In 1970, Lacan argues that he always wanted someone to make a hole in the paternal metaphor. He himself had made this attempt a few years earlier by pluralizing the Name-of-the-Father, but he was “gagged”[1], as he said. Despite this fact, the Oedipus becomes a residual myth for Lacan, a myth that will not hold up, Freud’s dream, something lame. From “Family complexes in the formation of the individual”[2] until the end of his teaching, we see this dimension of the Oedipus.
In the Seminar R.S.I., Lacan tried to do without the Name-of-the-Father. He argues that to do without the Oedipus complex, the real must overcome the symbolic in two points. He specifies: “it is not a question of a change of order, a change of plan, between the real and the symbolic – it is simply that they knot differently. Because, to knot differently, is what makes the essential of the Oedipus Complex and this is what analysis operates on.”[3] However, not only does he not specify what this different knotting consists of, but at the end of the seminar, he unknots the symbolic and the real to knot them with the Name-of-the-Father.
In this seminar, we witness various elaborations concerning the question of the father. The universal paternal is put in question. “Normality is not the paternal virtue par excellence”[4], he affirms. Thus, he will evoke the paternal père-version. This père-version is the only guarantee of the father function for him, which is none other than the function of the symptom. Père-version and symptom are two major characteristics that he attributes to the function of the father. Lacan hears the function of the symptom as a mathematical formulation: F(x). In the place of x, various elements can be placed. The x “is that which from the unconscious can be translated by a letter”[5], he specifies.
The symptom is something in which we believe. We seek analysis precisely because we believe that the symptom means something, that it is to be deciphered. Likewise, the father is a question of faith and implies belief. In the Seminar From an other to the Other, Lacan affirms: “The essence and function of the father as Name, as pivot of discourse, precisely holds in this, that after all, we can never know who the father is. Always go looking, it is a question of faith.”[6]
In The Sinthome, he invites us to use it without believing in it[7]. The Name-of-the-father acquires a functional status of knotting. The challenge is now to use the Name-of-the-Father pragmatically, without believing in it theoretically.
To do without it on condition that one uses it, constitutes a devaluation of the Name-of-the-Father. This devaluation is, according to Jacques-Alain Miller, a devaluation of the Name-of-the-Father “to the rank of a pragmatic instrument”[8], which constitutes the key of the clinic. We can do without believing in the Name-of-the-Father but continue to use it, to resolve the opaque jouissance of the symptom. To resolve it, J.-A. Miller says that it is necessary to become the dupe of the father[9].
The Name-of-the-Father is an S1 that allows jouissance to be made legible. But the steps that J.-A. Miller invites us to take, is to think jouissance without S1. It is an illegible, unnameable jouissance. This is in fact the essence of jouissance.
References from the author:
[1] Lacan J., The Seminar, Book XVII, The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, edited by J.-A. Miller, translated by R. Grigg, New York/London, W.W. Norton, 2007, p. 109.
[2] Lacan J., « Les Complexes familiaux dans la formation de l’individu », Autres écrits, Paris, Seuil, 2001, p. 23-84. [Our translation]
[3] Lacan J., Le Séminaire, livre XXII, « R.S.I. », leçon du 14 janvier 1975, Ornicar ?, n°3, 1975, p. 103. [Our translation]
[4] Ibid., leçon du 21 janvier 1975, p. 108. [Our translation]
[5] Ibid., p. 107. [Our translation]
[6] Lacan J., Le Séminaire, livre XVI, D’un Autre à l’autre, texte établi par J.-A. Miller, Paris, Seuil, 2006, p. 152. [Our translation]
[7] Cf. Lacan J., The Seminar, Book XXIII, The Sinthome, edited by J.-A. Miller, translated by A. Price, Cambridge/Malden, Polity Press, 2016, p. 116.
[8] Miller J.-A., « L’orientation lacanienne. Tout le monde est fou », enseignement prononcé dans le cadre du département de psychanalyse de l’université Paris 8, leçon du 14 mai 2008, inédit. [Our translation]
[9] Ibid. [Our translation]
Translation: Tracy Hoijer-Favre
Proofreading: Caroline Heanue
Picture : © Pascale Simonet
