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| − | ==Sigmund Freud==
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| − | ===Law of the Father===
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| − | In 1897 [[Freud]] remarked, on the basis of his [[analysis]] of his first [[patient]]s and his [[self-analysis]], that "The father forbids the child from realizing its unconscious wish to sleep with his mother."<ref>letter to Fliess, October 15, 1897</ref>
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| − | This first outline of the [[Oedipus complex]], which now appears simplistic, grew increasingly complex throughout Freud's research.
| + | "[[law]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[loi]]'') |
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| − | In time the [[Law]] of the [[Father]] turned out to be directed both toward the [[mother]] as well as her offspring swept up by [[desire]].
| + | [[Lacan]]'s discussions of the "[[Law]]" (which [[Lacan]] often writes with a capital 'L') owe much to the work of [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]. |
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| − | The [[law]] is also accompanied by an injunction against cannibalism and murder, and hold up ideals, primarily sexual ones ("Later you will enjoy, like me, a woman from another family").
| + | As in the work of [[Lévi-Strauss]], the [[Law]] in [[Lacan]]'s work refers not to a particular piece of legislation, but to the fundamental principles which underlie all social relations. |
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| − | Once [[introject]]ed, this becomes the origin of the [[superego]] and [[ego ideal]].
| + | The [[law]] is the set of universal principles which make social existence possible, the [[structure]]s that govern all forms of social exchange, whether gift-giving, kinship relations or the formation of pacts. |
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| − | The [[repression]] of [[drive]]s, their [[suppression]] and [[sublimation]], are the principal outcomes of the conflict that connects them structurally to this [[law]].
| + | Since the most basic form of exchange is [[communication]] itself, the [[law]] is fundamentally a [[linguistic]] entity - it is the [[law]] of the [[signifier]]: |
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| − | ===Father===
| + | <blockquote>This law, then, is revealed clearly enough as identical with an order of language. For without kinship nominations, no power is capable of instituting the order of preferences and taboos that bind and weave the yarn of lineage through succeeding generations.<ref>{{E}} p.66</ref></blockquote> |
| − | [[Freud]] quickly recognized that the actual [[presence]] of a [[father]] is not the best [[guarantee]] of the fulfillment of this [[law]]:
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| − | An [[absent]] or [[dead]] [[father]] can serve as the [[agent]], as well as or better than the living [[father]].
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| − | This led to the creation of the [[myth]] of the [[primitive]] [[father]].<ref>1912-1913a</ref> | + | This [[legal]]-[[linguistic]] [[structure]] is in fact no more and no less than the [[symbolic order]] itself. |
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| − | ==Jacques Lacan==
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| − | The [[law]] refers not to a particular piece of legislation to the fundamental principles which underlie all social relations.
| + | Following [[Lévi-Strauss]], [[Lacan]] argues that the [[law]] is essentially [[human]]; it is the [[law]] which separates [[man]] from the other animals, by regulating sexual relations that are, among animals, unregulated: |
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| − | The [[law]] is the set of [[universal]] principles which make [[social]] [[existence]] possible, the [[structure]]s that govern all forms of [[social]] [[exchange]].
| + | <blockquote>"[[[Human]] [[law]] is] the primordial Law... which in regulating marriage ties superimposes the kingdom of culture on that of a nature abandoned to the law of mating. The prohibition of incest is merely its subjective pivot."<ref>{{E}} p.66</ref></blockquote> |
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| − | Since the most basic form of [[exchange]] is [[communication]] itself, the [[law]] is fundamentally a [[linguistic]] entity - it is the [[law]] of the [[signifier]].
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| − | "This law, then, is revealed clearly enough as identical with an order of language."<ref>{{E}} p.66</ref>
| + | It is the [[father]] who imposes this [[law]] on the [[subject]] in the [[Oedipus complex]]; the paternal agency (or paternal function) is no more than the name for this prohibitive and legislative role. |
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| − | This [[legal]]-[[linguistic]] [[structure]] is the [[symbolic]] [[order]] itself.
| + | In the second time of the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[father]] appears as the omnipotent "father of the primal horde" of ''[[Totem and Taboo]]''.<ref>Freud. 1912-13; this is the lawgiver who is not included in his own [[law]] because he ''is'' the [[Law]], denying others access to the [[women]] of the tribe while he himself has access to them all. |
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| − | [[Law]] regulates [[sexual relations]]. | + | In the third time of the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[father]] is included in his own [[law]], the [[law]] is revealed as a pact rather than an imperative. |
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| − | [[Human]] [[law]] is "the primordial Law... which in regulating marriage ties superimposes the kingdom of culture on that of a nature abandoned to the law of mating. The prohibition of incest is merely its subjective pivot."<ref>{{E}} p.66</ref> | + | The [[Oedipus complex]] represents the regulation of [[desire]] by the [[law]]. |
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| − | The [[father]] imposes the [[law]] on the [[subject]] in the [[Oedipus complex]].
| + | It is the [[law]] of the [[pleasure principle]], which commands the [[subject]] to "Enjoy as little as possible!", and thus maintains the [[subject]] at a safe distance from the [[Thing]]. |
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| − | The [[paternal agency]] or [[paternal function]] is no more than the name for the [[prohibitive]] and [[legislative]] role.
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| − | In the second time of the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[father]] appears as the [[omnipotent]] '[[father]] of the [[primal horde]]' of [[Totem and Taboo]]; this is the [[lawgiver]] who is not included in his own [[law]] because he is the [[law]], denying others access to the [[women]] of the tribe while he himself has access to them all.
| + | The relationship between the [[law]] and [[desire]] is, however, a [[dialectic]]al one; "desire is the reverse of the law."<ref>{{Ec}} p.787</ref> |
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| − | It is the [[law]] of the [[pleasure principle]] which commands the [[subject]] to 'enjoy as little as possible!', and thus maintains the [[subject]] at a safe distance from the [[Thing]].
| + | IF, on the one hand, [[law]] imposes limits on [[desire]], it is also true that the [[law]] creates [[desire]] in the first place by creating interdiciton. |
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| − | [[Jacques Lacan]] showed that this [[Law]] of the [[Father]], to the extent that it serves as a principle of differentiation and [[separation]], is in fact the [[law]] of [[language]] and a ''sine qua non'' for the [[existence]] of [[desire]]. | + | [[Desire]] is essentially the [[desire]] to [[transgress]], and for there to be [[transgression]] it is first necesary for there to be [[prohibition]].<ref>{{S7}} p.83-4</ref> |
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| − | He claimed that the [[subject]] [[structure]]s himself through his [[unconscious]] response to the [[law]] and to the [[incest]]uous [[desire]]s it shapes to: the [[repression]] of [[desire]] ([[neurosis]]), and the [[denial]] or [[foreclosure]] of the [[law]] ([[perversion]] and [[psychosis]], respectively).
| + | Thus it is not the case that there is a pregiven [[dsire]] which the [[law]] then regulates, but that [[desire]] is born out of the process of regulation. |
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| − | [[Lacan]] also showed that it is important to differentiate the [[real]] [[Father]], the [[imaginary]] [[Father]], and the [[symbolic]] [[Father]].
| + | <blockquote>"What we see here is the tight bond between desire and Law."<ref>{{S7}} p.177</ref> |
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| − | ==Law and Psychoanalysis==
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| − | While [[psychoanalysis]] focuses on the [[individual]] [[subject]], [[law]] refers to the collection of guidelines for [[behavior]] directed at all members of [[society]].
| + | If the [[law]] is closely connected to the [[father]], this is not only because the [[father]] is one who imposes the [[law]], but also because the [[law]] is born out of the murder of the [[father]]. |
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| − | There are challenges therefore in establishing a dialogue between two disciplines whose objectives and challenges are so far apart.
| + | This is clearly illustrated in the myth of the [[father]] of the primal horde which [[Frued]] recounts in ''[[Totem and Taboo]]''. |
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| − | Yet, the necessity of [[psychoanalysis]] engaging with the human leads to its involvement with the foundations of societal values.
| + | In this myth, the murder of the [[father]], far from freeing the sons from the [[law]], only reinforces the [[law]] which [[prohibit]]s [[incest]]. |
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| − | It cannot therefore avoid taking an interest in the [[law]], which means it must ask the same questions differently.
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| − | Moreover, the discovery of a [[Freud]] who expresses himself like a lawyer justifies a new [[interpretation]] of some of his writings.
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| − | Although [[Freud]] from time to time took an interest in aspects of the legal process (1906c, 1916d, 1931d), he never tried to explain the possible interactions between [[law]] and [[psychoanalysis]].
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| − | Nonetheless, the questions of [[guilt]] and [[crime]]—primarily through the [[oedipal]] [[murder]] of the [[father]] and [[incest]]—are presented in a way that is so fundamental to his work that the confrontation of the two disciplines becomes inevitable, crime—even though perpetrated by the [[unconscious]]—leading to trial.
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| − | It was when he abandoned a legal career to turn his attention to science that Freud, in a letter to his friend Emil Fluss on May 1, 1873 (1925d), used the word Prozess (trial) for the first time.
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| − | Rather than getting involved in real trials [Prozesse], he will study the "millennial cases of nature" so he can bear witness to its "eternal trials."
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| − | The use of this legal term is not an isolated occurrence in the Freudian corpus.
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| − | The frequency and occurrence of its use justify seeing it as a kind of fetish word, a wink at his youthful wish to become a lawyer.
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| − | He went so far as to talk about a "psychic trial" (1905d).
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| − | The focus, in the Freudian corpus, on the use of a specifically legal vocabulary (conflict [Konflikt], defense [Abwehr], conviction [Verurteilung or Urteilsverwerfung], punishment [Stafbedürfnis]) demonstrates that the intersection of the two disciplines was not accidental.
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| − | If the psychic apparatus needs to organize a system of defense and condemnation, it is because unconscious guilt engages the subject in a continuous trial.
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| − | The operation of the psyche demonstrates concrete links with that of the legal process once the question of guilt is introduced.
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| − | The appearance in Freud's work of references to a legal vocabulary, as well as to functions that are part of legal works, can be seen clearly from an examination of the multiple roles attributed by the founder of psychoanalysis to the "agency" of the superego.
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| − | We find that the image he presents is that of a court that will entirely assume the burden of all legal responsibilities.
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| − | The Freudian superego assumes the responsibility of legislator, judge, supreme court, attorney (for the id), public prosecutor, and even grief counselor.
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| − | It also sometimes serves as a vigilante.
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| − | Freud shows himself to be a skilled proceduralist by identifying the putative fatherhood referred to by lawyers (Pater incertus est . . .) and, when he points out the "progress of civilization" that characterizes the "transition from mother to father" (1909d, 1939a [1934-1938]), he borrows the specific vocabulary of the law of evidence.
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| − | The legal context in his work is supported by the explicit reference to Aeschylus's Oresteia.
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| − | It appears that the reference to legal institutions to understand and attempt to resolve interior conflict does not exhaust the vision of Freud as jurist shown by his work.
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| − | But it is with reference to the murder of the father that the field of interaction between law and psychoanalysis is the most fecund.
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| − | Aside from the opportunities presented by the presence of a Freudian legal vocabulary, although frequently hidden by translations that systematically "delegalize" his language, the fact that the legal functions attributed by Freud to the mental apparatus are visibly inspired by those attributed to the participants in the Last Judgment enables us to hypothesize a possible scriptural origin to his legal conception of mental agencies—especially the superego—when he evokes the "judicial activity of the moral conscience" (1933a [1932]).
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| − | Another facet of Freud's work is revealed by his knowledge of Pauline thought and, more generally, of the Bible, the book in which Sigmund was taught to read by his father.
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| − | ==Žižek==
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| − | [[Žižek]] is concerned to show the [[secret]] [[transgression]] that underpins and makes possible the [[symbolic]] [[law]]:
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| − | <blockquote>"'At the beginning' of law, there is a transgression, a certain reality of violence, which coincides with the very act of the establishment of law."<ref>p. 129</ref></blockquote>
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| − | Or, as he will say about the seemingly illicit [[ritual]]s that appear to overturn the [[law]]: They are a satire on legal institutions.
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| − | <blockquote>"They are an inversion of public Power, yet they are a transgression that consolidates what it transgresses."<ref>p. 264</ref></blockquote>
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| − | But, beyond this, the [[law]] itself possesses a certain obscene, unappeasable, [[superego]]ic dimension:
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| − | <blockquote>"On the one hand, there is Law qua symbolic Ego-Ideal. that is, Law in its pacifying function ... qua the intermediary Third that dissolves the impasse of imaginary aggressivity. On the other hand, there is law in its superego dimension, that is, law qua "irrational" pressure, the force of culpability, totally incommensurable with our actual responsibility."<ref>p. 157</ref></blockquote>
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| − | In other words, [[law]] itself is its own [[transgression]], and it is just this circularity that [[Žižek]] seeks to dissolve or overcome.
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| − | As he says, repeating at once the problem and the solution:
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| − | <blockquote>"The most appropriate form to indicate this curve of the point de capiton, of the 'negation of negation,' in ordinary language is, paradoxically, that of the tautology: 'law is law.'"<ref>p. 127</ref></blockquote>
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| − | == Summary==
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| − | In [[Lacan]]’s [[theory]] of [[childhood]] [[development]], the [[trauma]]tic moment of entry into the [[symbolic]] is not simply a [[spontaneous]] [[act]] on the part of the [[infant]].
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| − | It is also the originary advent of the [[law]] as an effect of the [[father]]’s interdiction.
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| − | In the [[infant]]’s experience of his [[mother]]’s [[body]] as a site of [[enjoyment]] (producing warmth, food, comfort, etc.), he or she perceives this [[enjoyment]] as an integral part of the [[order]] of things as they are ambiguously organised through [[imaginary]] [[identifications]].
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| − | At some point, however, the [[infant]] becomes aware of the fact that the [[father]] has some degree of precedence over the [[infant]]’s [[right]] to [[enjoy]] the [[mother]].
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| − | Classically termed the [[Oedipus complex]], this moment is part and parcel of the [[infant]]’s entry into the [[symbolic order]], as this apprehension of the [[father]]’s precedence is conveyed as an originary verbal [[prohibition]] of access to the [[mother]]’s [[body]] which forces the [[infant]] to devise a compensatory [[presence]], the [[symbol]] of the [[absent]] [[mother]] (the "da!" of the [[Freud]]ian [[fort-da]] binary).
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| − | This inaugural paternal interdiction is thus essential to the [[symbolic]] [[order]] and makes of it the very fibre of the [[law]] itself:
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| − | This [[law]], then, is revealed clearly enough as identical with an order of [[language]].
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| − | For without [[kinship]] nominations, no [[power]] is capable of instituting the [[order]] of preferences and [[taboo]]s that bind and weave the yarn of lineage through succeeding generations.
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| − | And it is indeed the confusion of generations which, in the Bible as in all traditional [[law]]s, is accused as being the abomination of the [[Word]] (''verbe'') and the desolation of the sinner.<ref>{{Ec}} p.66</ref>
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| − | <blockquote>"This legal-linguistic structure is in fact no more and no less than the symbolic order itself."<ref>Evans 99</ref></blockquote>
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| − | Clearly drawing on [[structural anthropology]] and, more obscurely, on [[speech act theory]], [[Lacan]] positions the [[law]] in its broadest sense as "the set of universal principles which make social existence possible, the structures that govern all forms of social exchange, whether gift-giving, kinship relations or the formation of pacts. Since the most basic form of exchange is communication itself, the law is fundamentally a linguistic entity – it is the law of the signifier."<ref>Evans 98</ref>
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| − | Growing out of the paternal interdiction that puts an end to the [[infant]]’s unproblematic [[imaginary]] [[identification]] with the [[mother]] and inaugurates the [[rivalry]] between [[infant]] and [[father]] that grounds the [[Oedipus complex]], the [[law]] is coextensive with the [[symbolic order]] to such an extent that neither is conceivable without the other.
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| − | Insofar as the [[law]] is essentially a process for regulating social relations, the [[symbolic order]] must henceforth be conceived of as a profoundly [[intersubjective]] [[structure]].
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| − | Just as there can be no need for, or effectiveness of, the [[law]] in the [[absence]] of something to regulate, so there can be no [[signification]] in the [[absence]] of someone to whom to [[signify]].
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| − | That is, the [[law]] actually invents that which it regulates, creating a [[lack]] by masking the [[impossibility]] of the [[imaginary]] relation behind the [[symbolic]] [[prohibition]]:
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| − | <blockquote>"[T]he law creates desire in the first place by creating interdiction. Desire is essentially the desire to transgress, and for there to be transgression it is first necessary for there to be prohibition […] desire is born out of the process of regulation."<ref>Evans 99</ref></blockquote>
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| − | By the same process, the [[symbolic]] [[order]] actually invents the [[subject]] as an effect of itself, generating the [[subject]] [[position]] of the [[speaking]] [[individual]] at the same moment as that [[individual]] seeks to [[signify]] the [[absence]] of someone or something to which it has suddenly been barred access (or the [[impossibility]] of access to which he or she has suddenly been made aware).
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| − | In this regard, the entry into the [[symbolic]] makes of all [[signification]] an [[intersubjective]] situation as the [[speaking]] [[subject]] necessarily orients itself in relation to that which it [[symbolise]]s; to do so, it must hold a position within that [[symbolic]] network – it must in essence be a [[signifier]].
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| − | The [[infant]]’s entry into the [[symbolic]] is thus a [[trauma]]tic event in which the original sense of integrity, wholeness, [[presence]], and [[identification]] (associated with the primary [[narcissism]] of the [[imaginary order]]) is lost forever.
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| − | Even the [[imaginary]] compensations of [[ego]] [[formation]] now recede from [[consciousness]] as the irremediable [[gap]] between the [[individual]] and that which it [[desire]]s (the [[ideal-ego]], the [[mother]]’s [[body]], [[plenitude]]) comes to the fore as the organising principle of the totalising force of the [[symbolic]] [[order]].
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| − | The [[repetitive]] [[automatism]] of the [[signifying chain]] is thus a compensatory gesture, an obsessive attempt by the [[symbolic]] [[order]] (and the [[subject]]s who live in and by it) to cover over the [[lack]]/[[absence]] which organises it.
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| − | The [[signifying chain]] must always remain in motion, doubling back on itself and deferring any [[presence]] of [[meaning]] as content, in order to forestall the terrifying confrontation with this originary and constitutive [[absence]].
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| − | In effect, the [[symbolic]] [[order]] achieves a sustained deferral of this confrontation, proffering alternative [[signifier]]s as provisional [[substitutive]] [[compensation]]s for the irremediable [[lack]] created in its radical reorganisation of the world.
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| − | An analogous and consistent way of conceiving this compensatory response to the [[trauma]] of entering the [[symbolic]] is to consider the occurrence of [[repetition]] [[compulsion]] in [[victim]]s of [[trauma]].
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| − | By [[repeating]] an [[action]] that is an effect of a [[trauma]]tic episode, the [[obsessive neurotic]] effectively [[symbolise]]s the [[trauma]]tic kernel that organises his or her [[symptom]]s without ever approaching the [[truth]] of the motivating [[trauma]]tic episode.
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| − | The [[repetitive]] [[action]]s of the [[trauma]] [[victim]] are comparable to the [[repetition compulsion]] built into the incessant play of [[signifier]]s in the [[signifying chain]].
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| − | Just as the [[trauma]] [[victim]]’s [[action]]s constitute a series of [[symptom]]s that represent effects of the [[trauma]]tic episode without [[symbolising]] it, so the series of [[signifier]]s in the [[signifying chain]] represent the [[trauma]]tic [[loss]] or [[absence]] around which the [[symbolic]] [[order]] is organised without ever being able to signify it directly.
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| | ==See Also== | | ==See Also== |
| | + | * [[Father]] |
| | * [[Oedipus complex]] | | * [[Oedipus complex]] |
| − | * [[symbolic]] [[order]] | + | * [[Pleasure principle]] |
| − | * [[father]]
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| − | * [[fatherhood]]
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| − | * [[foreclosure]]
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| − | * [[myth of origins]]
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| − | * [[Name-of-the-Father]]
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| − | * [[Sexuation]]
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| | ==References== | | ==References== |
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| | [[Category:Jacques Lacan]] | | [[Category:Jacques Lacan]] |
| | [[Category:Dictionary]] | | [[Category:Dictionary]] |
| | + | [[Category:Concepts]] |
| | + | [[Category:Terms]] |
| | [[Category:New]] | | [[Category:New]] |
