From Heidegger to Lacan PDF

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In the following analysis, we will try to determine the deep affinity that links Lacan's psychoanalytic theory with Heidegger's thought. We will try to show that Lacan rests the construction of his own theory on a very particular interpretation of the existential analysis of Dasein. Indeed, Lacan re...

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From Heidegger to Lacan

In the following analysis, we will try to determine the deep affinity that links Lacan's psychoanalytic theory with Heidegger's thought. We will try to show that Lacan rests the construction of his own theory on a very particular interpretation of the existential analysis of Dasein. Indeed, Lacan resorts to Heideggerian reflections on the structure and temporality of Dasein to elevate psychoanalysis to the rank of a philosophy of the subject, inhabited by language. At first glance, clearly, the difference between the Heideggerian and Lacanian conception of language seems to make the two theories totally incompatible, although we only want to limit ourselves to the conception of the subject. The logic of the signifier starts from the idea that meaning is always secondary to the differential relationship of the terms of a signifying chain. If for Lacan the subject is submerged in the sense, it is because from the outset he is taken in the "gorges of the signifier". In this sense, Lacan's thought of language, the determination of a logic of the signifier, is conceived at the same time as a critique of the primacy of meaning. In the same way, according to the Lacanian conception of psychoanalysis, the objective could never be, neither for the analysand nor for the analyst, understand a "being-in-the-world". Psychoanalysis can never or should never be conceived as a hermeneutic. However, it is no less true that in the "first" Lacan we find an interesting indecision on that level. Although Lacan does not conceive of analytic practice as a hermeneutic, he does conceive it, as a result of the influence of certain aspects of Heideggerian philosophy, as an activity of gift and creation of meanings. It is also evident that, with his psychoanalytic theory, Lacan tries to provide at the same time a new foundation for the existential analysis of Dasein. For Lacan, (“plenary”) speech does not depend on the articulation and deciphering of the

1

"Pre-understanding" of the world, but is conceived as an original creation of meaning in reality. By reading Lacan's texts, we can easily convince ourselves that he had the deep conviction that the fundamental orientations of structuralist psychoanalysis are not only close to the fundamental orientations of Heideggerian ontology, but also allow us to complete, and even correct, the human being's conception of Being and time. For his part, Heidegger never shared this enthusiasm for this new general psychology. In order to better characterize the strange relationship that links Lacan to Heidegger, we will first attempt to briefly reconstruct the existential analysis of Dasein, as it is done in Being and Time. This will allow us to better reveal how the Lacanian conception of the subject is related to Heidegger's notion of property 2. We will try to show to what extent Lacan was inspired by the fundamental ontology of Being and time, while at the same time hiding its true problematic. The understanding as existential character of Dasein constitutes the original opening of "being-in-the-world". He speaks of the opening of being, both of the intramundane entity and of the being of Dasein, precedes the latter, who is always already given to him (überantwortet). In listening to the being-explicit of speech, Dasein is originally situated as an ontological entity. Therefore, speech has its own possibility of understanding being. In and through explicit speech, an original and proper understanding of the being of the intramundane entity is articulated, as well as of the being belonging to Dasein. However, by that surrender, Dasein remains in what Heidegger calls the "fall" (Verfallen). The "fall" is the most common way of being (zuerst und zumeist) of Dasein in its daily life. Before we get interested in the notion of property, we will first follow the fall of speech into gossip. Talking is a "talking about ...". The about-what (Worüber) of speech must be distinguished from what is said (Geredete), from what is said (Gesagte). What has been said constitutes the element of communication (Mitteilung), and communication belongs to the existential structure of Dasein as "coestar." Therefore, the constitutive moments of speech are: the “about-what of speaking” (that

of what is spoken), “speaking as such” and “communication” (Heidegger, 1927: §34, 162). If Dasein, before maintaining its own relationship with its being, is always already referred to the other Dasein, then it is situated on the level of what is spoken, what is said and communication. Thus, it shares the general articulation of understanding in everyday life. For its part, everyday life is characterized by its indifference and by the disappearance of differences (Heidegger, 1927: §9, 43). According to Heidegger, the way

of

understanding

Dasein,

taken

in

everyday

life,

is

medianity

(Durchschnittlichkeit). This medianity dispenses him from an original understanding. Therefore, the original relation to the about-what of speech is lost in what is said and communicated. At the level of everyday speech, it is not necessary to seek a relationship with the “things themselves”. Comprehension is generalized in a medium and approximate listening. The world "wants to say" ("lie") the thing itself, because everyone understands in the same medianity. Therefore, communication takes place more and more on the level of what is said (Geredete), to finally lead to gossip (Gerede). It could be thought that, for Heidegger, the domain of the fall covers the whole of the communicative understanding where the distribution of knowledge, convictions, beliefs and ideas is constituted. The relationship with the “thing itself”, the original understanding of the about-what-about of speech, is lost to give rise to the lack of foundation (Bodenlosigkeit), to the abyss of gossip. For the rest, this lack of foundation explains why gossip can only rest on repetition (Weiterreden) and diffusion (Nachreden). In this description of the everyday world, we find the model of the "wall of language" and of social "barbarism" according to Lacan. Like Heidegger, Lacan starts from the verification of the fall in the world, and seeks to go beyond that world by virtue of a deeper dimension. But if Lacan picks up this observation with some lightness, Heidegger is much more concerned about the quasi-diabolical character of that world. Reassured by the haste of alienation (Enfremdung), no possibility seems to present itself to Dasein to get out of everyday life with a view to the

property. The projection in the "one" is not only explained by temptation and reassurance, but also by the cover-up of the fall, as a characteristic feature of the fall itself: it is made explicit as progress (Aufstieg) and as a concrete life . In relation and diffusion, the difference between "what has been originally conquered and achieved and what is merely repeated" is erased (Heidegger, 1927: §35, 169). This undecidability constitutes the ambiguity of the speech of the daily costar. Dasein loses its character of clarity of being3 to lock itself in the relationship and the diffusion of advertising. The lack of foundation is hidden by the evidence and the certainty of everyday life, which constitute, with the help of gossip, the most daily and most tenacious "reality" of Dasein. Above the abyss, the lack of foundation, Dasein remains in suspense (Schwebe), in a strangeness that, however, does not disturb it at all. Quite the contrary, the reassurance you get from distraction and curiosity that lead you to see everything and understand everything, Therefore, to get out of the cadent everyday, Dasein needs to escape and make an effort in order to rediscover its true being, its true possibilities. According to Heidegger, there are only two major events that can force Dasein to stay in the busy movement of reassuring alienation: anguish and rushing to death. For this forced escape he makes a very particular tempo intervene. In a way, we could surely say that Dasein is "in" time: its life unfolds between birth and death. The first belongs to a well-determined past and the second to an indeterminate future. According to Heidegger, all Western philosophy is traversed by this wrong perspective. The traditional conception of time, which places the subject between a finished past and a future, falsely interprets time as something that is at hand, by making it rest on the primacy of presence.

On the contrary, Dasein is essentially determined by historicity (Geschichtlichkeit) (Heidegger, 1927: §42, 197). Dasein is not related to birth and death in general, but always already to its death and birth. The temporality that extends between birth and death reveals the existential structure of Dasein. Death is an insurmountable possibility. Even if he makes his death pass through the silence of oblivion, Dasein never ceases to be a mortal being. Death, as existential, has a paradoxical structure. As a possibility to come, death as such does not constitute an experience. I cannot experience my own death.4 In everyday life, death first presents itself as the death of others. It concerns the costing of Dasein. In death, the other Dasein is transformed, in appearance, into something that is merely at hand. Dasein leaves its world to become a simple corpse at hand.5 But the interpretation of death as a passage towards it is at hand or being at hand, as is the interpretation of the dead as "deceased" that it subsists in the world, it only conceals the existential character of death. As existential, death is always mine. The "costar" in the world includes the replaceability (Vertretbarkeit) of one Dasein for another. In everyday business, one Dasein can essentially always make another replace it (Heidegger, 1927: §47, 239). Here we rediscover the generality of the "one". In the "one", one Dasein is equivalent to another. At this level, each Dasein can and should "be" its other at the same time. It is the place of "request", where one Dasein puts himself in the place of another in occupying himself. But of course that is not the case with death. Of course, someone else may die in my place, but his death will at most be a sacrificial death "in a certain matter." Die in my place, for a cause. However, that does not mean that I am immediately excused from my own

death. The death that I must die is already always mine. It always concerns me as an insurmountable possibility of my being. Therefore, my death cannot be replaced. Insofar as Dasein is, death is a "not-yet." As a possibility, death belongs to the order of the future. But as soon as Dasein reaches that not-yet, it becomes "not-able-to-existmore." Death is the end of Dasein, and as existential, death as an end is part of Dasein's own being: “Rather, just as Dasein, while it is being, is already constantly its not-yet, so it is also always and its end. The ending to which death refers does not mean having-reached-the-end of Dasein (Zu-Ende-sein), but rather a being turned towards the end on the part of this entity (Sein zum Ende). " (Heidegger, 1927: §48, 245)

As such, death manifests itself in anguish. Unlike fear, anguish is not related to an intramundane entity. The "before what" of anguish is nothing other than being-in-inworld as such.6 In anguish over death, the world as such disappears and sinks into nothingness. Thus, she pulls Dasein from its cadent identification with the world and from the tranquility of the feeling of being-at-home in everyday life. It makes Dasein appear as not-at-home (Un-zuhause). At this moment, Dasein is manifested by the "daily being lost in the one" (Heidegger, 1927: §40, 189). By isolating Dasein, you make it see property and impropriety as possibilities of being. Through anguish, Dasein, as a factual self-anticipation (Sichvorweg-sein), can choose its own possibility of being turned towards death. 7 Being turned towards death is not merely thinking about death or simply becoming aware of the finiteness of human life. As a possibility of its own, death must first be conceived as a possibility. You have to stay on the sidelines open by waiting. But that waiting should not be related to a possible reality that would end

coming. Death is not something that should be done. It does not give Dasein a chance to be that it itself should be. As such, death only indicates the impossibility of all existence. In being turned towards death, death must be an existential possibility proper to Dasein. Therefore, it may not consist in anticipating a possibility of being in death, but in comprehensively approaching death as a possibility. Advancing to the possibility of death, as the impossibility of existence, makes the possibility appear as such. It makes the nothing appear that makes Dasein capable of putting itself "before" its most proper being. Faced with the loss of the world and the calming being-in-the-world of everyday life, Dasein leaves the "one" and singles itself out as its own. The lack of foundation of gossip, Only the possibility of death places Dasein before the thrown possibilities as someone who is the possibilities that he can choose from his being. These possibilities are presented as finite possibilities that Dasein understands from its finitude. Death confronts Dasein with nothingness. Faced with this impossibility of existing, Dasein can perceive that its nascent possibilities are its own. Then, he knows how to relate to his being from a resolution. That resolution does not withdraw Dasein into the interior of an intimate property. Rather, it opens up a being-in-the-world of its own, free from the rush into the "one." The resolution is what discovers the factual possibility, so that Dasein can properly relate to its being, according to the possibilities of power-being in the "one". Resolution is understanding and project.8 Dasein is thrown into its "There", but its "There" has not been given. This is what Heidegger calls the facticity of the thrown condition. Dasein can never get rid of its thrown condition. He is always already committed to that factuality that constitutes his foundation. However, that foundation is not a thing of the past,

fulfilled as something at hand. As delivered to its foundation, Dasein is, and must be, that foundation. Self-being must necessarily rest on that foundation that Dasein has not proposed per se. Dasein is its foundation, insofar as it projects itself towards its thrown possibilities. Thus, the foundation already always precedes Dasein. Always late, Dasein can only relate to its thrown foundation. It can never be properly in itself, but only by abandoning "himself" to his own thrown foundation. The property that is determined as a project and decision from the foundation only rests on the foundation's own being. Conversely, the foundation is such only because of Dasein, whose foundation it is. The only freedom of Dasein consists in the openness to its possibilities and in the choice of certain determined possibilities. In other words, the only freedom of Dasein consists in the discovery of its own “nihility” (Nichtigkeit), 9 of its surrender to a thrown foundation that it can be in the property or reject in the fall. The discovery of nothingness makes the decision between ownership and fall possible. By means of its "nihility" alone, Dasein is referred to a foundation that it has not proposed, but to which it has been thrown. Consequently, Dasein has the possibility of taking over or assuming (übernehmen) his condition of being thrown, that is, “to be […] as he always was” (Heidegger, 1927: §65, 325). The foundation precedes Dasein and Dasein has the option of being its foundation itself. He was always that foundation, but at the same time he rushed into the cadent movement of the "one", into everyday life, gossip and curiosity. The manifestation of your own "nihility" originally awakens the possibilities thrown. From these, Dasein can choose to be what it has already been. Thus, it may be his "havingbeen" (Gewesen). As we saw above, "nihility" is only revealed by anticipating to death. In advancing, Dasein can return to its own "having-been". The temporeity that Heidegger reveals to us thus seems to be radically opposed to the “everyday” (but so traditional) understanding of time:

“Being coming in its own way, Dasein is properly being. Going forward to the most proper and extreme possibility is the comprehensive return to one's own having-been […]. The having-been (Gewesenheit) emerges in a way from the future. " (Heidegger, 1927: §65, 326).

Dasein can only be its having-been by becoming it. Being to come, Dasein returns to itself, presentifying its having-been to come. This phenomenon of the "future that is being and that it presents" (gewesend-gegenwärtigende Zukunft) constitutes, according to Heidegger, the fundamental structure of the temporality of Dasein. The future that is being been and that it presents explains the paradoxical formula of having to be its own being. The rationale for getting ahead of Dasein does not simply precede it as a dead and finished past. The past as being provides the most proper meaning to Dasein as the future. In other words, the project resulting from the resolution advances Dasein to its being, which must come from the future. Dasein does not simply live in the present –in the here and now of a present experience, insofar as it is present to itself–, but lives outside itself, in a project that presents the future of its “been” foundation. Thus, temporeity cannot be understood from the present as a permanent passage of present moments. The present in itself can only be understood from the being to come as ecstatic presentification. Dasein is always already a self-anticipation, in the condition of being thrown from a projecting founded on the future. Time, strictly speaking, is not "is." As being, time is interpreted as something at hand that is, has been or is no longer, or will be and is not yet. Temporeity "is timed." As a timer, temporeity makes the choice of Dasein possible. In timing, Dasein is ecstatic. It can never be picked up in a here and now. Dasein properly exists in the ecstasy of temporality. Dasein is your between birth and death.

The future is the time proper to property. But in advancing to death, the finiteness of Dasein is also revealed. Temporeity is no longer an infinite temporality that opens up to an infinity of possibilities, but it is a finite temporality. Finiteness takes Dasein out of the infinity of comfortable and easy possibilities to return it to the simplicity of its destiny. Then, Dasein can resume its thrown condition as an inheritance. However, inheritance is not a singular inheritance that isolates Dasein in solitude. In property, Dasein essentially does not cease to be. This shared inheritance awakens the common destiny (Geschick). Common destiny opens Dasein to historicity. But that historicity first is the existential historicity of Dasein himself. History as such can only be founded on the original historicity of Dasein: “Only an entity that is essentially future in its being in such a way that, being free for its death and crashing against it, can allow itself to be thrown backwards, towards its factual 'There', that is, only an entity that as future is cooriginarily an entity that is being, can, by giving itself the inherited possibility, assume the condition of being thrown and be instantaneous for 'its time'. Only its own temporality, which is, at the same time, finite, makes possible something like a destiny, that is, its own historicity. " (Heidegger, 1927: §74, 385)

Thus, one's temporality becomes a repetition of tradition (Überlieferung). However, this repetition does not constitute a mere unfolding or an unaltered resumption of something that is already-there past. The past as inheritance, product of the condition of being thrown out of Dasein, only comes from the future of the project. In the project, inheritance is opened up as a possibility that is-being-AIDS in the future. The inheritance is always yet to come. In this sense, it is possible to speak ...