From: "Che Vuoi?" <aphanisis-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: $
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 00:14:52 PST


Ashley Whitney wrote:

The Subject is not the Signifier. The signifier erupts from the real at
the signified of the Other. It only becomes known to the subject that
the Other is <italic>barré</italic> (that 'words fail', that it is
'literally impossible to say it all'), like the subject, after the
'stroke' of the drive. If anything, the subject is barred by the
introduction of the signifier (i(a)->O) and the<italic>
Nachtr=E4glichkeit </italic>by which it takes a signified.

  You have not questioned Lacan. You cannot read him.

Perhaps, I have not questioned Lacan. But as far as reading him I assure 
you I do nothing but. I didn't say the subject is the signifier, I said 
"the signifier crossed by the stroke of the drive." And because I read 
Lacan, I have some quotes for you to explain to the list and to me who 
would like to know where Lacan talks about this mysterious "signified of 
the Other," and how exactly the "signifer erupts from the real"--this 
reference I have got to have! You don't mean _Television_, do you? 
That's what you paraphrase badly, but there Lacan is talking, if I am 
not mistaken about "truth!" And that final thing, about the subject 
having a signified, really? Where exactly did you find that? [And to 
make it easy for you, I will assure you, that I will not respond with 
further references (You will have the last word (!) since "les mots y 
manque") I will simply proceed to read!

For my part, I will refer you chapters 16 and 17 of Four Fundamental 
concepts, from where the passages that I think require your comments, 
especially in view of the fact that you obviously CAN read Lacan.

Let's see:

   Everything emerges from the structure of the signifier. This 
structure is based on what I first called the function of the cut 
[reference to page 26 for those who are wondering] and which is now 
articulated, in the development of my discourse, as the function of the 
rim.
   The relationship of the subjet to the Other is entirely produced in a 
process of gap. Without this, anything could be there. 
...


What must be stressed at the outset is that a signifier is that which 
represents a subject for another signifier.
   The signifier, producing itself in the field of the Other, makes 
manifest the subject of its signification. But it functions as a 
signifier only to reduce the subject in question to be being no more 
than a signifier, to petrify the subject in the same movement in which 
it calls the subject to function, to speak, as subject. There strictly 
speaking, is the temporal pulsation in which is established that which 
is the characteristic of the departure of the unconscious as such--the 
closing. (206-207)

I can't sit here and type all night so I will assume that you will read 
the rest of chapter 16 (all about the vel  and aphanisis--it's not for 
nothing I chose my e-mail address as I did), so that you can get to the 
discussion of Vorstellungsrepresentanz (with s noted).

   The signifier constitutes the central point of the Urverdragung--of 
what, from having passed into the unconscious, will be, as Freud 
indicates in his theory, the point of Anziehung, the point of 
attraction, through which all the other repressions will be possible, 
all other similar passages in the locus of the Underdruckt, of what has 
passed underneath as signifier. This is what is involved in the term 
Vorstellungsreprasentanz.
   That by which the subject finds the return way of the vel of 
alienation is the operation I called, the other day, separation. By 
separation, the subject finds, one might say, the weak point of the 
primal dyad of the signifying articulation, in so far as it is 
alienating in essense. It is in the interval between these two 
signifiers that resides the desire offered to the mapping of the subject 
in the experience of the discourse of the Other, of the first Other he 
has to deal with, let us say, by way of illustration with the mother. 
(218)

By the way have you read "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious" 
(Ecrits), what is this thing with signifieds you have? Or via Frege and 
Arithmetic, have you taken a look at Jacques-Alain Miller's "Suture 
(elements of the logic of the 	signifier)." (Screen (1977-78), vol. 18, 
no. 4)?

Anyway, I am waiting with ba(i)ted breath, for your references--don't 
worry I can read french--and have over the years accumulated several of 
the pirated seminars, I am in other words ready to read!

I would apologize for such a lengthy post on Lacan, it is afterall 
merely ego that prompted this, but then what's a drop of ego in an 
ocean? 


[As for dark woods, etc., etc., the question is not simply to speak, not 
even in terms of a rubric (i.e. Bataille, Lacan, Heidegger, I don't care 
who), the question is "What is the stake?" For some it's lofty, they are 
in love (with who it's unclear, but that is again beside the point), for 
some it's base, they want to "talk (academic) shop." The rest? I don't 
know ... but sometimes, with Bataille (and Heidegger),  the only thing 
worth maintaining is silence 
...........................................................................................................] 



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