It is by way of this surplus element which embodies the Universal in its negative form, by way of this point at which the Universal comes across itself in its "antithetical determination", that the signifier's structure subjectivizes itself: subject exists only within this "failed encounter" between the Universal and the Particular- it is ultimately nothing but a name for their constitutive discord. The Particular is always deficient, there is not enough of it to "fill out" the extension of the Universal, yet simultaneously, it comes in surplus since it adds itself to the series of particular elements as the One which embodies Genus itself. As soon as we abolish this short circuit between the Universal and the Particular, this spacing of the Moebius band where the Universal and the Particular are located on the same surface- in other words, as soon as we arrive at a classification where the Universal is divided into species without the paradoxical remainder of its "antithetical determination"- we have an "objective" structure, a structure which does not stage the representation of the subject.
Did we not thereby reach the Lacanian formula of the signifier? Is this "antithetical determination", this paradoxical Particular which, within the series of Particulars, holds the place of, stands for, the Universal itself, not the signifier which represents the subject for the other signifiers? As, for example, in the Marxian example of the logic of royalism, whereby republicanism represents royalism in general for the (other) species of royalism? The answer is definitely negative: what
a simplistic reading fails to take into account is the dialectic of lack The surplus Particular embodies the Universal in the form of it comes in excess precisely in so far as it fills out the lack of with regard to the Universal. The surplus is thus the form of the lack; the One (the Lacanian "plus-One") is the form appearance of Zero, and it is only at this point that the formula of signifier can legitimately be introduced: the excess, the surplus which fills out the lack, is the signifier which represents the (the void, Zero, the empty set of the structure). To clarify this point, let us recall the following passage from the third book of
tH
egel's Science of Logic:True, I have notions, that is to say, determinate notions; but the I is the pure Notion itself which, as Notion, has come into existence. 37
I (for Hegel, synonymous with the subject) is thus located at the )C:rossing point of "being" and "having". The universal notion which (bnly has predicates is still a substantial Universal lacking the self
(Je
ferentiality that pertains to the subject. On the one hand, subject is (pure negative universality: an identity-with-itself which "repels", itnakes abstraction of, all its determinate content ("I" am not any of my ,;,d
eterminations but the universality which simultaneously encomand negates them); yet on the other hand, "I" is this abstract of negativity which has come into existence in the very domain of its
!Jeterminations; which has acquired "determinate-being". As such, it is
rdl
e very opposite of universal self-identity: a vanishing point, the eluding every determination - in other words, a of pure singularity. It is precisely this oscillation between�:
abstract-negative universality (abstraction of all determinate content) [.llnd the vanishing point of pure singularity, this "absolute universality :which is also immediately an absolute individualization", that consti. tutes, according to Hegel, "the nature of the I as well as of the Notion"38- the ultimate identity of the I and the Notion. Far from 1occupying the opposite pole of the universality, the Hegelian
indivi-du4Iity designates the point at which the vanishing self-sublating content coincides with the abstract form of universal receptacle which is indifferent to all determinate content.
The three terms- the positive Universal (royalism as genus), the Particular (its different species: Orleanism, Legitimism . . . ) and the Exception which embodies the Universal in the form of its opposite
(republicanism as the only way to be "royalist in general") -are thus to be supplemented by a fourth - the void itself filled out by the Exception. This void comes into sight in the Hegelian subversion of the "principle of identity": the identity-with-itself as expressed in tautology ("God is God", for example) is in itself the purest, absolute contradiction, the lack of any particular determination - where one expects a specific determination, a predicate ("God is ... ") one obtains nothing, the absence of determination. Far from exhibiting a kind of self-sufficient plenitude, tautology thus opens up a void in the Substance which is then filled out by the Exception: this void is the subject, and the Exception represents it for all other elements of the Substance. "God is God" is therefore the most succinct way of saying
"Substance is Subject": the repetition of the same adds to the divine predicates (wisdom, goodness, omnipotence . . . ) a certain
"nothing", an empty place, a lack of determination which subjecti
vizes it- this is why only the Judaic-Christian God, the one of the tautology "I am what I am", can be said to be subject.
The starting point of the dialectical process is not the plenitude of a self-sufficient substance, identical with itself, but the absolute contra
diction: the pure difference is always-already the impossible "predicate" of identity-with-itself- or, to put it in Lacanian terms, the identity of a signifier's mark (S) always-already represents the subject (5S). This absolute contradiction is "resolved" by way of excluding from the substantial set an element charged with representing the void, the Jack of determination that pertains to a tautology; by way of excluding from a series of signifier's marks "at least One" which thereby re
marks the void of their very space of inscription. The subject is this void, this lack in the series of the predicates of the universal Substance: it is the
"nothing" implied in the Substance's tautological selfrelationship -the mediating fourth term which vanishes in -the final Result, in -the accomplished Triad.
The "metaphor of the subject"
These paradoxes of the "logic of the signifier" enable us to locate properly Lacan's thesis on the "metaphor of the subject", his assertion that the very status of the subject is linked to a metaphor, to a metaphoric substitution. In a first approach, there are two comple
mentary readings of this thesis:
1 • the first would be simply to conceive the subject as the last, ever
. elusive Signified of the signifying chain: there is no "proper" signifier :)<» the subject, every signifier can serve only as its metaphor; in it, .the subject is always (mis)represented, simultaneously disclosed and
·�ncealed, given and withdrawn, indicated, hinted at between the tines ...
• the opposite reading would insist that a signifying chain is
�·subjectivized" precisely by way of its metaphoricity: what we call ,i'subject" is not the unfathomable X, the ultimate reference point of its :P1eaning, but rather a name for the very gap that prevents human language from becoming a neutral tool for designation of some .()bjective state of things, a name for the different ways the described
•state of things is always-already presented from some partial, biased
·position of enunciation. In other words, our speech is "subjectivized"
:precisely in so far as it never "says directly what it wants to say" -:instead of"vagina", one can say "blossom of femininity", where the
�S«ond expression, repulsively exuberant as it may be, is no less
�"objective" than the first. 39
(th
e interesting point about these two readings is that, although ,Opposed, they both possess a kind of "primary", "common-sense"�If-evidence: we somehow "feel" that no words can adequately :�present our innermost subjectivity, that its proper content can only be alluded to; yet simultaneously we "feel" that a speech which :functions as pure, transparent medium of designation is in a way :
:
•subjectless"; that one can detect the presence of a subject through the of style, metaphoric devices, and so on- in short: through all elements which, from the viewpoint of transmitting information,p
resent a superfluous "noise". How do we account for this opposiThe key to it is contained precisely in the paradoxical logic of the of the "reflective" term in the form of which the universal :senus comes across itself within its species. To recall again the Marxian logic of royalism: republicanism in which royalism encounters itself in the form of its opposite is a metaphoric substitution for royalism:
republicanism royalism
- that is, republicanism taking over the place of royalism-in-general.
Yet, as we have just seen, this Exception (the "pure" signifier) is a Janus-like entity with two faces:
• on the one hand, it entertains a metonymic relationship towards the universal genus: in it, a part functions as a metonymic substitute for the Whole, as in the Marxian example of production, where production as a term in the tetrad production-distribution-exchange
consumption simultaneously stands for the Whole;
• on the other hand, it entertains a metaphoric relationship towards the void, the lack in the substantial Universal: the Exception fills out the void in the midst of the Substance.
This duality is precisely what Lacan means when he speaks of the signifier as the "metonymy of the object" and the "metaphor of the subject": the Exception entertains a metonymic relationship towards the substantial Object and a metaphoric relationship towards the substanceless void which is the subject. The metaphor, in its most radical dimension, is this latter substitution of One for Zero, this act by means of which the One (the signifier's feature) "stands for" the Zero, the void which "is" the subject- in short, the act by means of which Zero is counted as One. This would be the most elementary Lacanian definition of the subject: a Nothing which is not pure nothingness but already "counted as One", re-marked by the Excep
tion, the plus-One in the series of marks- in other words: a Nothing which appears in (is represented by) the form of its opposite, of One.
The "original metaphor" is not a substitution of "something for something-else" but a substitution of something for nothing: the act by means of which "there is something instead of nothing" - which is why metonymy is a species of metaphor: the metonymic sliding from one (partial) object to another is set in motion by the metaphoric substitu
tion constitutive of the subject: the "one for another" presupposes the
"one for nothing".
From here we can return to the two ways to read the formula of the
"metaphor of the subject'': it is clear, now, that in the first reading (the subject as the last, ever-elusive point of reference) the subject is still conceived as substance, as a transcendent substantial entity, whereas the second reading (the subject as the gap preventing our speech from becoming a neutral medium of designation) indicates the proper dimension of the subject. In other words, these two readings express, on the level of commonsensical intuition, the very duality of Sub
stance and Subject.
el articulates this paradoxical relationship between Zero and One ' ere One counts as the very inscription of Zero in one of the crucial ' ts" of his
Logic,
the passage of determinate-being[Dasein]
into· -for-self
[Fiirsichsein]
and being-for-one[Sein:fiir-Eines]
as its cification. He starts by bringing to mind the German expression for uiring about the quality of a thing:Was for ein Ding ist das?
(What for is this?, meaning "What kind of a thing is this?"). Relying on double meaning of the Germanein
(the indeterminate article "a"the number "one"), he reads it as the "one" of unity, as the "one"
'ch is opposed to the others ("other-ones")- "What for
one
thing is· ?"
-
and asks the obvious question: which is this Onefor which
mething (the thing) is?
.. first points out that this One cannot coincide with Something
was]:
the correlate of Something is Something-else[ein Anderes];
we are on the level of finitude, of finite reality, of its network of 'procal determinations where something is always linked to some
. g else, limited, defined, "mediated" by other "somethings". The ' 'ng of Something is therefore always a being-for-other
[Sein:fiir-one attains the One only when this other, something-other .
.
r which something is, is reflected into the (some}thing itself as its· n ideal unity - that is to say, when something is no more for mething-else but
for itself;
in this way, we pass from being-for-other• to being-for-self. The One denotf;s the ideal unity of a thing beyond e multitude of its real properties: the thing as element of reality is
[aujgehoben)
in the One. The passage of Something into One coincides with the passage of reality into ideality: the One for the thingqua
real is ("What forone
thing is this?") is this thing in its ideality.This passage dearly implies the intervention of the symbolic order:
t{t can take place only when the One, the ideal unity of a thing beyond 'its real properties, is again embodied, materialized, externalized in its
Signifier.
The thing as element of reality is "murdered", abolished, and at the same preserved in its ideal content - in short: sublated - in its symbol which posits it as One: reduces it to a unitary feature designated by its signifying mark. In other words, the passage of being-for
other into being-for-self entails a radical decentring of the thing with regard to itself: this "self " of "for-self ", the most intimate kernel of its identity, is "posited", acquires actual existence, only in so far as it is
again externalized in an arbitrary signifying mark. Being-for-self equals the being of a thing for its symbol: the thing is "more itself " in its external, arbitrary symbol than in its immediate reality.
If the correlate of Something is Something-else, which then is the correlate of One? What must be borne in mind is that, as to the inherent order of the categories ofHegel's Logic, we are here still at the level of quality: the One we are dealing with is not yet the One of quantity, the First-One to which can be added the Second, the Third, and so on. It is for this reason that the correlate of One is not the Other but the void [das LeereJ: it cannot be the (something-)other since the One is already the unity of itself with its Other, the reflection-into-self of the Other, its own Other - the One is precisely the "inherent"
Other for which the thing is, in which it persists as sublated. If, consequently, the One is Something reflected-into-self, posited as its own ideal unity, then the Void is precisely the reflection-into-self of the Otherness - that is to say, a "pure" Otherness which is no longer Something-other.
There is, however, an ambiguity which still persists here: the relationship between the One and the Void is usually conceived as an external coexistence like, for example, atoms and the empty space around them. Although this conception may seem to be confirmed by Hegel himself, for whom the category of being-for-self assumes historical existence in Democritus' philosophy of atoms, it is none the less misleading: the Void is not external to One, it dwells in its very heart- the One itself is "void"; the Void is its only "content". A reference to the "logic of the signifier" may help here: the One is what Lacan calls "pure signifier", the signifier "without signified", the signifier which does not designate any positive properties of the object since it refers only to its pure notional Unity brought about performa
tively by this signifier itself (the exemplary case of it is, of course, proper names)- and the Void: is it not precisely the signified of this pure
signifier? This Void, the signified of the One, is the subject of the signifier: the One represents the Void (the subject) for the other signifiers- which others? Only on the basis of this One of quality can one arrive at the One of quantity; at the One as the first in a series of counting- no wonder, then, that the same paradoxical expression "the one One" [das eine Eins; l'un UnJ occurs in Hegel as well as in Lacan:
we have to have the One of quality, the "unitary feature" [le trait unaireJ in order to count them and say, "here is one One, here is the
One, here the third . . . ". With this passage of One of quality One of quantity, the Void changes into Zero.
another level, the same goes for the infamous first couple of
Logic,
Being and Nothing. As to the "content", there is no between them - what, then, maintains the gap separating why do they not coincide immediately? "Being" is the first (the the most immediate) determination-of-form[Formbestimmt
the "truth" (the "content") of which is "nothing"- pure lack of determinate content. It is precisely because of this immediate of their respective "contents" that the contradiction Being and Nothing is absolute: it is not a simple incompatibi-. of two positive "contents" but the contradiction between "con
. and "form" at its purest. That is to say, as to its
form,
Being possesses a determination of "something", yet its content is - it is therefore "nothing in the form of something", counted as Something. Without this absolute tension, Being Nothing would coincide immediately and the dialectical process not be "set in motion". Precisely in so far as this contradiction"real-impossible", it is "repressed", "pushed away" into a past (like the primordial antagonism of drives with Schell
Hegel repeats again and again that Being "does not pass over but passed over"40 into Nothing, which is why the first category that be used in the present is determinate being
[DaseinJ
or Something, unity of Being and Nothing that "came to be". In other words, it is with Something that we actually start to think; Being and are the absence of determination conceived from within the of notional determination and as such condemned to the shadowyof eternal, timeless past. 41
role played by the unique German expression Was
for ein Ding
. . .the passage of being-for-other into being-for-self cannot but evoke remarks on how "according to Hegel, the Absolute speaks German". Furthermore, this is not the only instance: a whole series of notional "passages" in Hegel's
Logic
rely on wordplays or ambiguities proper to German: the three meanings ofAujhebung
(annihilate, lllaintain, elevate), the way the category ofGrund
(ReasonGround) is deduced from reading the German verb
zugrundegehen
(decompose, disintegrate} as
zu-Grunde-gehen
(reaching one's Btound), and so on. Yet Hegel in no way conceives these features as akind of writ of privilege of German (as Heidegger does for Greek and German): for him, they remain felicitous encounters where, totally by chance, the meaning of some word (more precisely: the split of its meaning) comes to exhibit a speculative dimension. The usual, every
day meanings of words move on the level ofUnderstanding, and the
day meanings of words move on the level ofUnderstanding, and the