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§21 Objet petit a—The Rift in the Drive-Object The Borromean knot emphasizes the immanent co-implication of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. It contains an implicit warning to anyone who wishes to exegetically untangle the various threads of Lacanian theory: As soon as one starts to speak about a particular facet of Lacan ’s work, one must always–already have brought into play the other facets. Similarly, Lacan’s engagements with the Freudian Trieb—these engagements are located in a number of different places in Lacan’s oeuvre, spanning several distinct phases of his thought—present a dense web of various issues. Much like the bind of the Borromean knot, Lacan transforms Trieb into a knotting of concepts—need, demand, desire, das Ding, die Sache, and so on. And, each of these concepts, like Lacan’s three structural registers, is intimately interwoven with the constellation formed by the other concepts. Treating any of these terms in isolation results in the utter dissolution of the knot, the loss of the very theoretical object being analyzed. This is as much a Gordian knot as a Borromean one. Scrutinizing objet petit a, in particular from the temporal standpoint developed previously , is perhaps the most elegant means of cutting this knot so as to begin tracing the multiple nuances of the Lacanian Trieb. Although dubbed the “cause of desire,” object a is assigned the status of being the object of the drive—“this object that is the cause of desire is the object of the drive—that is to say, the object around which the drive turns” (SXI, 243).1 As the paradigmatic drive-object, object a isn’t merely some particular type of material object (for example, a certain body part). Given that Lacan posits it as the object of drive in general, it functions as a formal, metapsychological category defining a specific structural posiThe Lacanian Drive Topos 184 7 tion in the ensemble of mechanisms constituting the overall structure of Trieb. Object a is, therefore, a role in the drama of the drives, with various determinate entities playing a part by giving body to this metapsychological variable—“this object . . . is in fact simply the presence of a hollow, a void, which can be occupied, Freud tells us, by any object, and whose agency we know only in the form of the lost object, the petit a” (SXI, 180).2 Kantian philosophy is an important historical precursor of Lacanian thought, especially as regards the subject. Additionally, the gap between noumenal and phenomenal realms is reflected in the dehiscent organization of Trieb: The noumenal axis of iteration’s impossible demand for an atemporal repetition of an initial object cathexis is necessarily routed through the temporal matrix of the phenomenal axis of alteration. Lacan differs somewhat in his approach to Freudian drive theory. Instead of internally cleaving the drive into two conflictual axes, Lacan divides the drive-object qua object a. In the seventh seminar, he makes extensive use of the Kantian-Freudian distinction between the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) and the object-for-another (die Sache) in developing an early version of object a. The object pole of Lacanian theory, as well as its subject pole, is conceptually indebted to Kant. Furthermore, Lacan speaks of an exact parallel between the split subject ($) and object a. The dehiscence between Lacan’s subject of enunciation (synchronic) and subject of the utterance (diachronic) represents a structuralist translation of the Kantian antagonism between the transcendental and phenomenal/empirical dimensions of subjectivity. Thus, temporality proves to be the wedge forcing a division in subjective structure . Object a mirrors this temporal division of the subject: [T]he object manifested here in the phantasy carries the mark of what we have called on many occasions the splitting of the subject. What we find, is undoubtedly here the same topological space which defines the object of desire, it is probable that this number being inherent is only the mark of the inaugural temporality which constitutes this field. (SIX, 6/20/62) For both Kant and Lacan, the “inaugural temporality” governing the constitution of the subject is the irreconcilable tension between timelessness (Kant’s noumenal subject and/or Lacan’s synchronic ça parle) and temporalization (Kant’s phenomenal subject and/or Lacan’s diachronic temporality of the signifying chain). In the B version of the “Transcendental Deduction,” Kant proposes what could be called a “reciprocity thesis” regarding the rapport between the transcendental unity of apperception 185...

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