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Is the Unconscious Structured Like a Language?

Roberto Harari*
Abstract: Guided by the notion of periodization, the author intends to demonstrate that
the developments put forth by what he calls the ultimate Lacan (whose starting point
may be widely established around Lacans XVIIIth Seminar), put into question or directly
invalidate the canonical formulathe unconscious is structured as a languagewhich
many still believe to contain the gist of Lacans proposal. Te author supports his arguments
on notions that respond to the rules of language and are constituents of the subject, but
which took a new turn in the later stage of Lacans teachings, although they had been part of
his thought since much earlier. Such notions include, among others, ideas like, unsuscribed
to the unconscious, the fact that the signifying pair can be dispensed with, the questioning
of the subject as unavoidably split, the emphasis on homophony rather than on homonymy
only, psychoanalytic listening, untranslation, and the notion of lalangue. As a consequence,
the author concludes that, just as Lacan declared in his XXVth Seminar, he reproduces the
Freudian passage from the unconscious to the drive.
Introduction
Te maxim Te unconscious is structured like a language has become integrated into
the cultural values of a century marked by psychoanalysis. Trough this statement,
Lacan intended to clarify a dening, unchallengeable feature of the subject of the
unconscious: the fact that the subject bears merely the eects of having been instituted
as such insofar as he is a speaking-being (Lacan, 2006 [1964], 708). Tus attached
to language, can this maxim fully account for Lacanian advances over the Freudian
concept of the unconscious? In my view, the answer to this rhetorical question should
be negative, and what follows is my endeavour to validate this no.
Unsubscribed to the unconscious
On revisiting Joyce, Lacan is driven to devise his last review of what is implied by
the eects of language on the subjects position as well as the way in which the latter
reacts to the said eects; a reaction which entails a jouissance that is no longer
phallic or mystic. What is it about in fact? Its what his concept states: unsubscribed
to the unconscious (Lacan, 1987, 2425). If subscription binds the subject to pay
in advance in order to obtain something that willand he bets on thisprovide
him with a regular, periodic and recurrent retrieval of jouissance, termination of his
subscription will indeed mean withdrawing his bet. Terefore, when putting a stop
to the jouissance of the unconscious by which he is determined (Lacan, 197475,
session of 18.2.1975) the subject, without sighs or nostalgia, resorts to the death
drive in order to undo his ties and set himself free from an ensemble of signiers
that kept him, as S
1
, subsumed beneath the representation that represented him.
Yes: untying, detachment, breach of the automaton subscription so as to open up to
in-determination, to some chance tuchic encounter.
Self-criticism by Lacan
Seminar XXI already brought an unusual piece of self-criticism by Lacan: in it he
declared that the supposedly unavoidable connection between two signiers, the
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Roberto Harari
connection that couldnt be ignored, was an error (Lacan, 197374, session of
11.12.1973). As I see it, Lacan can pose this objection because the clinical practice
resulting from Borromean logic enables him to conceive of a type of chain that diers
from the chain of signiers. Te Borromean type calls for mutual independence of
the rst two rings, which are merely superposed and show a false hole between them
(Harari, 1999, 2526); whereas the chain of signiers is written as an olympic con-
nection, that is to say, as intertwined. Tis is why the Borromean chain accounts for
the mobility and autonomy of the signiers material aspectin other words, of the
letterwhich modies the usual canonical mode that denes the subject.
Just a split subject?
Te subject is actually represented by a signier for, or to, another signier. Still,
if the relation between signiers is broken, the notion of the subject it denes is
annulled too. Tus it should not surprise us that at the same time as Lacan posits the
unsubscription to the unconscious and non-olympic, Borromean logic, he brings
up a notion written as LOM (Lacan, 1979, 1316). It is, indeed, a homophony
for lhomme, the man. Is he then returning to an obsolete idea, one he has often
derided as a prejudice inherent to humus? Is it a return to wholeness? It might be
said that it is a return with a dierence, which becomes clear as we realise what the
writing of LOM points to. It is a new signier which acquires substance in writing,
for it does not sound dierent when uttered. Terefore, no unlimited splitting, but
one that is restricted to the Symbolic and autonomy for LOM to rescue the poten-
tial of language as an act, unsubscribed to the said register.
Homophony, not just homonymy
Te signier LOM, in act, sets a boundary to the analysts action, inviting him to
abstain from associating endlessly inside the ever-lasting polysemia of any signier
that has gained stability in the language. It rather teaches the analyst to undo and
rearrange words, holding together the phonic framework of language, as Jakobson
would put it (Jakobson & Waugh, 1980). Again, Joyce shows Lacan the telescoping
process, rst used by Lewis Carroll, where words are tightly packed together till
they become mots-valises, port-manteau words, which merge sound and meaning
in a disjunctive synthesis (Deleuze, 1971, 6268), like chaosmos does. Tis points
to the fact that it is insucient to think in terms of mere opposites. It is well-
known that Lacans self-criticism also reached the principle of dialectics when he
admitted to boasting of having resorted to it all the time (Lacan, 1975b). Ten,
neither opposites nor an improved synthesis but tight packing of letters, along
with mental jouissance (Lacan, 197172, session of 8.3.1972), that no longer
depend on fragmentations of the body or restraints imposed by the code. It is lack
of sense (or ab-sens) that triggers o new signiers. Hence it can be grasped how
far this way of action lies from Freuds dictum to bring the unconscious (which was
preconscious) into consciousness.
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Is the Unconscious Structured Like a Language?
Untranslation
Because we not only search for metaphorthe Symbolic realmbecause we do
not only go by the question whats the meaning of? because our hearing is not
guided only by translation rules, in 1973 Lacan pays homage to Joyce as the creator
of untranslation (Lacan, 1973, 252).As from this time it is not just proper nouns that
are not translated; Lacan himself raises Freuds das Unbewusste, the unconscious,
to the rank of untranslation when he renders it as lune-bvue. So, interlinguis-
tic untranslation. However, do we always need a minimal basis of bilingualism in
order to untranslate? Well, no, we do not, since LOM is bid even when he speaks
only one tongue, for this one tongue always forks out into other tracks, always
acceptsas well as demandsdetours such as clinamen (Harari, 2001). Arent the
titles of Lacans Seminars XIX to XXIV untranslated and bidly homophonic?
Lalangue
Lacan also criticised his own attachment to linguistics (Lacan, 197677, session of
19.4.1977), which he had embraced practically from the very beginning. We can see
how linguistics is replaced by linguisterie, a port-manteau word that packs together
linguistics and hysteria. Ten, the object of this quasi-parodic new branch of
knowledge is called lalangue. Actually, when the denite article is abolished as
an independent part of speech, the return to what is universal is also resigned. On
the other hand, it ciphers the scope of the mother tonguethe one the mother
speaks to her babysignalled by lallation, as written in the initial letters of this
neologism. But if so, does lalangue make up the bottom of some bag in the uncon-
scious, insofar as it stands for the remains of primitive, archaic marks? Is lalangue
perhaps the elemental background of the language? Not at all, for Lacans direc-
tions are that we should treat each and every word in the way la languelalangue
has processed them. He instructs us analysts to take up a dierent hearing mode,
inviting us to carry out a specic analytic operation where we cease to work with
the Symbolic in general. Yes, lalangue is such owing to the analysts praxis with the
Real in the language, or Realanguage: the tips, the pieces, regardless of rules and
order (Lacan, 197576, session of 13.4.1976), implementing true forcing (Lacan,
197677, session of 19.4.1977).
Conclusion
From the above, the reasons for the last Lacans sustained criticism of the uncon-
sciouslucubration, supposed deduction, and so onmight be understood.
His criticism nishes o in the following assertion made in his Seminar XXV: Te
hypothesis that the unconscious may be an extrapolation is not an absurdity, and
in it precisely, lies the reason why Freud resorts to what has been called drive
(Lacan, 197778, session of 15.11.1977). For drive actually allows new inscrip-
tions, unbinding signiers that anchor a symptomatic, parasitical jouissance, leading
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Roberto Harari
them along the lines of a system that the theory of chaos names as a system of
strange attractors (Harari, 1997, 12935). Yes, an orderly chaos that questions the
balance supported by the symptoms phallic jouissance, encouraging its replace-
ment by identication to the sinthome (Lacan, 197677, session of 16.11.1976).
* Translated from the Spanish by Judy Filc
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