Point de Capiton

For Lacan the link between signifier and signified is so precarious that whereas Saussure saw the whole system as more or less grounded (though the possibility of slippage constituted his great contribution to twentieth-century linguistics), Lacan sees only occasional points of stability. These points of stability are referred to as points de capiton, or "quilting points," points "by which the signifier stops the otherwise endless movement (glissement) of the signification" (Ecrits 303) to produce "the necessary illusion of a fixed meaning" (Evans 149). Perhaps the most important feature of the point de capiton is that the stability it provides is, however necessary, an illusion, as is the semblance of deep meaning produced by metaphor and on a larger scale all imaginary identification. Indeed, one precise and readily-comprehensible way to conceive of both metaphor and the point de capiton is as instances of imaginary identification disrupting the integrity and rationality of the symbolic order itself. Though these disruptions are strictly speaking inimical to the symbolic order, they are also vital to its existence as a field for producing meaning, for such disruptions serve to anchor the signifying chain and keep it from devolving into a psychotic process of pure linguistic self-referentiality without even the illusion of external reference (Evans 149)