lacanblog 2
After a rather long gap, I am resuming this blog, still hoping for some responses...
La signification, d’être grammaticale, entérine d’abord que la seconde phrase porte sur la première, à en faire son sujet sous forme d’un particulier. Elle dit : cet énoncé, puis qualifie celui-ci de l’assertif de se poser comme vrai, l’en confirmant d’être sous forme de proposition dite universelle en logique : c’est en tout cas que le dire reste oublié derrière le dit.
Signification, by being grammatical, ratifies first of all that the second sentence bears on the first, by making of it its subject in the form of a particular. The sentence starts: “This statement”, then qualifies it as assertive since it sets itself as true, confirming it as such by being in the form of a proposition said to be universal in logic: it is in every case that the saying remains forgotten behind the said.
Mais d’antithèse, soit du même plan, en un second temps elle en dénonce le semblant : à l’affirmer du fait que son sujet soit modal, et à le prouver de ce qu’il se module grammaticalement comme : qu’on dise. Ce qu’elle rappelle non pas tant à la mémoire que, comme on dit : à l’existence.
But antithetically, that is on the same plane, in a second movement, it de-nounces this seeming: by affirming it through the fact that its subject is modal, and by proving it through its being modulated grammatically as: “That one speak”. Which the sentence recalls not so much to memory as, as they say: to existence.
La première phrase n’est donc pas de ce plan thétique de vérité que le premier temps de la seconde assure, comme d’ordinaire, au moyen de tautologies (ici deux). Ce qui est rappelé, c’est que son énonciation est moment d’existence, c’est que, située du discours, elle « ex-siste » à la vérité.
The first sentence is thus not on that thetic plane of truth that the first movement of the second [sentence] assures, as is ordinarily the case, by means of tautologies (here two). What is recalled is that one’s enunciation is an existential moment, it’s that, being discourse-situated, it ex-sists truth.
Reconnaissons ici la voie par où advient le nécessaire : en bonne logique s’entend, celle qui ordonne ses modes de procéder d’où elle accède, soit cet impossible, modique sans doute quoique dès lors incommode, que pour qu’un dit soit vrai, encore faut-il qu’on le dise, que dire il y en ait.
Let us acknowledge here the path[1] by which the necessary comes to be, in good logic of course, the one which orders its modes of proceeding by which it has access, namely that impossible, modest no doubt although henceforth unhelpful, which in order that something said be true, still it has to be said, that speaking there be.[2]
En quoi la grammaire mesure déjà force et faiblesse des logiques qui s’en isolent, pour, de son subjonctif, les cliver, et s’indique[3] en concentrer la puissance, de toutes les frayer.
In which grammar measures already the strength and weakness of the logics which isolate themselves from it, so that, with its subjunctive, it cleaves them, and indicates itself as concentrating their potency, by fertilizing/clearing them all (away)[4].
Car, j’y reviens une fois de plus, “il n’y a pas de métalangage” tel qu’aucune des logiques, à s’intituler de la proposition, puisse s’en faire béquille (qu’à chacune reste son imbécillité), et si l’on croit le retrouver dans ma référence, plus haut, au discours, je le réfute de ce que la phrase qui a l’air là de faire objet pour la seconde, ne s’en applique pas moins significativement à celle-ci.
For, I come back to it again, “there is no metalanguage” so that none of the logics, by claiming the right/title to the sentence, can make a crutch of it (each logic retaining its imbecility[5]), and if you think to find it in my reference above to speech, I refute it because the sentence which seems to be an object for the second is applied no less significantly to this latter one.
Car cette seconde, qu’on la dise reste oublié derrière ce qu’elle dit. Et ceci de façon d’autant plus frappante qu’assertive, elle sans rémission au point d’être tautologique en les preuves qu’elle avance,
[7]
-- à dénoncer dans la première son semblant, elle pose son propre dire comme inexistant, puisqu’en contestant celle-ci comme dit de vérité, c’est l’existence qu’elle fait répondre de son dire, ceci non pas de faire ce dire exister puisque seulement elle le dénomme, mais d’en nier la vérité – sans le dire.
For this second, that one speak it remains forgotten behind what it says. And this is all the more striking because it is assertive, it without remission to the point of being tautological in the proofs it advances – by de-nouncing in the first its seeming, it poses its own saying as inexistent, since by contesting the latter as a truth-saying, it is existence that the sentence makes guarantor for its saying, and this not by making this saying exist since it only denominates it, but by denying its truth – without saying it.
A étendre ce procès, naît la formule, mienne, qu’il n’y a pas d’universelle qui ne doive se contenir d’une existence qui la nie. Tel le stéréotype que tout homme soit mortel, ne s’énonce pas de nulle part. La logique qui le date, n’est que celle d’une philosophie qui feint cette nullibiquité, ce pour faire alibi à ce que je dénomme discours du maître.
By extending this process, my formula is born that there is no universal [formula] which must not be limited by an existence which denies it. Like the stereotype that all men are mortal, which is not stated from nowhere. The logic which dates it is none other than that of a philosophy which feigns this nowhere in order to create an alibi for what I label the master’s discourse.
Or ce n’est pas de ce seul discours, mais de la place où font tour d’autres (d’autres discours), celle que je désigne du semblant, qu’un dire prend son sens.
Now it is not from this discourse alone, but from the place where other discourses take a turn, the place I designate as seeming, that a speaking takes its sense.
Cette place n’est pas pour tous, mais elle leur ex-siste, et c’est de là que s’hommologue que tous soient mortels. Ils ne peuvent que l’être tous, parce qu’à la mort on les délègue de cette place, tous il faut bien, puisque c’est là qu’on veille à la merveille du bien de tous. Et particulièrement quand ce qui y veille y fait semblant du signifiant-maître ou du savoir. D’où la ritournelle de la logique philosophique.
This place is not for all, but it ex-sists them, and it is from there that the pronouncement comes that all are mortal. They cannot but be all, because when they die they are delegated from this place, all as needs be, since it is there that one watches over the marvel[6] of the good of all. And particularly when that which watches there makes a seeming of the master signifier or of knowledge. Whence the refrain of philosophical logic.
Il n’y a donc pas d’universel qui ne se réduise au possible. Même la mort, puisque c’est là la pointe dont seulement elle s’articule. Si universelle qu’on la pose, elle ne reste jamais que possible. Que la loi s’allège de s’affirmer comme formulée de nulle part, c’est-à-dire d’être sans raison, confirme encore d’où part son dire.
There is therefore no universal which is not reduced to the possible. Even death since there’s the point from which only it is articulated.[7] No matter how universal one claims death to be, it never remains more than possible. The fact that the law rises above[8] by affirming itself as formulated from nowhere, that is to say without reason, confirms again where its speaking starts from.
[1] The homonym “voix” is not far away.
[2] Lacan plays on accéder-procéder and three derivatives of mode: mode, modique, incommode, as well as continuing the hearing/speaking dialogue. Lacan’s use of « accéder » in an absolute sense is unusual, and seems to suggest an Escher-like figure of the rules of logic which have their foundation in themselves; the necessary mode of being (as opposed to the contingent, the possible and the impossible) necessarily comes into being because of the necessary nature of the rules of logic. Lacan suggests that if one follows the rules of logic the necessary leads necessarily to the impossible.
[3] This sentence is problematic. The use of cliver and s’indique is unusual. The etymology of cliver is given in the Robert as being from the Dutch klieben, “to cleave”, with a reference to the importance of the diamond industry in Amsterdam, and to English “cleave”, but without mentioning that “cleave” has two, contradictory meanings: “to split” and “to hold on to, to unite with”. It is possible that Lacan intends the equivocal English derivation, a suggestion which s’indique, and its homonym syndic (the root of syndicat) seems to support by favouring the notion of coming together which then supplements the established etymology of cliver.
[4] Frayer has (at least) two meanings in French: to clear a pathway; to fertilize or to spawn (used for both male and female actions in fish reproduction.
[5] Becillus in Latin means a rod or a crutch, hence imbecillus means a lack of crutch. It appears that Lacan has created this sense for the French word.
[6] The play on merveille (marvel) and mère-veille (mother-watch), cannot be captured in English
[7] « A l’article de la mort », at the point of death, hence Lacan’s wordplay on pointe, s’articuler: death speaks from this nowhere at the point of death. See the Derrida-Lacan exchanges and Maurice Blanchot’s A l’instant de la mort.
[8] s’allège means literally to lighten oneself, but here Lacan seems to suggest that the law rises above its human constitution in a bootstrapping process that legalizes (s’allègue) the law itself, obliterating its human origin by being without reason, that is without particular motivation.
La signification, d’être grammaticale, entérine d’abord que la seconde phrase porte sur la première, à en faire son sujet sous forme d’un particulier. Elle dit : cet énoncé, puis qualifie celui-ci de l’assertif de se poser comme vrai, l’en confirmant d’être sous forme de proposition dite universelle en logique : c’est en tout cas que le dire reste oublié derrière le dit.
Signification, by being grammatical, ratifies first of all that the second sentence bears on the first, by making of it its subject in the form of a particular. The sentence starts: “This statement”, then qualifies it as assertive since it sets itself as true, confirming it as such by being in the form of a proposition said to be universal in logic: it is in every case that the saying remains forgotten behind the said.
Mais d’antithèse, soit du même plan, en un second temps elle en dénonce le semblant : à l’affirmer du fait que son sujet soit modal, et à le prouver de ce qu’il se module grammaticalement comme : qu’on dise. Ce qu’elle rappelle non pas tant à la mémoire que, comme on dit : à l’existence.
But antithetically, that is on the same plane, in a second movement, it de-nounces this seeming: by affirming it through the fact that its subject is modal, and by proving it through its being modulated grammatically as: “That one speak”. Which the sentence recalls not so much to memory as, as they say: to existence.
La première phrase n’est donc pas de ce plan thétique de vérité que le premier temps de la seconde assure, comme d’ordinaire, au moyen de tautologies (ici deux). Ce qui est rappelé, c’est que son énonciation est moment d’existence, c’est que, située du discours, elle « ex-siste » à la vérité.
The first sentence is thus not on that thetic plane of truth that the first movement of the second [sentence] assures, as is ordinarily the case, by means of tautologies (here two). What is recalled is that one’s enunciation is an existential moment, it’s that, being discourse-situated, it ex-sists truth.
Reconnaissons ici la voie par où advient le nécessaire : en bonne logique s’entend, celle qui ordonne ses modes de procéder d’où elle accède, soit cet impossible, modique sans doute quoique dès lors incommode, que pour qu’un dit soit vrai, encore faut-il qu’on le dise, que dire il y en ait.
Let us acknowledge here the path[1] by which the necessary comes to be, in good logic of course, the one which orders its modes of proceeding by which it has access, namely that impossible, modest no doubt although henceforth unhelpful, which in order that something said be true, still it has to be said, that speaking there be.[2]
En quoi la grammaire mesure déjà force et faiblesse des logiques qui s’en isolent, pour, de son subjonctif, les cliver, et s’indique[3] en concentrer la puissance, de toutes les frayer.
In which grammar measures already the strength and weakness of the logics which isolate themselves from it, so that, with its subjunctive, it cleaves them, and indicates itself as concentrating their potency, by fertilizing/clearing them all (away)[4].
Car, j’y reviens une fois de plus, “il n’y a pas de métalangage” tel qu’aucune des logiques, à s’intituler de la proposition, puisse s’en faire béquille (qu’à chacune reste son imbécillité), et si l’on croit le retrouver dans ma référence, plus haut, au discours, je le réfute de ce que la phrase qui a l’air là de faire objet pour la seconde, ne s’en applique pas moins significativement à celle-ci.
For, I come back to it again, “there is no metalanguage” so that none of the logics, by claiming the right/title to the sentence, can make a crutch of it (each logic retaining its imbecility[5]), and if you think to find it in my reference above to speech, I refute it because the sentence which seems to be an object for the second is applied no less significantly to this latter one.
Car cette seconde, qu’on la dise reste oublié derrière ce qu’elle dit. Et ceci de façon d’autant plus frappante qu’assertive, elle sans rémission au point d’être tautologique en les preuves qu’elle avance,
[7]
-- à dénoncer dans la première son semblant, elle pose son propre dire comme inexistant, puisqu’en contestant celle-ci comme dit de vérité, c’est l’existence qu’elle fait répondre de son dire, ceci non pas de faire ce dire exister puisque seulement elle le dénomme, mais d’en nier la vérité – sans le dire.
For this second, that one speak it remains forgotten behind what it says. And this is all the more striking because it is assertive, it without remission to the point of being tautological in the proofs it advances – by de-nouncing in the first its seeming, it poses its own saying as inexistent, since by contesting the latter as a truth-saying, it is existence that the sentence makes guarantor for its saying, and this not by making this saying exist since it only denominates it, but by denying its truth – without saying it.
A étendre ce procès, naît la formule, mienne, qu’il n’y a pas d’universelle qui ne doive se contenir d’une existence qui la nie. Tel le stéréotype que tout homme soit mortel, ne s’énonce pas de nulle part. La logique qui le date, n’est que celle d’une philosophie qui feint cette nullibiquité, ce pour faire alibi à ce que je dénomme discours du maître.
By extending this process, my formula is born that there is no universal [formula] which must not be limited by an existence which denies it. Like the stereotype that all men are mortal, which is not stated from nowhere. The logic which dates it is none other than that of a philosophy which feigns this nowhere in order to create an alibi for what I label the master’s discourse.
Or ce n’est pas de ce seul discours, mais de la place où font tour d’autres (d’autres discours), celle que je désigne du semblant, qu’un dire prend son sens.
Now it is not from this discourse alone, but from the place where other discourses take a turn, the place I designate as seeming, that a speaking takes its sense.
Cette place n’est pas pour tous, mais elle leur ex-siste, et c’est de là que s’hommologue que tous soient mortels. Ils ne peuvent que l’être tous, parce qu’à la mort on les délègue de cette place, tous il faut bien, puisque c’est là qu’on veille à la merveille du bien de tous. Et particulièrement quand ce qui y veille y fait semblant du signifiant-maître ou du savoir. D’où la ritournelle de la logique philosophique.
This place is not for all, but it ex-sists them, and it is from there that the pronouncement comes that all are mortal. They cannot but be all, because when they die they are delegated from this place, all as needs be, since it is there that one watches over the marvel[6] of the good of all. And particularly when that which watches there makes a seeming of the master signifier or of knowledge. Whence the refrain of philosophical logic.
Il n’y a donc pas d’universel qui ne se réduise au possible. Même la mort, puisque c’est là la pointe dont seulement elle s’articule. Si universelle qu’on la pose, elle ne reste jamais que possible. Que la loi s’allège de s’affirmer comme formulée de nulle part, c’est-à-dire d’être sans raison, confirme encore d’où part son dire.
There is therefore no universal which is not reduced to the possible. Even death since there’s the point from which only it is articulated.[7] No matter how universal one claims death to be, it never remains more than possible. The fact that the law rises above[8] by affirming itself as formulated from nowhere, that is to say without reason, confirms again where its speaking starts from.
[1] The homonym “voix” is not far away.
[2] Lacan plays on accéder-procéder and three derivatives of mode: mode, modique, incommode, as well as continuing the hearing/speaking dialogue. Lacan’s use of « accéder » in an absolute sense is unusual, and seems to suggest an Escher-like figure of the rules of logic which have their foundation in themselves; the necessary mode of being (as opposed to the contingent, the possible and the impossible) necessarily comes into being because of the necessary nature of the rules of logic. Lacan suggests that if one follows the rules of logic the necessary leads necessarily to the impossible.
[3] This sentence is problematic. The use of cliver and s’indique is unusual. The etymology of cliver is given in the Robert as being from the Dutch klieben, “to cleave”, with a reference to the importance of the diamond industry in Amsterdam, and to English “cleave”, but without mentioning that “cleave” has two, contradictory meanings: “to split” and “to hold on to, to unite with”. It is possible that Lacan intends the equivocal English derivation, a suggestion which s’indique, and its homonym syndic (the root of syndicat) seems to support by favouring the notion of coming together which then supplements the established etymology of cliver.
[4] Frayer has (at least) two meanings in French: to clear a pathway; to fertilize or to spawn (used for both male and female actions in fish reproduction.
[5] Becillus in Latin means a rod or a crutch, hence imbecillus means a lack of crutch. It appears that Lacan has created this sense for the French word.
[6] The play on merveille (marvel) and mère-veille (mother-watch), cannot be captured in English
[7] « A l’article de la mort », at the point of death, hence Lacan’s wordplay on pointe, s’articuler: death speaks from this nowhere at the point of death. See the Derrida-Lacan exchanges and Maurice Blanchot’s A l’instant de la mort.
[8] s’allège means literally to lighten oneself, but here Lacan seems to suggest that the law rises above its human constitution in a bootstrapping process that legalizes (s’allègue) the law itself, obliterating its human origin by being without reason, that is without particular motivation.
posted by Tony Chadwick NDP Candidate at 7:15 AM
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