What Is Knowledge?

In order for the speaking being to begin to speak he must have made the presupposition that a certain knowledge exists, that said knowledge is in the Other, and that it is something that exceeds experiential knowing (connaissance). In other words, knowledge has a price, a cost, whose reference point is jouissance. Furthermore, it cannot be learned.

Otherwise put, all of the facts and figures we typically refer to when discoursing about this or that analytic theme and which are as a result elements of this experiential knowing (connaissance), are nonetheless only interesting to us insofar as they are gained through a knowledge accumulated via the experience of the transference, which Lacan dubbed “analytic discourse.”

“Analytic discourse,” by the way, is something that stems from a highly specific kind of discursive experience which is connected to the presence of something that Lacan himself invented, the ever-elusive object (a) he placed in the position of agent.

Our attempt to take things a bit further in this regard began with what Freud referred to in one of his texts as Kränkung, but which is usually translated as if it were the word Krankung instead, resulting in a censorship effect that covers over what is really at issue, which I will relate to you in German:

das Leiden erdultete schweigend als “Kränkung,” which should be translated into French as “suffering undergone in (self-imposed) silence, like an experience of mortification,” and not as an “affliction.”

The thing is, at that time Freud was treating Lucy R., who was an English governess in Vienna running the home of a prominent businessman and taking care of his children. She had begun to develop symptoms, and during the same period as he was preparing this text the question of silencing (oneself), se taire or schweigen, was arising in the transference because Freud had reproached Lucy R. for having remained silent about something she knew.

So long as he reproached her for this however, he remained unaware of a unique timing or moment that remained outside the frame.

Last time, from this same perspective, and also via the approach used by the highly unusual philosopher Condorcet, I recounted the way in which Freud had interpreted one of the Rat Man’s dreams, and how Lacan proposed to interpret differently. When this speaking being dreamt of Freud’s own daughter with mud packs for eyes Freud pointed out, (let’s not forget that at the time, 1907, this was a genuine discovery of his, something truly new), “the interpretation of this dream is straightforward for someone familiar with dream symbolism: he doesn’t love her for her ‘beautiful eyes,’ but for her money instead.”

Freud raised himself up to a certain level in the Imaginary, where he remained.

Lacan revisited this interpretation in the Rome Discourse, in 1953, in a highly specific context, which is crucial to bear in mind because what was at issue was a highly specific dimension of the transference that was preoccupying the analytic community during that period: The question as to what constitutes a bond (faire lien) between analysts.

Indeed this is the basis upon which we are able to understand what he was saying, meaning that which knotted analyst and analyzand at that particular moment in the transference was the fact that the analyzand gave the analyst the gift of a daughter in the Imaginary because, unwittingly, he was expecting his analyst to “agree to (recevoir) the alliance in the form of this pivotal dream which revealed to him her true face, that of death which stared at him through her asphalt eyes.”

Lacan’s poetic interpretation wields the “H” of this “History” (l’Histoire [of the case]) like an axe that exceeds and even lops off all meaning (signification). It presupposes, obviously, in this particular period of the transference, something that I am going to attempt to transmit once again this evening, because I believe it is important insofar as it is what enables the emergence of a specific moment in the transference, a new “time” in which something new may appear.

Let us revisit the three prisoners at the end of the War, the story (histoire) Lacan constructed, (you know he would himself revisit it on several occasions, he was definitely fascinated by it), whose solution, I hope above all to show, the getting out of prison, was not subject to what each prisoner saw on the two others, because over time as he continued to talk it through in a different way, meaning as he continued to iter it, to come back to it again in a new way, via a new itinerary as it were, his travels led him to 1974-75, at which time he stated that everything he had said about the story up until that time, in particular as concerns what each prisoner might think about the other, was not what was essential.

What was important was that at a certain moment all three of them were in the same position, that of “being the object (a), of being reduced to what it is as a remainder subjected to the gaze of the two others who might just as well be 4, 6, 7, 8…”

In fact these two others constituted what he called at that point in time the One, “There is Oneness” (Il y a de l’Un). Otherwise put, at a certain moment, (I think this is the direction we can take here), and because there is only one transference (that of the analyst, this is what he said in the “Rome Discourse”), the analyzand will end up in a sense soliciting (something) in the Imaginary mode, and (when this occurs) if the analyst is guided by the sort of transference that is touched by the unheard, unseen and immaterial, then something may be enabled to move forward, as a result of the silencing of meaning, in the direction of the Symbolic gift, meaning something that emerges into existence as a response to the encounter with the experience of mortification we referred to earlier as being utterly essential. Why?

Because this proves the importance of the body of the analyst. What is the body of a speaking being? What is the analyst’s voice as object? What is sound in the transference? And I would also like to point out, before going further, that Lacan wrote the Real, Symbolic and Imaginary as “RSI” in 1953, which was the same year in which the structure of DNA was discovered. It is rather odd to find a writing that yields the basic facts of both science and psychoanalysis emerging in the same year.

And in fact it is possible to assert that they are truly cut from the same cloth, because we know perfectly well the biochemical structure of DNA, this is not an issue, but what we also know is that DNA recombined into RNA is the rot of the complex proteins that actually constitute every living being, however, (this is the part the troubles me, I seem to recall Lacan talking about this on two or three occasions in a Seminar somewhere, I don’t know which), what is rather disturbing is that everything important that is related to this three letters DNA is in fact tied to the complexity the organism will acquire on the basis of its structure. We can know what the biochemical structure is, but the crucial issues will only arise out of the complexity acquired during various recombinations.

In the same way, it is possible to describe the Real, Symbolic and Imaginary, but the real question is knowing how their knotting holds fast, despite the fact that we know the Real is what holds it together, even though we know this is what the object (a) does.

It could be said that in the transference, (this is another way of saying differently what I just mentioned), there is a moment when it becomes possible for the analyst to be moved in a way that enables him to become the knot’s sovereign in a way. This is one way we could try to render differently what he hears, rather than understands, meaning what is involved in the appearance of this kind of agency is not thought or understanding, but a moment when thinking activity falls silent.

This moment of stunning, of Kränkung, which Lacan wrote as the bar over the S, this moment when the Real erupts and commits an act of breaking of entering, is crucial. The entire question resides therein.

If the answer to it is yes, a certain knotting may occur, (which I believe could be termed “sovereign,” I’ll explain why later if I have time), or perhaps we might call it “noble,” nobilis, which stems originally from gnobilis, and from that point of course the word “ignoble” is just one short “i” away…All we need is for there to be a certain knotting in language, in the words I am saying here, not within the category of aristocrats. All we need is for something to be set in motion at the level of language in order for nobilis, nobility, to set something in motion in a way that makes something related to the body and its jouissance to be heard.

This is what is really meant by the body of language (langue), the topos where something is heard, but not with the ears, something invisible is seen, and this is the point at which I would like us to stop this evening, insofar as this moment effectively represents the absolutely unthinkable configuration whereby the number two is accessed starting from the number three, that is to say the Real.

Even though our reason leads us spontaneously, obviously, from two to three, the dimension of three(ness) as such, of the Real, is in fact something Freud discovered and Lacan named in a way that made clear how it leads us to an elsewhere than the place of factual history.

When someone is talking in the analytic framework, obviously, he is constructing something. But when will anything new ever emerge if the analyst remains mired in the factual history, if a moment is lacking when something functions that is beyond the historical facts which are located solely in the dimension of pleasure-unpleasure?

In order to take the next step forward, let’s return to Condorcet, to this “Condor” who was discovered lying on the ground at 2 p.m. in the afternoon of March 29^th, 1794, face down with his arms laid out alongside his body.

The first thing they did was conduct an autopsy, an opsis, what was seen, meaning (they looked for) what killed him. And it was noted that his nose was bleeding.

Of course no genuine autopsy took place, but something similar in nature, his pockets were searched, and as much research as possible was conducted along these lines, ending in the discovery of a stamp on his forehead, which was the stamp of the prison he was to leave the following day in order to be taken to the guillotine after being presented, according to good form, to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

The question that was left behind, the remainder that constituted the true discovery, was why he became increasingly committed to the spirit of the revolution, but never became a terrorist.

What Condorcet transmitted to us was that it was possible to a revolutionary without waging terror. But at a crucial moment he was seized by the Real he was confronted with from within. More precisely still, the Real he was confronted with in the form of the terrorists, especially Robespierre, took hold of him and transfixed him and overcame him because he was touched by the muse in continuity with the Real who pushed him to come out of his hiding place in order to escape the experience of mortification he could not tolerate. He, like Freud, like us, could not be open to it, could not, more precisely, write it.

He fell to earth, sucked in by the terror that was being unleashed…

He had to go into hiding. But then something else occurred thanks to his having heard it in the voice of his wife.

Even though he was preoccupied with proving he was not a traitor, by which I mean he was busy shutting himself up, one day his wife Sophie made him see the meaning – I imagine as you probably do that she was able to witness this fixation inscribed in the Real of his body – in writing something she knew he knew: the Draft of a Historical Picture.

This was not a work of history, it was a “picture,” which is very important. It was a picture of the historical progress of the human mind. Often the title is written as Draft of a Picture.

A picture…This word “picture” transported me for a moment, because it made me realize that this was in effect what he left behind with his body as well. Since our last meeting I read up on the rituals behind the sacrament of ordination, because as I was saying then the way his body was arranged made me think of it. I wanted to know exactly how the arms are arranged in relation to the torso.

So where are they supposed to be? Well as it turns out the ritual does not state precisely where, only that the supplicant should be “pro strate,” pro sternum. A priest I know told me the hands are (usually) folded underneath the forehead, but that’s just what has developed over time here, so the arms could be laid out alongside the torso as well, it’s not set in stone.

The dimension of the torso, besides its apparent ramifications as a bodily “member,” first and foremost raises questions that I believe are important because they might enable us to “revolute,” in the sense of escaping this sort of tourniquet of meaning we are snarled up in, which is something that is never accomplished without eliciting something related to jouissance, (in itself completely paradoxical, but it’s for (the benefit of) the receiver, for the one who sees it).

Of course it’s not the body we see before us that is “coming” (jouit) as such, although…it’s not like we know exactly what’s going on at that precise moment anyhow. What we do know for sure, (no doubt you have experience in this domain too), is that after a certain amount of time, we can see that this is not immobile.

This comes from us of course. But then there is something on the other hand about the Real of the cadaver that is unforgettable because it triggers something in us. But why the guillotine? What does it think of all this? Perhaps Sanson knew something about all this, but kept quiet about it. Well, not completely anyway. This is a good place to cut things short.