Changes

When [[Lacan]] first begins to use the term, in the 1930s, it is not very salient, and refers simply to "other people." [[Lacan]] seems to have borrowed the term from [[Hegel]], to whose work [[Lacan]] was introduced in a series of lectures given by [[Alexandre Kojève]] in 1933-9.

In 1955, [[Lacan]] draws a distinction between the "[[little other]]" and the "[[big Other]]" ("the [[Other]]"), a distinction which remains central throughout the rest of his work.<ref>{{S2}} Chapter 19</ref> Thereafter, in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]], the [[big Other]] is designated '''A''' (upper case, for [[French]] ''[[Other|Autre]]'') and the [[little other]] is deisgnated <i>'''a'''</i> (lower case italicized, for [[French]] ''[[Other|autre]]''). [[Lacan]] asserts that an awareness of this distinction is fundamental to [[analytic treatment|analytic practice]]: the [[analyst]] must be "thoroughly imbued" with the difference between '''A''' and <i>'''a'''</i>,<ref>{{E}} p. 140</ref> so that he can situate himself in the place of [[Other]], and not of the [[other]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 454</ref>

The [[little other]] is the [[other]] who is not, in fact, [[other]], but a [[reflection]] or [[projection]] of the [[ego]].<ref>This is why the symbol a can represent the little other and the ego interchangeably in [[schema L]].</ref> It is simultaneously the [[counterpart]] and the [[specular image]]. The [[little other]] is inscribed in the [[imaginary]] [[order]] as both the [[counterpart]] and the [[specular image]].

The [[big Other]] designates radical [[alterity]], an [[otherness]] which transcends the [[illusory]] [[other|otherness]] of the [[imaginary]] because it cannot be assimilated through [[identification]]. [[Lacan]] equates the [[big Other]] with [[language]] and the [[law]], and hence the [[big Other]] is inscribed in the [[symbolic]] [[order]]. Indeed, the [[big Other]] ''is'' the [[symbolic]] insofar as it is particularized for each [[subject]]. Thus, the [[Other]] is both another [[subject]] in its radical [[alterity]] and unassimilable uniqueness and also the [[symbolic]] [[order]] which mediates the relationship with that [[subject]].

However, the meaning of "the [[Other]] as another [[subject]]" is strictly secondary to the meaning of "the [[Other]] as [[symbolic]] [[order]]." "The Other must first of all be considered a locus, the locus in which speech is constituted."<ref>{{S3}} p. 274</ref> It is thus only possible to speak of the [[Other]] as a [[subject]] in a secondary sense, in the sense that a [[subject]] may occupy this position and thereby "embody" the [[Other]] for another [[subject]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 202</ref>

In arguing that [[speech]] originates not in the [[ego]] or even in the [[subject]] but in the [[Other]], [[Lacan]] is stressing that [[speech]] and [[language]] are beyond [[conscious]] control; they come from an [[other]] place, [[outside]] [[consciousness]], and hence "the [[unconscious]] is the [[discourse]] of the [[Other]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 16</ref> In conceiving of the [[Other]] as a [[place]], [[Lacan]] alludes to [[Freud]]'s concept of [[psychical locality]], in which the [[unconscious]] is described as "the [[other]] [[scene]]."

It is the [[mother]] who first occupies the [[position]] of the [[big Other]] for the [[child]], because it is she who receives the [[child]]'s primitive cries and [[retroactively]] sanctions them as a particular [[message]]. The [[castration complex]] is formed when the [[child]] discovers that this [[Other]] is not [[complete]], that there is a [[lack]] in the [[Other]]. In other words, there is always a [[signifier]] missing from the treasury of [[signifier]]s constituted by the [[Other]]. The [[mythical]] complete [[Other]] (written '''A''' in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]]) does not [[exist]]. In 1957 [[Lacan]] illustrates this incomplete [[Other]] graphically by striking a [[bar]] through the [[symbol]] '''<strike>A</strike>'''. Hence another name for the [[castrated]], incomplete [[Other]] is the ''[[barred]] [[Other]]''.

The Other is also "the Other sex."<ref>{{S20}} p. 40</ref> The [[Other]] [[sex]] is always [[woman]], for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[subjects]].

<blockquote>"[[Man]] here acts as the relay whereby the [[woman]] becomes this Other for herself as she is this [[Other]] for him."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 732</ref></blockquote>