pensAtrer: the-veib s'emp6trer (to become the monent - of the negation which is the ne in French. Of
gntangled). lfhat does that nean? is that the act of course, the ne is neLther proper to French, nor unique: the Latin
The f-ct
- because this - only ends up ne paesents itself for us with all tbe same problenatic, which
Ctrepenser is what is ln question - noreover f am here only introducing and to which we will return.
6r w-Eoever is thinklng wlth a "peut-6tr6 Je, perhaps i", and
(11) noreovet I an not the flrst-or-na-onfy one to have always
rrlll (13) As you know, I already alluded to what Pichon in connection
remarked the contraband tralt of the introduction of this
into the conclusion with negation in French contrlbuted to it by way of indications.
"I thLnk therefole f anr'. It is guite clear - and this
that thl.s "f" remains problematic I do not think is not new either, I indicated it to
and that until Descartesr next you at the sane time - that Plchon's
step - and we are going to see whLch one - there is no reason why formulations about the
it should be preserved forclosive or the dlscordant can resolve the question, even
fron the total putting into question that
Degcartes carries though they introduce it In an adml.rable way.
out of the whole process by proflling at the
foundations of thJ.s process the function of the deceitful God - But the closeness,
you know that he goes further: the naturaL linkage in the French sentence of
the deceitful God is still. a good 'rje ne sais'r is
God: in order to be there, j . l l u s i o n s , the je with the first part of the negation,
to swanp ne with he goes so
far as to be an evil demon, a radical sonething which enters into the register of a whole series of
liar, the one who leids me
astray in order to lead me astray: this is what has been caLled concordant facts, around which I aignal to you the interest of
hyperbolic doubt. It can in no nay be seen how this doubt has the p a r t i c u l a r l y significant energence in a certain linguistic
spared thig fiI'r and leaves it therifore usage of problems which refer to the subject as such in his
properly speaking in a
fundanental vacillation. telationships to the signifier.

There are t$ro ways of articulating What f want to get to then is the following: it is that if we
this vacillation: the find ourselves more easily than others put on our guard against
classicaL articulation, the one which Ls already found - I
rediscovered it with pleasure - in Brentano's this nirage of ahsolute knowing, one which can already be
psychology, the one
which Brentano sufficiently refuted by translating it into the satiated repose
refers quite rtghtly to Saint Thomas Aquinas,
nanely that being cannot be grasped as thought of a sort of colossal seventh day on this Sunday of life where
except in an the hunan animal will
alternating fashion. finally be able to feed his face with
It is in a Euccession of alteinating grass,
moments that he thinks, the great machine being finally regulated down to the fast
that hig memory approprl.ates its thinking
r91]r!r carat of this nateriallsed nothingnesa which the conception of
without this thinklng bei.ng- at any noment abre to Join up
with itself knowledge is. Naturally, the hr"qan being will fl.nally have found
in its own certainty.
 22.Ll.6L rr 9
22.tL.6t II 8

eceptical doubt has its place, as you know, in Hegel's

definitively Phenomenolgy of the spirit: lt is a moment of this research, of
his share and hl.s reservation Ln hig henceforth
stupidity, and lt ls supposed that at the same time there this quest in which knowing J.s engaged with respect to itself,
cradled
excrescence its peduncle, this knowing which is only an not-yet-knowing, therefore, which
will be torn away wlth this thinking
because of this fact is an already-knowing. This is not at a1I
namely worry.
what Descartes attacks. Descartes has no place in the
at the rate there are going things which are Phenonenolgy of the spirit, he puts the subJect himself in
But this,
guestLon and, even though he does not know it, it is the subJect
constructed, desplte their charm, to evoke that there is there
(14) something rather close to what ne are dealing with I nust who is supposed to know that he is dealing with; it is not a
say much more fantasy and humour: these are the various matter for us of recognising ourselves in what the spirit is
pJ.aythtngs of what is commonly called science fiction, which show capable of, it ts the subJect hinself as an inaugural act that is
ln connection with this thene that all sorts of variations are in question. This is, I believe, what gives its prestlge, what
possible. (15) gives its fascinating value, what constitutes the
turning-point effect that this senseless approach of Descartes
In this respect, naturally, Descartes does not appear in such a effectively had ln history, it is that it has all the
bad light. If one may perhapa deplore that he did not know nuch characteristics of qhat we call in our vocabulary an inpulsive
nore about these perspectLves on knowledge It ls in thls respect action ( u n p a s s a g e i l'acte). The first phase ol cartelian
alone that if he had known more about then, his norality would neditation has the mark of an inpulsive act. It situates itself
not have fallen so ghort. But apart from this trait which we at this necessarily inadequate, and at the sane tine necessarily
primordial stage, the whole attenpt having the nost radical, the
leave here provisionally to one side for the value of hig lnitial
approach very far from that, there results sonething qul.te nost orlglnal relationship to desire, and the proof is indeed
different. what he is led to in the step on God which irunediately follows.
t{hat immediately follows, the step of the deceitful God, what is
The professors, ln connection wl.th Cartesian doubt, spend a lot it?
of tlne underlining that it is nethodical. They attach enormous
importance to it: methodlcal, that neang doubt that is cold. It is the appeal. to something that, to contrast it with the
llaturally, even in a certaLn context, cold neals were consunedl previous proofs, which naturally are not to be cancelled out, of
but, ln truth, f do not belleve that this ls the correct way to the existence of God, I would allow nyself to oppose as the
conslder matters, not that I want in any way to encourage you to verissLnun to the entissinun. For St. Ansefuo, God is the nost
consider Descartes as a psychological case, however excitlng it bffitof-Feings. fFb coal ne are dealing with here, the one whom
nay appear to rediscover in hig biography in the conditions of Descarteg brings in at thls point of his thenatic, is the God who
his kin, indeed of his descendanta, some of these traits whl.ch, must guarantee the truth of everythJ.ng which is articulated as
collected together, nay nake up a figrure, by means of whLch we such. He ls the truest of the true, the guarantor that the truth
rediscover the general characterigtics of psychasthenia, even to exists and all the more the guarantor in that this truth as such
swallow up in this denonstration the celebrated passage about could be different, Descartes tells us, it could be if thie God
hunan coat hang,ers, these sorts of narionnettes around which lt wanted it, it could be properly speaking ertor. l{hat does that
seems possible nean if not that we find ourgelves there in everytbing that one
to restore a presence which, thanks to the whole
detour of his thought, can call the battery of the signifier confronted with this single
one sees precisely at this very moment in
the process of being unfolded, I do not see any great interest in trait, with this einziger Zug which we already know, so that if
(15) it. lfhat is irnportant for ne is that after having tried to really necessary i.t-Edfd-5-substituted for iff tni elements of
nake you Bense that the CartesLan thenatic is logically what constitutes the signifying chain, supports this chain, all
unjustifiable, (17) by ltself and simply by being always the sane.
I can reaffirn that it ig not for all that
irrational, it is no more lrratLonal than desire ls lrrational
because it is not articulatable What we find at the linit of the Cartesian experience as such of
sinply because it ig an
articulated. fact, as I believe Ls the whole meaning of what f the vanishing subject, ig the necessity of this g"uarantor, of the
have been demonstrating nost simple structural trait, of the unigue trait, absolutely
to you for a year to show you how it is.
depersonalised, may I say, not alone of all subjective content,
Descartes' doubt, but even of all variation which goes beyond this single trait, of
it has been underlined, nor an f the first to
do it, this trait which is one by being the slngle trait.
is of course a doubt which ls very different to sceptical
doubt. Compared to Descartes' doubt, sc-ptical doubt entLiely The foundation of the o n e which this trait constitutes is grasped
unfolds at the level of the questlon of the real. Contrary to nowhere other than in i t s unicity: ag such one can say nothing
what is believed tre is far fron putting it In question, he brings
bick, e l s e a b o u t i t e x c e p t that it is wlrat alL signifiers have in
he reassembl.es hLs world in it, and eone sceptic or other
whose whole discourse conmon by being above a l l constituted as a trait, by having this
reduces us to no longer holding anything to
be walid except sensation, trait as a support.
does not nake ii atsappeai foi all
that, he tells us that it has more weight, that it is more real
than anythlng that we can construct Ln connection with lt. This
 29.Ll.6t III 1
22.tt.61 II 10

Are ne golng to be able, to encounter ourgelveg around this in

our conclete experience? r nean that what you already see
highlighted, namely- the substitutlon which ilready gaic so much
trouble to philosophicar thought, nanely this aln6gE, necessarily
ideallstic slope that every aitl.cutation about the subJect has in
the crassical tradition, of substituting for it thLs finction of
idealisatlon Ln so far as on it there rEposes thls structural
necessity, _which is the sa"Eeas the one irtrictr r arready Seninar 3: llednesda 29 Novenber 1951
articulated before_you under the f,orn of the ego-ideall ln so far
as rt is starting from thls not a!_all nythical but peifectly
concrete poi!! of inaugiurar_Ldenttfication of the suLJect to'the
radical signlfier, not at all of the plotinian one, bit of the
giggre triit as such that the whole perspeetlve of'trrJ-sul:""t ." I led you then the last tine to thl.s signifier that the subJect
(18) not knowing- can be unforded in i rtlourous fashion. it is nust in some way be in order for lt to be true that the subject
this that after.having made you pass todiy no doubt along paths, is signifying (signifiant)
about which r wish to reassuie you by teriing you that i[ is-
gertainly the nost difficult peak of-the difiiiutty to ,rrr.r, r It is a ratter very preciaely of the 1 qua single trait; we could
lt:y. !: gale you- pa's, which lrag been goo" th"ough'todayl-it i" be very subtle about the fact that the prinary teacher writes the
this that r thtnk r wilr be able beforE you, Ln i more sittstying 1 like that $tith a risJ.ng stroke wtrich indicates in a way where
fashion, more designed_to herp us redisc6vei our practl.cal it emerges from. lloreovel it would not be a pure refinement
horizons, to begin to for:nulaie. because after all it is precisely what we also are going to do:
try to see where it cones from. But that is not where ere are at.
So, as a eray of accommodating your mental vision which ls very
confused by the effects of a certaln cultural fashion, very
precisely the one which leaves a gaping interval between prirnary
teaching and the other which is called secondary, you should know
that I an not in the process of directing you towards the one of
Parnenides, nor the one of PJ.otinus, nor the one of any totality
in our field of work of rhich such a great fusg has been made for
some time. It is indeed a question of the 1 which t called
earlier that of the prinary teacher, the one of "pupil X, write
out a hundred Lines of 1rs for ne", nanely gtrokee: I'pupiL y, you
will get 1 in French'r. The teacher in his notebook, traces out
the einziger Zug, the singla tral.t of the sign whlch has always
been sufficient for ninimal notation. This is what is Ln
question, the rel.ationship of thig with what we are dealing with
in identification, If f establigh a relationship, it should
(2) perhaps begin to appear to your mind as a dawning, that
identification is not inmedLately coLlapsed. It is not
altogether sinply this 1, in any case not as Ire envisage it: as
we envisage it, it can only be - you see already the path that I
an leading you along - at a pinch the instrument of thig
identification and you are going to see, if we look closely at
it, that this is not so sinple.

Because if what thinks, the thinking being we are considering,

renains at the level of the real in its opacity, it does not
inrned:iately follow that he energes from sone being where he is
not identified, I mean: not even from some being where it is in
short thrown on the paving of some extension which firgt of all
required thinking in order to clear it away and to nake it void.
Not even that: this is not where we are at. At the level of the
reaI, what we can glLnpse, is to glinpse hin anong so many beinge
also, in one word, so many beings of a att'dtant where hc-is
hanging on to some breast, in short, at-tEE-very nost capabte of
 29.L7.6L rII 3
29.tL.6L III 2

Of course, this is at the same tine to put in question, this is

outlining this sort of palpitation of being which makes laugh so at the same time to nake advance - and I expect to encOunter
of because of this fact in you a tlpe of approbation, fron the heart
nuch the enchanter at the botton of the tonrb where the cunning
the lady of the lake has imprisoned hln. to the bel1y - our knowledge of what this eignifier is.

Remember - it is a few years ago, the year of the seninar on I wilt begin, because that is what I feel like doing, by naking
Presldent Schreber - the inage that I evoked during the last you play truant. I nade an allusion the other day to a_ kini
seminar of the yean , the poetic one of the nonster Chapalu after ienaik, however ironical it nay have been, concerning the choice
he had satiated himself on the bodies of the sphinxs nutllated by of ny subject for this year as if it were not at all absolutely
suicidal 1eap, this remark about which the rotting nece-sary. ftris is an opportunity to focus on the fact, and this
their
who is the monster Chapalu laughs for a long tine is surely connected in some way to the reproach, that it inplied
enchanter
that identification is sonehow-or other a naster key which would
"someone who eats is no longer alone". relationship wttich
avoid having to refer oneself to an lnaginary
(3) Of course, in order for being to come to birth, there is the alone supports tbe experience of it, nanely the relationship to
perspective of the enchanter; it is indeed it which at botton the body.
regulates everything. Of course, the verLtable anbiguity of this
comlng to birth of the truth Ls what constitutee the horizon of (5) A11 of this is consistent with the same reproach which nay be
our whole practice. But it is not at all possible for us to addressed to me about the paths that f pursue, of always keepJ-ng
start from this perspective whl.ch the nyth indicates welJ. enough you too much at the level of the articulationg of language the
to be beyond the mortal linit: the enchanter rotting ln his tomb. one which precisely I etrive to distinguish fron all others.
also a point of vlew whlch Is always completely Fron that to the idea that I overlook what is called the
So Ls not this
abstract when it Ls thought about, at an epoch when the ragged preverbal, that I overlook the aainal, that f believe that man in
fingers of Daphne'B tree, if they are profiled against the fteld all this has sone privilege or other, there is only a step which
charred by the giant nushroon of our omnJ.potence which is always is all the more quickly taken because one does not have any sense
present today at the horLzon of our inagination, are there to of taking it. It was in thtnking again about it, at the moment
recall for us the beyond fron which there can be posed the poJ.nt when nore than ever thie year I an going to make everything that
of view of the truth. But it is not contlngency which brings it I an going to explain to you turn around the sttucture of
about that I have to speak here before you about the conditions language, that I went back to an experience of nine which is
It is a nuch tinier the one which close, immediate, near at hand, tangible and appealing and which
of the truthful. incident
sunnoned me to take care of you ln so far as you are a handful of perhapa witl clarif,y the fact that I also have my notion of the
psychoanalysts preverbal which ig articulated within the relationship of the
and I renind you that you certalnly do not have
the truth in great quantities, but that all the same this is your subJect to the word in a fashLon whieh has not been aPParent
stock and trade, this is what you sell.
perhaps to all of you.

Close by rne, in the nridst of the l{itseinden environment in which

It is clear that in comlng to you people are chasing the truth,
r Live is Dasein, r have a dog wtr6i-frarnetl Justine as a honage
as f said the time before last it is the truth about the true
to Sade, wIEE66E you can be sure ny exercising any particular
that is being sought. It is precisely for this reason that It is
legitimate cruelty towards her. My dog, ln ny sense and without ambiguity,
that, to deal with ldentlfication, f should have
started from a text whoee rather unigue character in the history speaks. Hy dog has without any doubt the gift of speech. This
of philosophy I trLed to nake you aense in that the guestion is inportant, because it does not rnean that she possesses
of
the truth being posed in it in a epecially language totally. The measure in which she has speech without
radical fashion, In so
far as it puts in question, not at all the truth that is found in having the hunan relationship to langiuage is a guestion fron
the real, but (4) the status of the subject which it is worthwhile envisaging the problen of the preverbal.
in so far as he Ls
charged to bring thLs truth tlhat does my dog do when she speaks, in ny sense? l{hy do f say
Lnto the real, I found nyself, at the
end of my last digcourse, that she speaks? She does not speak all the tine, she speaks
the one I gave last tine, ending up
with what I indicated to you as recogmizable in the figure contrary to nany humane only at monents when she needs to
alreadl napped out for us of the single (5) speak. She has a need to speak at noments of enotional
trait of the einzlger Zug
in so far as it is on it that there is concentrated fE-FE-he intensity and of relationships to the other, to nyself, and sone
function other people. This nanifests itself by sorts of littl.e guttural
of indicating the place where there is suspended in the
signifier, where there is hooked on, as regards the signifier, whinpers. It j-s not linited to that. It is partJ-cularly
the question of its guarantee, striking and pathetic since it rnanifests itself in a quasl-hunan
of lts function, of what use this
is, this signifier in the advent of the truth. This ia why I do way which is what brought it about that I had today the idea of
not know how far I wtll speaking to you about it: she is a boxer bitch, and you see there
be able to push ny discourse today, Uut
it will appearing on this guasJ.-human facies, rather Neanderthal when all
be entirely turning around the goit of cnsuring in your
ninds this function Ls said and done, a certaln trenbling of the lip especially the
of the sJ.ngle trait, tfris function of the
one. upper one under this muffle, a little high for a human, but after
 29. 11. 61 III 5
29.tL.6L rII 4

to repeat myself a few tlmes, and stop the gane. The fact is
all there are types like that: f had a caretaker who looked that she knows very well that it is I who an there, she never
terribly like her, and this trenbllng of the lip when the takes me for another, contrary to what in all your experience is
caretaker had to communicate wlth me at one or other hlgh point there to testify about what happens in the measure that, in
of intentionality was not at all sensibly different. rhe effects the analytic experiance, you put yourself in the conditions of
of breathing on the aninal'e cheeks evoka no less sensibly a having a "pur-parlant" subJect, lf f may express myself in that
whole set of mechanlsns of a properly phonatory type which, for way as one speaks about a pure pork pate. The purely-speaking
example, erould be conpletely sultable for the celebrated subJect as such, it is the very birth of our experience, is led,
experiments of Abbe Rousselot, the founder of phonetics. you because he remains purely-spea&ing, to take you always for
know-that they are fundamental and consist eseentially in filling another. If there Ls some elenent of progress in the paths on
the diverse cavitLes Ln which there are produced phonitory which f arn trying to lead you, it ls to nake you . that
vibrations with little d,runs, horns, vJ.brating instrumentl which by taking you for another, the subject puts you at the level of
allow there to be controrred at what levels and at what moments the Other with a big O.
there come to be superinposed the diverse elements which
conetitute the enl-ssion of a syllable, and more precisely It is precisely this which ls lacking to ny dog: for her there is
everything that we call. a phoneme, because these phoneti- only the snall other, As regards the big Other, it does not seen
experiments are the natural antecedents of wtrat wis afterwards that her relationshtp to language gLves her access to it. tfhy,
defined as phonematics. sl.nce she speaks, does ghe not manage to constitute at all as we
do these articulations in such a fashlon that the locus of this
lly-dog has speech, and it is uncontestable, indisputable, not other where the signifying chain is situated is developed for her
only from the fact that the nodulations lrhich result from these as for us?
-(7) properry articurated deconposabre efforts inscribable ln
loco, but also fron the correlltions between the nonents at-which Let us rid ourselves of the problern by saying that it is her
these phonemes are produced, nanely when she is Ln a room where seDse of sme1l which prevents Lt for her, and hera we are only
experience has t3uglr! the aninal that the hunan group gathered (9) rediscovering a classical indication, nanely that the orginic
-thal
around a table should be there for a good while, -ome spin- regressl.on of the sense of snell in the case of man has a tot to
of f fron what is lrqppentng at that nolnent, nanreiy the do with his access to this Other dimension.
festivities, should accrui to her: it rnusf not bi believed that
all of this is centred on need. There is no doubt a certain I an very sorry to appear, with thie reference, to be
relationship with thie element of consuruption, but the communing re-establishing the cut between the canine species and the hunan
element of the fact that she is eating wittr tire others is present species. I am saying this to eignif,y to you that you would be
in it. completely wrong to_believe that the privilege I give to language -
is some sort of pride which hides thii sort of preJudice whiih
t{hat is it that dtstinguishes this usage, which is in short very would nake of man precisely sone sort of gumnit of being. I
sufficiently successfur as regards the-resurts that Lt is a would tenper this cut by telling you that if ny dog lacks this
guestion of obtalning for ny dog, of speech, fron hunan speech? _sort of posslbility which was not separated out as autonomous
r an not in the proceEs of giving you wolds which clain t6 cover before the existence of analysl.s whi6h is carled the capacity for
all the resurts of the question, r am only giving responses which transference, that does not at arl mean that this reducls foi her
are orientated towards what should be for-all of-us wirat it is a partner, f mean for nyself, the enotl.onally expressive field of
gyes!+91 of mappl.ng out, na.mely: the retationship to that which in the current sense of the terlr t call precisely
identification. t{hat distinguishes this speakin} aninal hrrnan relations. It is nanifest, in the behaviour of ny dog,
fron
what happens- because of the iact that man ipeaks-is concerning precisely the reflux onto her own being of the eiiects
the
folJ.owing, which is quite strLking as regaris ny dog, a dog who of confort, of positions of prestige, that a Larg- part, let ug
courd.r"ll be yours, a dog who hai nothing extriordiirary say it, if not the totarity of the register of what constitutes
a6out
is_ that, contrary to what happens in the case of nin in so the pleasure of my own relationship, for exa.nple, with a woman of
l"r, the world, is there completely
far as he-speaks, she-never takes-ie for another. ThLs is very fuliilled. I nean that, when she
clear: this shapely boxer bitch who, if one is to believe occupies a privlleged place like the one which consists in
those clinbing
who observe her_has feetLngs of lovi for ne, gives herself onto what I- call ny cot, ln other words the narriage
over bed, the sort of look lrith erhich sbe fixes
to fits-of passion towards me ln which ehe [a[es on a guite me on such occasions,
terrifying aspect for the nore timoroug suspended between the glory of-occupying,a place whose privileged
souls r{ho exis€ for
at one or other revel of nry offspring: signification she situates perfectJ.y well and the fear of ttre
9l?rpr" it appe"r"-it"t
(8) people are afraid- that, inninent gesture which is going to aisrodge her frou it, is not
at the-nonenis tfrat she-iatil"-t;
jrnp gn n e w i t h h e r ' e a r s at all of, a different dineneion to what can be seen in ihe rook
!op-9f f r a t t e n e d a n d g r owling-i;-a--
certain fashion, the fact that she takes ny wrists of what I called, in a purely denagogical way, a nonan of the
befween her (10) worrd;
t:gtlr- might appear to be a threat. because if she does not lrave, in-what concerns srhat
This i3 nevertheless ,roi can be called
arr the case. Very_quickly, the pleasure of converaation, a special privilege,
and this i s w h y i t i s s a i d t h a t "t she
loves ne, a few woial fron-me bring her to 6ta"t, even if r have
 29.Lt.6t III 7
29.Lt.6L III 6

taking advantage sinrply of the passage through ny dog, to

she has Just the sa.me Iook, when having taken off in a dithyranb indicate it to you in passing and to nake you notlce at the same
about some fLlm or other which appears to her to be the latest (12) tine that this absence of occlusives in the speech of my
thing in technical achievenent, she feels suspended over her a dog, is precisely what it has in cornmon wLth a spoken activity
declaration from ne that f was bored to the teeth with it, which which you know well and which is called sJ.nging.
from the point of vlew of nihil nlrari, which is the law of good
society, already gives rise :In EEFE--the suspicion that she If it often happens that you do not understand what the singer is
would have done better to let me speak first. saying, it is precisely because one cannot sing occlusives and I
also hope that you will be happy to land on your feet again by
This by tenpering, or more exactly by re-establishing the sense thinking that everything is in order because in ehort ny dog
of the guestion that I an posing concerning the relatlonships of sings, which reinserts her into the concert of the aninals.
speech to language, is designed to introduce what f arn going to There are many others who sing and the guestion is not still
try to separate out for you concerning what specifies a language dernonstrated whether for all that they have a language.
as suchl the tongue as l.t Ls caIled, :ln so far ae, if it is the
privilege of man, it ts not inmedLately courpletely clear why It People have always spoken about this, the Shaman whose
should be linlted to hl.n. I assure you that it is worthwhile representation I have oD a very beautiful little grey bird
spelJ.ing this out. f spoke about a tongue: for exanple, it is fabricated by the Kwakiutl of British Colunbia carries on his
not indifferent to note - at least for thoee who have not heard back a eort of, human inage who conmunicates ln a tongue which
about Rousselot here for the first tine, it is all the s?me very Links hin with a frog: the frog is supposed to be comnunicating
necessary that you should at least know how Rousselot's reflexes to hirn the language of aninalg. It is not worth the trouble to
are constituted - I allow myself to see right away the importance do all this ethnography because, as you know St. Francis spoke to
of sonrething, which was absent fron my earlJ.er explanation about the anirnals: he is not a nythical personage, he lived at a epoch
ny dog, that f an speaking about sonething pharyngeal, something incredibly Llluninated already Ln his tlne by the fuJ.l light of,
glottal, and then about gonething which was trembling all around history. There are people who have made very pretty little
here and there and therefore which is recordable in termg of paintings in order to show hin to us on a rock, and one sees out
pressure, of tenslon. But f did not speak at all about the at the very edge of the horizon the mouths of fish energing from
effects of the tongrue: there is nothing here (11) which produces the sea in order to hear hin whicb is the al.l the same, you have
a click for example, and still less which produces an occlusion; to a&nit, guite something.
there is undulation, sighing, breathing, there are aLl sorts of
things which are close to it, but there is no occlusion. one nright in this connection ask oneself in what tongue he spoke
to then. This always has a neaning at the Level of modern
I do not want to go on about this too much today, this is going (13) linguistics, and at the level of psychoanalytic experience.
to push into the background things about the 11 too bad, one has I{e have learned to define perfectly the function l-n certain
to take the ttune to explain things. If I underline lt Ln beginnings of the tongrre of what is called baby-ta1k, this thing
passing, you can be sure that it is not for the pleasure of it, whl.ch gets on the nerves of some people, me for exanple, this
it is because we wLll rediscover - and ttris we can only do type of "gilly, gilly, what a lovely little baby". This has a
retrospectivel.y - its meaning. It is perbaps not an essential role which goes well beyond these nanifegtations which are noted
pillar of our explanatLon but this phase of occlusion will In any for their inane dirnension, the inaneness consieting on this
caEe take on its neaning at a particular nonentl and the gketches occasion in the feeling of superiority of the adult. There j.s
of Rousselot, which perhaps you for your part will have consulted nevertheless no essential distinction betvreen what is called
in the interval, since this will allow me to abbreviate my baby-talk and, for exarnple, a eort of tongue like that shich is
explanation, will perhaps be particularly expressive at that called pidgin narrely these sorte of tongues constituted when two
time. tlpes of language articulation enter into relationship, the users
of one considering it to be both necessary and their right to use
In order to properly image for you for now what the solution is, certain signifying elenents whl.ch belong to the other region, and
I an going to give you an exanple of it; the phonetician this with the ain of using then in order to make penetrate into
encounters in the sane step - and it is not without reagon as you the other region a certain ntrnber of communications which are
are going to see - the phonene pA and the phonene Ap, which proper to their own region, with this sort of prejudice which is
arrows hin to pose the principles of the opposition between the in question in this operation of getting across to them, of
implosion AP and the explosion pl and to show us that the transmitting to them categories of a higher order. These sorts
consonance of P is, as in the case of your daughter, to be of integration between one language region and another are one of
nute. The meaning of P is between thls ilrplosion and this the fields of study of linguisticg, deserving then as such to be
explosion. The P is heard precisery because it is not heard and taken up as a quite obJective value thanks to the fact that there
this silent time ln the niddle, hoJ.d onto the fornula, is exist precisely, with respect to language, two different worlds
sonething wlrich, at the very phonetl.c Level of the word, is what in that of the child and in that of the adult. tfe can all the
tlgtt! be calred a sort of announcenent of a certain poiirt to less avoid taking it into account, ere can all the less neglect it
which, as you will see, r wirl lead you after some ditourg. r am
 29. LL.6t III 9
29.Lt.6L III 8

to ny dog, the hunan being recognizes, in the emergence of such

in that lt is in this reference that we find the origin of and such an animal the personage he has just lost, whether it is
certaln rather paradoxl-cal tralts of the constitution of a question of his fanily or of an eninent personage of his tribe,
signLfying batteries, f mean the very partlcular prevalence of the chief or someone e1ee, the preeident of one or other society
(14) certaln phonemes in the desl.gnatLon of certain relationships of young people or somebody else; he ig this bison, that is hin,
which are called kinship, the not universal but overwhelml.ng or ln a particular Celtic legend which by pure chance comes to me
majority of phonemes PA and ltA to designate, to furnish at least here because I would have to speak for all eternity to teIl you
one of the nodes of designation of the father and of the mother; (16) all things that arise J.n ny nenory in connection with this
this irruption of sonething which ls only justified because of central experience... I take a Celtic legend which is not at aLl
developnental elements in the acguisition of a language, nanely a legend, which is a piece of folklore taken from the testimony
pure speech events, this is only expJ.icable preclsely starting of soneone who was a servant on a farm. On the death of the
fron the perspective of a relatLonship between two distinct master of the place, of the lord, he sees appearing a little
spheres of language. And you see there being outlined here nouse, he follows lt, the llttle mouae goes all around the field,
sonething which is agaLn the outline of a frontier. I do not she cones back, she goes into the shed where the agricultural
think that I an innovatLng here because you know what Ferenczi implenents are, she walks on the6e inplenents: on the plough, the
trLed to begin to highlight under the title of "The confusion of hoe, the spade and the others, then she disappears. After that
tongues " very specifically at thl.s level of the verbal the servant, who already knew what wae involved as regards the
relatLonshlp between the child and the adult. nouse, has a confirmation for it in the apparition of the ghost
of hls Daster who says to him, in effect: I was in that little
I know that thl.s long detour will not allow ne to tackle today mouae, I made a tour of the property to say goodbye to it, I had
the function of the One, it wJ.Il perhape allow me to add to it, to see the agricultural implenents because thege are the
because when all is said and done all that ls in question here is essential objects to which one remalns attached longer than to
to clear the way, naneLy that you should not bel.ieve that where f any other, and it ls only after havlng nade this tour that I
am leading you is a field which ig exterior with regard to your could free nyself fron then etc... with an infinite nunber of
experience, it is on the contrary the nogt internal field because considerations concerning in thJ.s regard a conception of the
this experience, the one for exanple which I evoked earlier relationships of the dead person and certain instrunents, linked
specifically in the concrete distinction here between the other to certain conditions of work, properly rural condJ.tions, or nore
and the Other, all we can do is go through this experience. especially agrarian, agricultural conditions. I an taking this
Identificatl.on, namely that which is able very precisely and also exFnple to centre the gaze on an identification of being
as intensely as possible, to imagine there being put under soure concerning two individual apparitions as obviously and ag
sort of being of your relationships the gubstance of another, is strongly to be distingruished frou the one which would concern the
somethJ.ng which can be illustrated to infinity in an being who, with respect to the narrating subJect, had occupied
'rethnogrraphical'r text because precisely the eninent position of master with this contingent little animal
it is on this that there
(15) his been constructed, witl revy-aiiihl, a whole series of going one knows not where, going nowhere. There is sonething
theoretical conceptions which are expreseed under the term: which, all by itself, deserves to be taken not sinply to be
pre-logical mentality, indeed later on nystlcal participation, (17) explained as a consequence, but as a possibility which
when he was led to focus nore especlally on the function of deserves as such to be highlighted.
identification the interest of what seemed to him to be the path
to the obJectification of the field he had taken as his own. I Does that mean that such a reference can engender anything other
think that here you know wLthin what brackets, unde! what express than the most complete opacity.
reserve there can only be accepted relatLonshJ,ps put under guch a
rubric. It is from sonethLng infinitely more conmon which has It would be a poor recognitlon of the type of elaboration, the
nothing to do with anything whatsoever which puts in question order of effort that f a- demanding fron you in ny teaching, to
logic, or rationality, that one nust start fron in order to think that f could in any way content nyself, even if one were to
sltuate these facts (whether they are archaic or not) of obliterate its linits, with a reference to folklore in order to
ldentification ag such. rt is a fact which has alwayE been known consider as natural the phenomenon of identificatlon: because
and can still be establlshed for us when we address ourselves to once sre have recognized this as the basis of the experience, r{e
subjects taken in certain contexts which remain to be defined know absolutely no more about it, precisely in the neasure that
that these sorts of event - r an going to carr thenr by terrns this can only happen to those I a^n Epeaking to in the mogt
which upset the barriers, which take ttrings Ln a crude way in exceptionaL cases. It is always neceasary to make a littl.e
order to make it clearly understood that i do not intend f,ere to reservation: you can be sure tf,at this na! perfectly well happen
stop at any dividing warls which are destined to obscure the in one or other country area. That this cannot happan to you,
primacy of certain phenomena - these phenomena of false you to whon I an speaking, ig what settles the guestion: fron the
recognitign, let us say on the one trana of bi-location Let uB say moment that thLs can no longer happen to you, you can understand
of the other, frourish at the level of such experience, in the nothing about it and, not being able to understand anythJ.ng about
in testinonies one hears. r t i s a r n a t t e r o f k n o w i n g- w h y it, do not belj.eve that it !.s enough for you to connote the event
Teports,
it is to the hunan being that these things happen; contrary
 29.LL.6L III 11
29.tL.6L III 10

itself. This is not a single trait. In a way, it constitutes a

under some chapter heading, which you nay call with M Levy-Bruhl unilateral abstraction concerning the synchronic relationship for
mystlcal part.lcipatJ.on, or whether wlth the same nan you nake it example of the signifier. Ag you will see the next tine, nothlng
enter under the great whole of the pre-logLcal mentality, for you ia properly speaking thinkable, nothing in the function is
to have said anything that is of the sllghtest intereet. properly speaking thinkable, unless it gtarts fron the following
which I fornulate as: the one as such is the other. It is
It renalns that what you can draw fron lt, make more faniliar starting from here, from this fundanental structure of the one as
with the help of more attenuated phenonena, wiII not be for all difference that we can see appearlng ttris origJ.n fron which one
that any more valuable because you will have started from an can see the signifier constl.tuting itself, as f night say: it is
opague foundation. You dlscover again here a reference of in the Other (l'Autre) that the A of "A is A", the big O, as one
(18) Apollinaire: ' r M a n g e tes pieds-a Ia Sainte Mendhould", - says says the great erord, is released.
ttre treio of the her e to Ler
husband. rt is a matter fo@ relationship (20) From the processes of this language of the signifier, from
between this possibility which is called identlfication, Ln the here alone can there begin an exploration which is f,undanental
sense that fron it there arises sonething tlrat exists only in and radical of how identifLcation is constltuted. Identification
language, and thanks to language, a truth to which this is an has nothing to do with unification. It is only by distingulshing
identification which Ls not at all distinguished for the farm it from it that one can give it, not only its essential accent,
labourer who comes to tell you the experlence that f spoke to you but its functions and its varieties.
about earlierl and for us who found the truth on A is A: this is
the sane thing becauee what will be the startLng point of nry
discourse the next tine, will be this: why is it that A is A is
an absurdity?

The strict analysis of the function of the signifier, in so far

as it is through it that f intend to introduce for you the
guestion of signification, starte with this: it is that if A is
A, has constituted, as I night say, the condition of a whole era
of thought of which the Cartesian exploration with which I began
is the term - what one could call the theological era - it is no
less true that ringruistic analysie is correlative to the advent
of another- era, marked by preclse technical correlations among
which is the nathenatical advent, r mean the extended use of ltre
sl.gnifier in mathenatlcs. Yte can glirnpse that if the A is A
does not work, f would take further the problem of
identification. r indicate to you here and now that r will rnake
ny demonetration turn atound the function of the one; and in
order not to leave you conpretely in suspense and in order that
perhaps each one of you would envJ.sage beginning to formulate
something on the path of what r will say to you about it, r would
_(19) ask you to refer to the chapter in-de siussure's course in
Linguistics which ends on page tz5. Thls chapter endsjL-En- a
paragraph which begins on page 174 and r wilL read the following
paragraph of it:

"Applied to units, the principle of differentiation can be stated

in this way: the characteristics of the unit blend with the unit
itself. rn a tongue, as in any semiological system," this would
deserve a discussion, "whatevei distinguishes 6ne sign fron the
others constitutes it. Difference nakis character just as it
makes value and the unitrr. [English translation, pige 121].
rn other words, unlike the slgn - and you will see it confirmed
provLded you read this chaptei - what Eistinguishes the
signifier, is sinpfy beins-what the others aie not; that which,
in
-the signifier, impll.es-this function of, the unii, is precisily
to.be slnpry difference, rt is qua pure difference'that-the
unit, in its signifying functionl-Etluctures itself, cJnsttiutes
6.t2.6L

Seminar 4: t{ednesday 6 December 1951

Let us take up again our idea, nanely what I announced to you the
last time that f intended to nake pivot around the notion of the
1 our problem, that of Ldentification, it being alreaiY announced
that identification is not just sinply to make 1, I think that
this will not be difficult to adnit.

}|e are starting, as is nornal concerning identification, fron the

most connon node of access of subJective experience: that
expressed by what appears to be the essentially connunicable
experience, in the formula which, at first sight, does not appear
to give rLse to objections that A is A. I said: at first sight
because it is clear that, whatever nay be the degree of belief
involved in this fornula, I am not the first to raise obJections
to it; you have only to open the snallest treatise on logic in
order to encounter what difflculties the distincruo of this
fornula, in appearance the nost simpJ.e, gives rise to of itself.
You could even see that the greater part of the difftcuLtles
which are to be resolved in many domains - but it is particularly
striking that it should be in logic more than elsewhere - come
out of all the possible confusions wbich nay arise fron this
formuLa which lends itself in an eninent way to confusion. ff
you have, for ex'mple, sone difficulties, even some fatl"gue, in
(2) reading a text as exciting as Plato's Parmenides, it is in as
much as on this point of 'A ii A" let us say-that you lack a
littLe reflection, and in as much precisely that if I said above
that the "A is A" is a belief, you nust indeed understand it in
the way I told you: it is a belief which has certainly not always
reigned over out species, in as much as after all, the A indeed
began somewhere - I am speaking about A, the letter A - and that
it must not have been so easy to gain access to this kernel of
apparent certainty that there is in "A i9 A", when man did not
the A at his disposition.

I will tell you a little later the path onto which this
reflection may lead usl It would be well all the sane to be aware
of the new thing that amives erith the A; for the monent let us
content ourselves with sonethlng that our langruage here allows us
to articul.ate well: it is that rrA Ls A" appears to nean
sonething: it nakes a "signified" (ge1a fiit "signifi6"1.
I pose, very sure that I wiII not encounter on thia point any
opposition from anybody, and on this thene in a position of
conpetence which I put to the test through the testinonLes of
what can be read about the matter, as well as by challenginlt one
 6.L2.6L IV
6.L2.6L

reference.
or other mathenatician who Ls suffl.ciently fanl.lLar wtth his
It is here indeed that something else forces us to question
science to know where vte are at at the present tlme for example,
Ln all sorts of domains, that I will ourselves about the fact that the punctuation in which thls
and then nany others
in putting forward under certain presence to the world manlfests ltself is not sitnply inaginary,
encounter no opposition
which are preci.sely those to which I a.nt namely that already it is not at all to the other that we refer
conditions of explanation
ourselves here, but to this most intinate part of ourselves which
going to subnit myself before you, that "A 16 A" signifies
this nothl.ng (rien) that is going to be we try to make the anchoring point, the root, the foundation of
nothing. It is precisel.y
has a positive value because it what we are aa subjects. For, if we can articulate, ag we have
in guestion, because this nothing
indeed in done, on the imaginary plane, that ny dog recognises me as the
says what that signifies. l{e have in our experience,
same, we have not on the contrary any indicatl.on about the
our (3) analytic folklore, sonething, the J.nage never
explored, exploited, whlch is the gane of the little fashion in which she identl.fies herselfl in whatever way we may
sufficiently
picked (5) re-engage her within herself, we know nothing at a1l, we have
child so shrewdly out by Freud, perceived in such a
perspicaclous fashion in the Fort-Da. Let us take it up on our no proof, no testinony about the node under whlch she approaches
gince, fron up and rejected - the this identification. I t is indeed here that -there appears the
bwn account an obJEEET-ken
child in questlon is his grandson - Freud was able to glinpse the function, the value of the slgnifier same (nr6nre) as luch; and it
gesture gesture, is in the very measure that wi are dealing w:ilEE the subject that
inaugural in the gane. Let us remake this let
we have to question ourselves about the relationship of this
us take this ltttle object: a ping-pong baIl, I take it, I hide
identification of the subject with what is a different dinension
it, f show Lt to hin agaln; the ping-pong ball is the ping-pong
to everything that is the order of appearance and disappearance;
balI, but it is not a sigmifler, lt is an obJect, it is an
nanely the status of the signifier. That our experience shows us
approach to say: this llttle o ls a llttle o; there j.s between that the different nodes, the different angles under which we are
these two moments, which I indisputably identify ln a legitimate
led to identify ourselveg as subJecte, at least for some of us,
fashion, the disappearance of the ball; without that there :ls no
means for me to show it, there Ls nothlng fonned on the plane of supposes the sJ.gnifier to articulate it, even ruost often under an
the image. Therefore, the ball and a.mbiguous, improper, difficult-to-handle forn subJect to all
is always there I can faIl
into a cataleptic state looking at it. sorts of reservations and of distinctions which the rrA is Arr is,
this is what I want to draw your attention to and first of al.l
l{hat relationship is there between the "is" which unites two without dallying any longer show you that if we have the good
the
apparitions of the ball and this disappearance? fortune to take a further etep in this direction, it is by trying
intervening
to articulate this status of the signifier as such. I am
On the imaginary plane, you sense that at Least the guestion is indicating it right away: the signl.fier is not at all the sign.
posed of the relationship rris" with what seems indeed to It is with giving to this distinction its precise fornula that we
of this
cause it, are going to busy ourselves; I mean that it is to ehow nhere this
nanely the disappearance, and there you are close to
one of the eecrets difference lies that we can see arising fron the fact already
of the identiflcation which is the one to
given by our experience that it is fron the effect of the
whLch I tried to get you to refer in the folklore of
identification: signifier that the subject as sucb emerges. Uetonlmical effect,
thls spontaneous assumption by the subject of the
identity quLte netaphorical effect, we do not yet know and perhaps there is
of two appearances which are nevertheless
different. something already articulatable before these effects which allows
Remember the story of the dead farn owner whom his
servant rediscovers in the body of the mouse. us to see dawning, being forned in a relationship, in a link, the
The relationship
(4) of this "it l-s hin" wlth the'rit dependence of the subject as such with respect to the signifier.
is hirn again", thLs is whit (6) ?his is what we are going to see by putting
for us gives its nodel and its register to the nost sinple it to the test.
experience of identification. Him, then hin again, there ie To anticipate what I an trying here to make you grasp, to
here the being-perspective of the guestionl in 'rhim againrr, Lt is anticipate it in a ehort inage to which it is only a natter of
the same being who appears. giving again a sort of value as a support, as a apolo€fue, you
As regards the other, in short, it
is all right like that, it is satisfactory; should measure the difference between the fol.lowing which is
for my dog whorn f
took the other day as a term of reference, going at first perhaps to appear to you as a play on words - but
as I told you, it is
all right; this reference to bel.ng, Ls suffieiently,
precisely it is one - there ls the footprint (Ia trace d,un pas).
its seems, AlreadyI1edyoual.ongthistral.l,strong1ytffi
supported by her sense of smell; in the lnagLnary field the precisely correl.ative to the tine where there begins to be
?YPport of being is easily conceivable: it is a natter of knowing articulated in thinking the function of the subject as guch:
if it is effectively this sinpre retationship that we are dearin!
with in our experience of ldentification. t{hen we speak about
Robinson crusoe in front of the footprint which ghows him that on
our, experience of being, the island he is not alone. The distance which separates this
it 5.s not at all for nothing that a pls from what the pas as instrument
whole effort of a thought which l-s our own contemporiry one, is of negation has become
going to formulate phonetically, these are two extreues of the chain that here f ask
something wtrose centrepiece f never-shifi
ltithout a certain snire, this Dasein, thii you to hold onto before showing you effectJ.vely what constitutes
fundrnental node of
our-experience Ln which there nEstTe designated the centrepiece it and that it is between the [w6 extrenlties 6t ttre chain that
giving every access to thic term of being, as a primary
 6.L2,6L IV
6.t2.6t IV

at a certain moment: we are in a etate of war. This lnvolves

conditions of things which are a little bit different, this is
the subJect can emerge and nowhere else. what Peguy called that pegs no longer fittedl into
"the little the
little holes". rt is a Pdguy-type deiinition, nanely that it is
By grasping it, we wl.ll manage to relativise sonethtng in such a
rrA is not at all certain: one could even sustain the contrary, nanely
way that you can considet this fornula A" ltself as a sort pegs back in
that it ls precisely in order to put the little
of stigrma, f mean in its character of belief as the afflrrnation their real little holes that war beglns, or on the contrary it ls
of what I would call an epoch: epoch, nonent, parenthesJ"s, pegs, and so on.
to nake new little holes for the oId ltttle
historical term after all whose field we can glimpse - as you
- uoreover this has strictly no interest for us, except that this
will see as linited. pursuit whatever it may be Ls acconplished with a renarkable
efficacity by means of the noet profound inbecility, something
t{hat I called the other day an indicatlon, which will remaln
of the
which ought equally make us reflect on the function
still only an indication of, the identity of thie false coherence
subJect with respect to the effects of the slgnifier.
of the "A is A" with what I called a theological era, will allow
r€, I believe, to take a Etep ln what is at stake concerning the
(9) But fet us take something sinple, and let us finish with it
problen of identification, in so far ae analysis requires that it
guickly. If r say rrmy gfrandfather is ny grandfathet" you should
(71 should be posed, with respect to a certain accession to the grasp here that there is no tautology:
a1l the sane fully that ny
identical, as the transcendent A [l'Autre?]. grandfather, the first tern Ls an lndex usage of the term rruty
grandfather", which is not tangibly diff,erent fron his proper
This fecundity, this sort of deternLnation which is suspended nalne, for exanple Emile Lacan, nor of the'rC"'either of the
from thLs signified of "A is A" could not repose on its truth, when I point hin out when he enters a room: "C'est mon
because this affirmatLon is not true. tlhat it is a question of "c'est"
gE-nfirpire". rlis does not nean tbat his proper name-TE-EFE-Eane
reaching in what I rm striving to formulate before you, j.s that '!crrr, of this
thing as this is ny grandf,ather. One is stupefied
this fecundity reposes precisely on the objective fact - I enploy that-a logician liie Ruffithat the prop-er nane
objective there in the sense that lt hae for example in belongs to the sane category, to the sarne signifying class as the
Deecartesr text: "r{hen one goes a llttle further, one sees the thLs, that or it, under the pretext that they are susceptible to
distinctLon arising as tegards the Ldeas between their actual the same functional usage in certain caseB. This is a
reality and their objective reality'r, and naturally professors parenthesis, but Like all ny parentheses, a parenthesis designed
produce very learned volunes for us such as a Scholastico- to be rediscovered further on in connection with the status of
Cartesian index in order to tell us sonething that seems here for the proper n:ure of which we will. not speak today.
the rest of us, since God knows we are very Bmart, a little
confused, that this is a legacy of Scholasticisn by means of In any case, what Ls in question in "ny grandfather is ny
which it is believed that everything is explained. I mean that grandfather" petit bourgeois that this
means that the execrable
one has spared oneself what Ls really involved, naroely: why was, this horrible personage-Eh-anks-Eo-FEon r acceded
Descattes the anti-Scholastic, was led for his part to make use lentlenan
at an early age to this function of cursing God, this personage
again of these old props. ft seens that it does not come so is exactly the sane as the one who is posted on the civil
easily to the mind of even the better historlans that the only register as being denonstrated by the bonds of marriage to be the
interesting thing is what made it necessary for hirn to wheel them father of ny father, in as much as it is precisely the birth of
out again. It is quite clear that it is not in order to remake the latter that is at stake in the act in question. y o u Eee
anew the argrument of St Anseln that he drags all of this out therefore the degree to whicb "ny grandfather is ny grandfather"
again into the forefront of the stage. The objective fact that
t ' A r r , is not at al.l. a tautology. This applies to aII tautologies and
"A" cannot be this :ls what f would f irst of all like to this does not at all give their unlvocal forrnula, because here it
highlight for you; precisely in order to nake you understand that is a question of a relationship of the real to the slmbolic; in
it is with something which has a relationship with this objective (10) other cases there will be a relationship of the imaginary to
fact that sre are dealing and this up to the false signified- the slmbolic, you go the whole
(8) effect and would have to through sequence
which is only a shadow h-re and, aB a conseguence, of permutations in order to see which are valid. f cannot engage
which Leavee us attached to this apontaneity that therC is in the
ttA myself along this path because if I talk to you about this which
iB A,t.
is in a way a nethod of excluding false tautologies which are
sinpJ.y the pernanent current usage of the language, it is in
That the signifier has a fecundity because it is never in any order to tell you that this ls not what f mean. ff f pose that
case Ldentical to itself, understind clearry here what r mean: it there is no tautology possible, it is not in so far as the first
is quite clear that r am not in the processl even though tt would A and the second A nean different things that I say that there is
be worth the trouble in passing to dietinguish it fron it, of
poLnting no tautology, it is in the very status of A that there is
out to you that there-Ls no tautorogy in the fact, of
saying that inscribed that A cannot be A, and it was on this that f ended my
"erar is $rar". Everyone knows thit: when one says dLscourse the last tine by designating for you in Saussure the
"war ls t{ar", one is sayLng sonlthing, one does not know exictry point where it is sai.d that A as slgnifier
what moreover, cannot in any way be
but one -an-seek it, oire can find it and one finds
it very easlly within hand's reachi that means: that which begins
 6,L2.6L IV
6.L2.6L IV

colunn here is the calll.graphy of thig sentence whlch meane "the

deflned except by not being what the other signifiers are. shadow of my hat dances and trenbleg on the flowers of Hal Tang"l
on the other side, you see the sane gentence written in the usual
From this fact, that it cannot be defined except precisely by not characters, those which are the nost legitinate, those that the
being all the other signJ.fiers, on this there depends this stunbling gtudent nakes when he nakes hig characterg correctly:
dimension that it ie equally true that it cannot be itself. It these two series are perfectly identiflable and at the sane time
is not enough to put Lt forward ln thls way in this opaque they do not resenble one another !t all. Notice that it is in
fashion precisely because lt surprises, it upeets, this bel.lef the clearest fashion in so far as they do not resenble one
suspended on the fact that thls ls the real support of identity: another at all that there are gulte obviously froro top to botton
you nust be got to sense it. on the rLght and on the left, the aane s€ven charactere, even f,or
someone who has no Ldea not alone about Chinese characters, but
l{hat then is a sl.gnifier? no ldea up to now tbat there were thlngs which were called
Chinese characters. If soneone discovers that for the first tlne
If everybody, and not alone the J.oglcians speak about A when it drawn sornewhere in a desert, he will see that on the right and on
is a question of I'A is A", it is not after all by chance. It is the left Lt ls the sa.me characters that are in guestion and the
because in order to eupport what one desires, a Letter is same geries of, characters on the right and on the left.
neceasary. You will grant me this, I think, but noreover f do
(11) not hold this leap to be decisive except for the fact that (13) This to introduce you to what constitutes the essence of the
ny discourse cross-checks r{ith it, denonstrates it in a signifier and which it is not for nothing that f will illustrate
sufficLentJ.y superahundant fashLon for you to be convinced. of it; best in its sinplest form which is what we have been designating
and you will be a1l the more convinced because I anr goJ.ng to try for sone tine as the e_inziger Zug. The einziger Zug which is
to show you in the letter precisely thts essence of the signifl.er whar gives ro this funcEl6;j-E-alue, iEE acfE;i[-TEs
through whl.ch it is distinguished fron the sign. nainspring, this is what nakeg Lt necessary, ln order to
dissipate the confuEion that nay renain here, for me to introduce
I did sonething for you last Saturday in ny house in the country in order to express it in the best and closest possible way thl,s
where f have hanging on the wall what ie called a Chinese term which is not at all an neologrism, which is used in what is
calligraph. If it were not Chinese, I would not have hung it on called set theory: the word unary (unaire) Lnstead of the word
ny wal.l for the reason that it is only in China that the single (unique). At the very leist-iE-TE usef,ul for ne to make
calligraph has taken on a value as an object drart: it ls the use of it today in order to nake you properly sense this core
same thing as having a painting, it ha-EEd s6frrice. Thele that is in guestion in the distinction of the etatus of the
are the sane differences and perhaps even nore between one signifier. This unary trait, therefore, whether it is vertical
writing and another in our culture aa in Chinese culture, but we llke here - we calL that drawing strokes - or whether it is, as
do not attach the eame price to it. On the other hand, I will the Chinese do it, horlzontal, it night seen that its exenplary
have occasion to show you what can nask from us the val.ue of the function is linked to the extrene red,uction, precisely with
letter which, because of the particular status of the Chinese regard to it, of all the opportunites for qualJ.tative difference.
character, is particularly weII hlghlighted ln this character. I mean that fron the nonent when I nust sinply nake a trait,
t{hat r arn going to show you only tikes on its full and most exact there are not, it seens, many varieties nor niny variations.
position from a certain reflection about what the Chinege This is what gives it its privileged value for us, disabuee
character ie: I already all the same nade allueion enough on yourselves: just as it was not a natter earlier in order to
occasions to the chlnese discover what was in question Ln tbe fornula: ,'there is no
character and to itg status foi you to
know that to call it ideographic is not at all sufficient. I tautology" of pursuing tautology there preciseJ.y where it did not
will show tt to you perhaps in greater detail, this moreover is exist, so now it is not a matter here of diacerning what I called
what it has in common with everything that Ls carl.ed J.deographic, the perfectly graspable character of the statug of the signifier
there is properJ.y speaking nothing whicn nerits this tern-in- the whatever it nay be, A or another one, in the fact that sonething
sense in whLch one inagines it habitually, r wourd say almost in its structure night elinl.nate tlrese diff,erences. r call thei
specifically in the sense that de saussuie's little sEhena, wJ.th qualitative becauee it is this teru that the logicians use when
arbor and the tree drawn underneath, (141 it is a guestion of defining identity by the elinination of
etilr sustains tt ttrr6ugh a
JT2]-tcina of inprudence wtrictr-is whit nisunaeisi"iiai"g"-;;d-- qualitative differences by reducing then ls one night say to a
confusions attach thenselves to. sinplifled schema: this is supposed to be the nainipring of this
recognition characteristic of our apprehension of what ig the
I{hat I want to show you here, I nade two cxanples of. I wag support of the signifier, the letter.
brought at the sane tine a new littre instn:nint that certain
painters make a rot of, whLch is a sort of thick brush where the That is not it at aLI, this is not what is in guestion. Because
ink comes fron inside which arlows the traits to be traced, out if r make a line of strokes, it ls quite cLear that, however welr
with a worthwhile thickness and consistency. The result is that r tSIt aPprY qyBelf, there will not be a eingle one like any
r copied much more easily than r nould noriratly have done the another and r would say more: they are alr the more conviniing as
forn that the characters on ny calligraph havel in the left hand
 5.!2.6L IV
6.L2.6t

reproduction? I mean that, in Ie Cuviar which I have at my

have not applied myself so country house, I have extrenely remarkable engravlngs of
a line of strokes in that precisely f
alike. foseilized skeletons which are made by consumnate artists, these
nuch to make then rigorously
are no better than this snall reduction of a horse'e skulL
sculptured in bone which is of such an anatonical exactitude that
Since I have been trying to fornuLate for you what I an in the
process of forrnulatLng at the monent, I have guestioned-myself not only is it convincing: it is rlgorous.
wittr the neans at tny disposal, namely those which are given to
t{ell then it is only rnuch later that we find the trace of
everyone, about something whicb after aL} is not inmedtately
a line of strokes? sonething which belongs unanbiguously to the slgnlfier.
obvi6us: at what noment does one see appearing
I was in a really extraordinary place whose emptiness perhaps
and this signifier is all alone, because I do not intend giving,
after all through rny remarks I am going to draw people to
for want of, information, a special neanlng to this little
animate, I mean that sone of you are going to ruah over there, I
it is increased gap that there is some place in this line of strokesl
mean the uruseum of Saint-Gerniin. It is fasclnating,
the more Bo lf you try alJ' the same it is possible, but I can Bay nothing about it. l{hat I mean, on
exciting and it will be all
which I arn
the contrary, is that here we see arising sonething
to find someone who wag already there befora you because there is
to know not saying is the first appearance, but Ln any case a certaln
no catalogue, no plan and it is conpletely inpossible
(L7') appearance of Eonething which you see is altogether
where and who and what, and to flnd out where one is in thig
dlstingruished from what can be deslgnated as a qualitative
serieg of rooms. There is a room which ls called La Salle
difference: each one of thege traite is not at all identical to
Piette, fron the name of the JustLce of the Peace who wag a that
its neighbour, but it ig not because they are different they
(15) genius and who nade the nost fantastic dlscoveries about
function as different, but because the aignifying difference is
pre-history, f mean fron sone tiny objects, in general of a very
distinct fron anything that refers to qualitative difference, as
snal1 size, which are the nost fascinating things that you could I have Just shown you with the little things that I have Just
see. And to hold in one's hand the little head of a woman whl.ch circulated before y o u .
is certainLy about 301000 years oLd has all the satre its value,
besides the fact that this head is full of questions. But you
difference can even on occasion underline the
can see in a glass case - it is very easy to see, because thanks Qualitative
signifying saneness. This saneness is constituted precisely by
to the testanentary dispositions of this renarkable man they are
the fact that the signifier as such serves to connote difference
absolutely obltged to leave everything in tbe greatest possible
in the pure state, and the proof is that at its first appearance
dLsorder with conpletely out-of-date showcards on the objects,
the one nranifestly designates nultipltcity as such. fn other
they have succeeded all the sane in puttlng on a piece of plastic words,
something whLch allows I atn a hunter becauge norr we have been carried to the
to be distlnguished the value of certain level 4.
of ltagdalenian God knows that catching an aninal was
of these obJects. How can I teII you the enotion that I felt not any more sirnple at that epoch than it is in our own day for
when bending over one of these glass cases I saw on a thin
those who are called Bushnen, and it waa qulte an adventurc! It
rib-bone, obviously the rib of a manmal - I do not really know seems indeed that after having wounded the beast it was necessary
which one, and I do not know whether anyone would know better to track it for a long tine in order to see it succulrb to what
than f, a type of Cervide deer - a series of little strokes: was the effect of the poison. I kill one of them, it is an
first two, then a little interval and afterwards five, and then adventure, I kill another of then, it is a second adventure which
it reconnences. There, f said to nyself addressing myself by my
ghort I can distinguish by certain traits fron the first, but which
secret or ny public nane, this Lg why in Jacgues Lacan your resenbles it essentially by being narked with the same general
daughter is not mute, this is why your daughter is your daughter, line. At the fourth, there uay be sone confusion: what
because lf we were mute she would not be your daughter.
Obvlously, distinguishes it fron the second, for exanple. At the twentieth,
there ls some advantage in this, even living in a
world very like how will I know where f an, or will I even know that f have had
that of a unLversal asylun of nadmen, a no less twenty of then?
certain conseguence of the existence of signifiers, as you are
going to see.
(18) The Marguis de Sade at the Rue Paradis in Marseille, locked
up with his little va,let, proceeded in the sane way for the
These strokeE which only appear much later, several thousand
(16) years after eJaculations (coups), even though varied in different ways, that
nen kniw how to nake obJeits of a reallstic he got off in EhE-Eonpany of this partner,
exactitude, even with sonE
when at the AurignacLan epoch bisons were nade which confederates
are beyond anythl.ng who themselves were varied Ln different ways. This
from the polnt of view of the art of the exempJ.ary nan, whose relationships
painter to desire nust surely have
that we have yet been able to achieve! But what Is raore, been marked by sone unusual ardour,
at the sane epoch people nade in bone on a very small scale, whatever one might think,
a marked on the head of hJ.s bed, it Is said, by little traits each
reproduction of something that lt night not seem one should have
taken so nuch trouble
one of the eJaculations - to give them their nane - that he
over because ii is a reproduction of managed to achieve in this probationary
sgmething el-se Ln bone but which Ls nuch bigg-r: sort of singrular retreat.
a horse's skurl. Undoubtedl.y one nust oneself, be well engaged in the adventure
tlhy redo in bone on a small seale, when reatty of
one imagines that
at that epoch they had other things to be doing, this rtratchress
 6. t z . 6 L 11
5.12.6L IV 10

sign, we are told, is to represent sonethLng for someone: the

desire, at lcast according to everythlng that ordinary things someone is there as a support for the sign. The first definition
teach us about the noet ordinary experience of people, in order that one can give of a someone is: someone who is accessible to a
to have such a need to locate oneself in the Beguence of one'g sign. ft is the most eleuentary form, if one can express oneself
sexual acconplishnents: it is nevertheless not unthinkable that in that way of subjectivity; there ls no object at all here yet,
at certain favourable epochs of life sonething can become hazy there is something different: the sign, which represents this
about the exact point that one ig at in terns of decimal something for someone. A signifier is distingruished from a sign
enumeration. flrst of all in this whlch is what I tried to get you to sense:
the fact is that signifiers only manifest at first the presence
tlhat is in guestion in the notch, in the notched trait, is of difference aB such and nothing else. The first thing
something of which we cannot help seeing that here there arises therefore that it inplles is that the relationship of the sign to
something new with lespect to what one could call the imrnanence the thing should be effaced:
of any egsential action whatsoever. Thls being whon we can
inagine to be still lacking thls nethod of location, what wLll he sonething S these ones of the
Magdalenian bone, it would be a
do, after a time which is rather ghort and linlted by intul.tion, very clever nan who could tell you
in order not to Benae hinself simply solldary with a preeent what they were the sign of. And
which is always easily renewable where nothing allows hin any w€r thank God, are advanced
longer to discern what exists as difference in the real. ft is enough since Magdalenian 4 for you
- - to perceive the following - which for you has the sare sort no
not at all sufficient to say thl.s is already quite obvious [A
(19) that thls difference is j.n the livJ.ng experl.ence of the doubt of naive obviousness, allow ne to tell you that J.s A",
subject just as it is not at all euf,f,icl.ent to say: "But all the nanely that, as you were taught in school, you cannot add up
same such and such a person ig not me". It is not slmply because oranges and apples, peals with carrots and so on, is a conplete
Laplanche has hair like that and that I have hair like this and error; this only begins to be true when one starts from a
that his eyes are a certain (21) definition of addition which supposes, I assure you, a
way and, that he has not got quite the
same sniLe as me, that he is different. ntrmber of axioms which would be enough to cover this whole
section of the blackboard.
You will say: "Laplanche is Laplanche and Lacan is Lacan". But
it is precisely there that the whole question lies, since At the level at which things are taken in our own day in
precisely in anal.ysis tha guestlon nathematical reflection, specifically to call It by its name in
is posed whether Laplanche is
not the thought of Lacan and if Lacan is not the belng of set theory, it is not possible in the nost fundarnental
Laplanche or inversely. The questlon operations, such as, for exanple, a union or an intersection,
is not sufficiently
resolved in the real. there would be no guestion of posing such exorbitant conditions
ft ls the slgnifier which settles lt, it
is it that introduces difference for the validity of operations. You can very well add up what
ag such into the real, and you want at the level
precisely in the measure in that what Ls involved of a certain register for the sinple reason
are not at all that what is involved
qualltative diff erences. in a Eet, is, as was well expressed by one
of the theoreticians speculating on one of these eo-called
paradoxes: it is not a matter of objects, or of things, Lt is a
But then if the sl-gnifier, ln its function of difference, Ls
sonething question of 1 very exactLy in what one calls the elenent of sets.
whl.ch presents itself thus Ln the modc of the paradox
of bel.ng precisely This is not sufficiently renarked on in the text to which f
different because of this difference whictr
would be based or not on siniLarity, allude for a celebrated reason: it is because precisely this
of being something other
which is distinct and as regrards which - r r-peat - we can very reflection on what a 1 is is not well elaborated even by those
well suppose, because we have them within who in the nost modern mathematical theory nevertheless make of
our reach, that there it the clearest,
are beings- who are alive and tolerate the nost nanifest usage.
very well conpletely
ignoring_ this sort of difference which ceitainly, for exampre, is
not at all This 1 as such, ln so far as it narks pure difference, it is to
accessible to rny dog, and I will not show you
innediately - because r will gh6w it to you in greatei it that we are going to refer to put to the test, at our next
detail and neeting
in a more articulated - that it is indeed for that the relatlonship of the subject to the signifier. ft
fashion reason
that apparently will first of all be necessary for us to distinguish the
the only thing that she does not know, is that
she herself signifier fron the sign and for us to show in what sense the step-
is. And that she-hereelf is, we ought to search for 'reffacons,'
the nrode under which thls taken is that of the effaced, thing: the different if
is appended to this sort of distinction you will
y!i:t, is particularly allow ne to use this formuta, in which the-E$-nllffer
manifest- in the unary trait in so far as (22, comes to birth,
(20) what distinguishes wiII give us precisely the najor nrodes of
it is not at all ai id.entity of the nanifestation
resernblance, it is something e1se. of the subJect. A1ready, to indicate to you,
to remind you of the formulae under which I noted for you for
l{hat is this other exanple the function of metonyny, the big s function in so far as
thing?
it is ln a chain which ts conlinued by SirS"rS",, etc... this
It is this: it is that the signifier is not at all a sign. A
 L3.LZ.6L
6.L2.6L IV L2

1 s srhat ought to give us the effect that:

f s st stt srt| .....etc

f (S, s', S"... ) = s( ) s

r called that of the peu-de-sens, J.n so far as the mJ.nus sign Seninar 5: tlednesday 13 Decenber 1961
designates, connotes a certain node of appearance of the
signifled as it results fron the p - uttlng- Lnto functlon of s the
slgnifier in a signifying chain. S( - j s tlonas eeti kathen hekaeton ton outon
Arithmog de to ek nonadon synkeinenon plethos
lfe will put it to the test of a substl.tution for these s and sr Euclid-Elenents4VIf.
of 1 in so far as precLsely this operatLon is guLte legl-timate,
and you know lt better than anybody, you for whora repelitlon ii
the basis of your experience: what-ionstttutes the c6re of This sentence is a sentence borrowed fron the beginning of the
repetition, of the automatl.sm of repetitlon for your exper:lence seventh book of Euclid'e Elenentg and appeared to ne, taltng
is not that it Ls arways the same tLing which is-intereittng, everything into consJ.deraEl6i-f-Ehe best-6ne t found i,o exprErr,
it. is why ther-e is repeated gomethtng 6f, whl.ch precisery thE on the nathematical plane, this function to which I wished to
subJect fron the polnt of vLew of hti bl.ologl.cat confori has not draw your attention tbe last tlme, of the 1 in our problen. It
-- as you know - really-any strLct need as r-gards the repetitions is not that I had to search for Lt, that I had trouble findlng
that we have to deal wLth, nanely the stLcki-st, the nrosi arnong the nathernatlcians sonething which referred to Lt: the
alloying, the nost srmptonogenic-repetitLons. irrts is where your mathenaticians, at least some of then, those who at every epoch
(23) attention should be dtiected iir order to uncover in it as have been in the forefront of the exploitation of their field,
such the incidence of the function of the slgnifier. have concerned theneelves a lot wtth the etatus of, the unit
(l'unit6), but they are far fron all having arrived at equally
How can it_happe3, this typlcal rerationghip to the subject satl.sfying fornulael it even seems that, for sone of them, in
constituted by the existence of the sl.gnifier as such, i,he only their definitions it went right in the opposite direction to the
possible support of what is for us originally the expirience oi appropriate one.
repetition?
fn any case, I an not unhappy to think that goneone like Euclid
Dtill. r stop there or wilr r already indicate to you how the who all the same in the matter of nathematics cannot be
formula of the sign must be nodiftld in order to grasp, to eonsidered otherwise than as from the right stock, ahould give
understand what ig in guestion in the advent of tf,e siinifter. this fonaula, whlch J.s preclsely all the nora remarkable because
The signifier, as opposed to the sign, is not what repiesents it is articulated by a geometer, that what the unit is - because
something for someone, it is what repiesente preciseljr the (2) this is the neaning of the word nonas: it is the unit in the
subject for another signifier; uy aoi rs on tire lookoit for signs precise sense in which I tried to deEignlte it for you the last
and then she speaks, in tlre way you fnow, why Is her speech not a time under the designatlon of what I called, I wil.L cone back
ranguage; because precisely-r an for her son-thlng whilh can give again on the reason why I called it that: the unary tralt; the
her signs, but who cannot give her any signifier. unary trait in so far as it ig the support as such of
difference, this indeed is the neaning that nonas has here. It
The distinction between speech (la parole), as it can exist a
-t cannot have a different one, as the rest of the text is going to
the preverbal lever and llngruag;-co"fiElFEs'precisely in trrrs show you.
emergence of the function of the signifier.
Honas, na.nely this unit in the sense of the unary trait which I
indicate here to you as cross-checklng with, as highlighting in
its function what we manal;ed last year in the field of our
experience to locate in the very text of Freud as the eiqziger
Zug, that through which every belng ls said to be a OnFffi-the
ambiguity that is brought by thLs en, the neuter of eis which
neans One in Greek, being precl.sely what can be enployed in Greek
as in French to designate the function of unity in so far as lt
is this factor of consistency through which something is
dietinguished fron what surrounds it, makes a whole, a One in the
unitary sense of the functionl therefore it is through the