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{{Seminars}}

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The [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]] are those circumstances in which the [[law]]s of the [[unconscious]] are most discernible: the [[joke]], the [[dream]], the [[symptom]], the [[lapsus]] ([[parapraxis]]). [[Freud]] referred to the fundamental mechanisms involved in the [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]] as [[condensation]] and [[displacement]], which [[Lacan]] redefines as [[metaphor]] and [[metonymy]]. With the former, the play of [[signifier]]s creates [[sense]] in nonsense in relation to [[truth]]. The latter reveals the [[lack]] of a [[word]], "an item of waste sent like a ball between [[code]] and [[message]]." In this [[lack]] [[substitute]] [[word]]s appear and function like "the [[metonymic]] ruins of the [[object]]."

In "[[The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious]]," written in 1960, [[Lacan]] states that "it is not the law that bars the [[subject]]'s access to <i>[[jouissance]]</i> but [[pleasure]]." In 1966 he will add a final [[sentence]]: "[[Castration]] means that <i>[[jouissance]]</i> must be refused, so that it can be reached on the inverted ladder (<i>échelle inversée</i>) of the [[Law]] of [[desire]]."

The alternative seems ineluctable: either the [[Mother]] or the [[Father]]. To choose the [[Mother]] means to be condemned to the dependency of [[demand]], while the [[Father]] constitutes the access to [[desire]], hence to salvation. If the [[Father]] must be preferred to the [[Mother]], if the [[Father]] is the origin and the [[representative]] of [[culture]] (and of the [[Law]]), it is because he possesses the [[phallus]] that he can give or refuse. The absolute primacy of the [[phallus]] - the single emblem of Man - has become a [[real]] doctrinal (perhaps dogmatic) basis of [[Lacanian]] [[theory]]: "The [[phallus]] is the [[signifier]] of [[signifier]]s, the privileged signifier of that mark in which the [[role]] of the [[logos]] is joined with the advent of [[desire]]," its function "touches on its most profound rapport: that in which the Ancients embodied the <i>Nous</i>, the [[Mind]], and the <i>Logos</i>, [[discourse]], [[reason]]." Why such a privilege? "This [[signifier]] is chosen as the most tangible element in the real of [[sexual]] copulation; it is the most [[symbolic]] in the literal sense," since "it is equivalent to the [[logical]] copula." Moreover, "by virtue of its turgidity, it epitomizes the [[image]] of the vital flow as it is transmitted in generation." [[Freud]] says, there is only one [[libido]], [[masculine]] in [[nature]]. Later, [[Lacan]] will assert that "[[there is no such thing as sexual rapport]]," <i>[[il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel]]</i>, in the sense of proportion or relation: one sex counts for both [[sexes]]. Thus the [[phallus]] can only appear as veiled.

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