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The [[theory ]] of the four [[discourses ]] It is important to [[remember ]] that while [[Barthes]], [[Derrida]], [[Foucault ]] and Levi-[[Strauss ]] were [[university ]] teachers [[Lacan ]] was a practising [[psychoanalyst]], known for his emphasis on 'the [[return ]] to [[Freud]]'. At the beginning of the 1950s Lacan took this '[[return to Freud]]' as a slogan with which to attack ego-[[psychology]]. I have already made a few brief remarks [[about ]] Lacan's [[antagonism ]] to ego-psycholo~

The uses of [[philosophy ]] 39 and how he considered it as non-[[Freudian ]] and even anti-Freudian. As a critique of [[ego-psychology ]] runs through all of Lacan's postwar [[work]], we should be clear about what ego-psychology is. Though it is often [[thought ]] of as American, its origins are actually European. Its founders are Heinz [[Hartmann]], Ernest [[Kris ]] and Rudolph [[Loewenstein]], and their 'work is based largely on Freud's second [[topology ]] of id, ego and [[superego]]. For Hartmann and his associates, the [[three ]] [[agencies]], id, ego and superego, can be defined in [[terms ]] of their functions: id functions are centred upon basic [[needs ]] and a striving for [[instinctual ]] [[gratification]], ego functions centre upon [[adaptation ]] to [[external ]] [[reality ]] and the superego functions focus upon [[moral ]] [[demands]]. Freud vacillated between two quite different views of the ego which can be called the realist and the [[narcissistic]]. The 'realist' view is that the ego is an [[agency ]] which intervenes in the [[conflict ]] between the [[sexual ]] wishes, which originate in the id, and the demands of reality. The ego [[acts ]] like a filter in both directions, from the id to reality and from reality to the id. As already mentioned, Freud likens the ego to the rider of a horse; the horse signifies the energies of the id, energies which must be correctly harnessed if the rider is to keep his/her seat. Reality is represented by the path or destination the rider must entice and [[control ]] the horse to follow. In this view, the ego protects the norms of [[social ]] reality by modifying the 'unreasonable', [[impossible ]] demands of the id, on the one hand; while on the [[other]], the ego protects the id by shielding it from excessively strong stimuli coming from reality from harsh judgements, the [[absence ]] of desired [[objects]]. It should be noted that in the above, realist [[model]], two terms are given and unquestioned, the id [[being ]] a function of [[biology]], and reality an unalterable, ahistorical [[system]], 'civilisation'. It is claimed by ego-psychologists that the ego contains within it elements which mature and develop into a 'conflict-free ego sphere' which transcends conflicts and which is regarded as [[autonomous]]. Ego-psychologists focus on the way the ego neutralises instinctual [[drives ]] and the strength of the id, harnesses [[them ]] and uses them to further the work of adaptation. According to egopsychologists the aim of [[analysis ]] is to strengthen the ego. The analysis is seen as a [[process ]] whereby the [[patient]], the [[analysand]], comes to [[identify ]] with the strong ego of the [[analyst]].

40 [[Jacques Lacan ]] Where ego-psychology refers to the realist view, Lacan relies on Freud's second or narcissistic account of the ego. The narcissistic ego is fluid and mobile, consisting of a series of identifications, internalisations of [[images]]/perceptions. In contrast with the ego psychologists Lacan believes that 'the core of our being does not coincide with the ego'. Drawing on Freud's paper 'On [[narcissism]]', Lacan argues that the ego is not organised by the reality system, precisely because all its [[structures ]] are characterised by the effect of [[misrecognition]].1s In Lacan's view the ego cannot judge reality, or mediate between reality and [[desire ]] because it is always marked by error, misrecognition or [[lack]]. Lacan often refers to the '[[perverse ]] [[genius]]' of La Rochefoucauld _ and asserts that the [[Nietzsche ]] of On the Genealogy of Morals and

the great theorist of [[amour]]-propre ([[self]]-[[love]]), or what we ma~\ now call 'narcissism'. He believed that self-love was the mainsP'l:ing behind all [[human ]] [[behaviour ]] and that it concealed itself beh~l countless masks and disguises. For Lacan the [[notion ]] of amou propre represents a glimpse into the narcissistic [[structure ]] of the

and [[Descartes]]. Lacan's new view of the [[subject ]] challenges the European [[philosophical ]] [[tradition]], often personified for Lacan by Descartes. Descartes's proposition 'I [[think]], therefore I am' implies the importance of thought, of the [[conscious]]. The [[Cartesian ]] subject is [[identified ]] with the ego. Lacan wants to emphasise the uncon- scious, which he never sees as '[[primitive]]', 'dark' or '[[negative]]'. Lacan is always on [[good ]] terms with the [[unconscious]]; he therefore reverses Descartes's maxim and says: 'I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think'. 17 Lacan is antagonistic to those forms of [[thinking ]] based on 'the centre' and 'the fixed point'. He declares that the Copernican [[Revolution ]] failed to dislodge the prestige of the centre: it shifted from man and the earth to the sun, but it is still the [[idea ]] of the centre that controls [[discourse]]. Kepler was more radical than [[Copernicus ]] in his thinking because of his notion of the ellipsis, which had no centre. This point is important because Lacan's critique of the [[individual ]] ego is based on his objection to the notion of centring, of making the centre the point of view from which to assess and evaluate human being. It was argued by Lacan that in the classical [[philosophers ]] one

always finds (in one [[place ]] or [[another]]) a fixed point, which gives the [[mind ]] repose and makes [[truth ]] into a [[stable ]] [[relationship]]: with the known [[object]], with the [[knowing ]] subject, with [[Reason ]] or with [[History]]. He believed that you can never tell the [[whole ]] truth because in [[order ]] to say everything, you would [[need ]] more [[time]], more [[words]]: 'I always [[speak ]] the truth. Not the whole truth, because there's no way, to say it all. Saying it all is literally impossible: words fail.'18 Lacan saw truth as a relationship between a subject and the unconscious. But where the unconscious is involved, [[nothing ]] is guaranteed. No [[certainty ]] remains. I will conclude this chapter by returning to the theme with which I began: Lacan's objection to the totalising ambitions of philosophy and to its pretentions to be able to tell the whole truth. In 1969 Lacan gave a [[seminar ]] on the four fundamental structures of discourse. A discourse is a mode of human relatedness mediated by [[speech]], and the human subject is a subject of speech. The subject - transitory, evanescent, always elsewhere emerges when it is inserted into the signifying system of the [[symbolic ]] order as soon as it begins actively to speak. The subject is an .effect of the [[signifiers ]] that [[represent ]] it, sliding from one to another along the signifying [[chain]]. I speak without knowing it. I speak with my [[body]], and this without knowing it. I always say more than I [[know]]. Now, the four modes of discourse are those of the [[master]], the 'university, the [[hysteric ]] and the psychoanalyst. These four modes rarely [[exist ]] in pure [[form]]. In the [[concrete ]] they are often a blend of several modes; in their schematised form they serve the purposes of analysis and exposition only. This is Lacan's most overtly [[political ]] seminar; we must remember that the students had only recently participated in the struggles of May [[1968]]. Lacan's objections to totalisation are expressed in the critique of the 'discourse of the master'. Very simply, the discourse of the master originates in the attempt to attain the [[moment ]] of absolute [[knowledge ]] described by [[Hegel ]] in The [[Phenomenology ]] of Mind. For Lacan such knowledge can only be [[illusory ]] in that it implies an unattainable [[unity]], that is to say, a knowledge which brings together truth and the knowing self in a unity. In [[Lacanian ]] terms, unity - or the [[illusion ]] of it - belongs within the realm of the [[imaginary ]] and of the narcissistic functions of the ego. There is, in other words, a clear link between the

illusion of [[mastery ]] and [[absolute knowledge ]] or [[power]], and the illusory [[identity ]] of the ego. I said above that the discourse of the master was related to the illusory moment of absolute knowledge. In later years Lacan made the discourse of the master synonymous with the discourse of philosophy. The [[philosopher]], like the master, seeks a [[totality ]] of illusory knowledge. At the other extreme, the hysteric constantly re-enacts the Socratic [[role ]] of asking questions, demanding knowledge from the master. Incidentally, it is at the insistent urging of the hysteric that [[science ]] 'takes off; after all, was it not [[female ]] [[hysterics ]] who stimulated Freud into discovering [[psychoanalysis ]] itself?19 Master and hysteric thus coexist in a [[state ]] of symbiosis, \,\ith the hysteric _

The discourse of the university is that of the master reintQI:ced by mystification and obscurantism. It, too, is concerned with m~ tery in the [[sense ]] that one might speak of mastering a [[discipline]], but at every [[stage ]] it is [[forced ]] to confess to the inadequacy of its acquired knowledge, thereby reproducing the non-mastery of its students. [[Psychoanalytic ]] discourse subverts the discourses of both the master and the university by insisting that the whole truth can never be spoken, that totality is an imaginary, illusory notion. At the same time it allows the hysteric to speak, thus stimulating the [[drive ]] towards knowledge, but also undercutting the hysteric's illusion that the master [[knows ]] all. Lacan insists that these [[four discourses ]] exist within a system of permutations - the theory seems to be a [[universal ]] system of classification - and that they require one another's [[existence]]. The hysteric and the analyst need one another, and the university requires a master to justify its [[teachings]]. I find the discourses of the master and the psychoanalyst particularly interesting because one is the reverse of the other. In the discourse of the master a certain mastery or control is [[manifest]]. Medical discourse would be one example. (But note that the [[word ]] master connotes '[[slave]]' at one time and 'disciple' at another.) The discourse of the master involves the exercise of power and an expanding body of knowledge. In contrast, the task of psychoanalytic discourse is to follow the flow of the [[signifying chain]], not for its own sake, but in order to discern the course of desire in its

quest for [[objet]]-petit-a (the object which, unchains desire). What characterises the [[discourse of the analyst ]] is the primacy of the subject in futile quest for the irretrievable object that causes its desire. Towards the end of his [[life]], Lacan became increasingly concerned with [[mathematical ]] formalism and, by about 1972, he seems to have become [[alienated ]] from philosophy. He began to think of philosophy as no more than a variation of the discourse of the master. Why was this? One explanation for this is that [[metaphysics ]] (a central part of metaphysics is [[ontology]]. This studies Being), by reason of its abstraction, partakes of the same generality and disregard of the unique [[subjectivity ]] as the discourse of the master. Second, philosophy, by reason of its pretension to articulate truth, aspires to an analogous power. Some thinkers, like [[Heidegger ]] for example, believe that the proper object of philosophy is Being. For Lacan, what is primordial in specifically human [[experience ]] is not being but [[language ]] and speech. He insists that there is no pre-discursive reality. Every reality is founded in and defined by a discourse. Men, [[women ]] and [[children ]] are only signifiers; being is a function of speech. It could be argued that Lacan's ultimate [[rejection ]] of philosophy is a direct consequence of his [[thesis ]] about the primacy oflanguage over (metaphysical) Being. It is because of this primacy that the next chapter is devoted to language, what Lacan calls the SymboliC. I agree with the [[suggestion ]] that the irreducible [[difference ]] between the philosophic and the psychoanalytic must be respected.20 If one allows that philosophy's concern is with being, one must also recognise that the concern of psychoanalysis is with lack-of-being.