Someone else wrote:
>>> I pondered this question and came up with the following
answer:
>>> Yes.
And an other someone else wrote:
>> I would second that.
And yet another other wrote:
> Hear, hear! What he said. And pretty goddamn obvious,
too--Doug, far as I'm concerned, to wax this way (what,
fey and catty?) regarding lacan's charlatanry with math
when one of his supposed achievements is to have laid a
legitimately "scientific" basis for Freudianism is just
too typical of pomo arrogance, which is unaccustomed
to being challenged since so few of its premises
are susceptible to *any* kind of falsification.
First - Lacan didn't want to establish a scientific discourse for Freudianism.
Second - Lacan wasn't a postmodernist.
Third - Lacan used numbers not because they meant anything, but because they *didn't* mean anything. Also, because he got kicks from doing so.
Fourth - In order to accept the principle of falsification you have to accept the principles of science as valid.
Fifth - There is no fifth.
Six - "the unconscious is structured like a language" is perhaps one of the most misunderstood Lacanian concepts floating around, right up there with "there is no sexual relation" and "There is no whole. Nothing is whole."
On Numbers. Lacan has some 20,000 unpublished notes with graphs, charts, numbers and such. He regarded these things as "recreational mathematics." In other words, he did it for fun - as a kind of mental challenge. In the late 1950's and 60's he made a considerable effort to formulate and abbreviate psychoanalytic concepts in the guise of symbols or "mathemes" - something like the smallest unit of speech. Lacan quickly notes that the "mathemization" of psychoanalysis is an independent scientific discourse... one of many discourses. So nothing about psychoanalysis stands or falls on this single discourse. In other words, this particular aspect of Lacan's work, which moves in one direction instead of another, is subject to its own rules (see his work on the four discourses).
On science. Lacan wrote, in 1977, that "psychoanalysis is to be taken seriously, even though it is not a science." So he's not providing a scientific basis for the field. Lacan's point is that science is not yet equal to the task of accommodating psychoanalysis. In other words, science isn't up to the task of *theory building* (I'm inclined to agree, which is why we don't find too many Popperians in marxist, feminist, or hermeneutic circles).
On language. When Lacan stated the the unconscious is structured like a langauge, he basically mean that language makes up the unconsciousness. No, the unconsciousness is not like a dictionary. It is filled with images, representations, associations, links, pauses, dreams, words, symbols, and so on. There come *from* somewhere. Where? Language, communication, symbolization and yes, sometimes even "nature." The unconscious has a grammar. No, not like English or French or German, but a logic that runs through it. In other words, some associations are *structurally* impossible to make. In other words - the unconsciousness is finite and contingent - ie. the unconscious is *dialectic* and *dialogic* - no more needs to be read into this.
On Lacan. There have been three primary respones to Lacan's work:
1.If I can't figure him out myself, then he's not worth thinking about. 2. If he can't express himself clearly, then it must be muddled thinking. 3. I never thought much of French "theory" anyway.
Which is reminiscent of the threefold denial concocted by the person accused by their neighbor of having returned a kettle in damaged condition:
1. I returned it undamaged. 2. The kettle had a hole in it when I borrowed it. 3. I never borrowed the kettle in the first place.
It's a game, figure out where you belong in the three and then enjoy your predictability.
I don't care if anyone like or dislikes Lacan. But if your going to aim at him, just recognize that this says more about the shooter than the target.
ken "the other" mackendrick