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Lacanian triad and the 'sinthome'. <br>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinthome">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinthome</a><br>
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<div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From Wikipedia, the free
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<p>The term "<i><b>sinthome</b></i>" (<small>French: </small><span
title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA)" class="IPA"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/French"
title="Help:IPA/French">[sɛ̃tom]</a></span>) was introduced by
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan"
title="Jacques Lacan">Jacques Lacan</a> in his seminar <i>Le
sinthome</i> (1975–76). According to Lacan, <i>sinthome</i> is
the Latin way (1495 Rabelais, IV,63) of spelling the Greek origin
of the French word <i>symptôme</i>, meaning <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symptom" title="Symptom">symptom</a>.
The seminar is a continuing elaboration of his <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology" title="Topology">topology</a>,
extending the previous seminar's focus (<i>RSI</i>) on the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromean_rings"
title="Borromean rings">Borromean Knot</a> and an exploration of
the writings of <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce" title="James
Joyce">James Joyce</a>. Lacan redefines the psychoanalytic
symptom in terms of his topology of the subject.</p>
<p>In "Psychoanalysis and its Teachings" (<i>Écrits</i>) Lacan views
the symptom as inscribed in a writing process, not as <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ciphered_message&action=edit&redlink=1"
class="new" title="Ciphered message (page does not exist)">ciphered
message</a> which was the traditional notion. In his seminar
"L'angoisse" (1962-63) he states that the symptom does not call
for interpretation: in itself it is not a call to the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_%28philosophy%29"
title="Other (philosophy)">Other</a> but a pure <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jouissance"
title="Jouissance">jouissance</a> addressed to no one. This is a
shift from the linguistic definition of the symptom — as a <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_%28linguistics%29"
title="Sign (linguistics)">signifier</a> — to his assertion that
"the symptom can only be defined as the way in which each subject
enjoys (<i>jouit</i>) the unconscious in so far as the unconscious
determines the subject." He goes from conceiving the symptom as a
message which can be deciphered by reference to the unconscious
structured like a language to seeing it as the trace of the
particular modality of the subject's <i>jouissance</i>.</p>
<p>This shift from linguistics to topology constitutes the status of
the <i>sinthome</i> as unanalyzable. The seminar extends the
theory of the Borromean knot, which in <i>RSI</i> (Real,
Symbolic, Imaginary) had been proposed as the structure of the
subject, by adding the <i>sinthome</i> as the fourth ring to the
triad already mentioned, tying together a knot which constantly
threatens to come undone. Since meaning (<i>sens</i>) is already
figured within the knot, at the intersection of the Symbolic and
the Imaginary, it follows that the function of the <i>sinthome</i>
— knotting together <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real" title="The Real">the
Real</a>, <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imaginary_%28psychoanalysis%29"
title="The Imaginary (psychoanalysis)">the Imaginary</a> and <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Symbolic" title="The
Symbolic">the Symbolic</a> — is beyond meaning.</p>
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