The Impotence of truth 4

The Impotence of truth 4
真理的无能
From The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
精神分析学的另一面
By Jacques Lacan
雅克、拉岡

It is truly the most extraordinary thing there. It is also a cold, I won’t say black, humor. There is one thing you can be absolutely convinced of, which is that he knows perfectly well what he is doing. What he is doing is sleight of hand and he takes the whole world in. And this, on the basis of the fact that what he says is true.

在那里这确实是最特别的事情。即使不是黑色幽默，也是一种很酷的幽默。有一件事情，你们绝对可以相信的。那就是，他非常清楚地知道，他正在做什麽。他正在做的，就是手的灵巧，他玩弄整个世界於手掌中。他能够这样得心应手，基本的要件是，他所说的话是真实的。

There is obviously no better way to pin down the master signifier S1, which is up there on the board, than by identifying it with death. And so, what is involved? It involves showing in a dialectic, as Hegel puts it, what it is that is the zenith, the highest point, the thought of this term’s function.

显而易见的，除了将主人的意符认同於死亡外，我们没有比这个更好的方法来定位它。我现在将它写在黑板上。那会牵涉到什麽呢？如黑格尔所说的，它会牵涉到辩证法中，什麽是最高顶点的问题。

What, in sum, is the point of entry of this brute, the master, into the phenomenology of mind, as Hegel put it? The truth of what he articulates is absolutely seductive and sensational. We can actually read it there, opposite us, provided we allow ourselves to be taken in by it, since I assert, precisely, that it cannot be read off directly. The truth of what he articulates is this—the relationship to this real insofar as it is, properly speaking, impossible.

总而言之，进入这个残酷的主人论述的意义是什麽？如黑个尔所说的，进入精神现象学的意义是什麽？他所表达的真理，绝对是煽动性，以及耸动性。只要我们让自己被它所欺骗，我们就会真的去读它，即使是将它摆在我们相对立场。千真万确地，我主张，这本书无法直接地阅读。他所表达的真理，适当地说，要进入这样的真实界是不可能。

It’s not at all clear why there should be a master who emerges from the struggle to death of pure prestige. And this is despite the fact that Hegel himself says that it would result in this strange outcome at the start.

为人性尊严奮斗，至死方休，是否应该有一位主人出现，这一点我们不得而知，儘管黑格尔自己也说过，从一开始，它就会造成这样的结果。

To cap it off, Hegel finds a way—it is true, in a conception of history that touches on what emerges from it, namely the succession of phases of dominance, of composition of the play of the mind, which runs the length of this thread that is not for nothing, which up until his day was called philosophical thought—Hegel finds a way to show that what results from this is that in the end it is the slave who, through his work,, produces the master’s truth, by pushing him down underneath. By virtue of this forced labor, as you can see from the outset, the slave ends up, at the end of history, at this point called absolute knowledge.

总而言之，黑格尔找到一个方法显示。的確，以一个触及到精神会出现怎样的现象的历史的概念里，换句话说，各个连续支配的阶段，精神运作的形成，挥洒到淋漓尽致，並非一无所得，在他的有生之年，他的哲学思想就已经成为一家之言。黑各尔找到一个方法显示，从这里产生的结果，最後是，奴隶透过自己的辛勤工作，将原有的主人推翻，产生了自己充当主人的真理。如同你们从一开始，就已经看得出来，憑藉这种强制性的劳动，在历史的结束时，奴隶结果会处於所谓觉醒的绝对知识的时刻。

Nothing is said about what happens next, because in truth, in the Hegelian proposition, there were not four terms, but initially the master and the slave. I call this slave S2, but you can also identify him here by way of the term jouissance, which, first, he did not want to renounce and which, secondly, he did indeed want to, since he substitutes work for it, which is not at all its equivalent.

奴隶觉醒之後，会发生什样的事，黑格尔並没有提到。因为在真理的论述中，在黑格尔的命题中，並没有我现在的四个真理论述，而只有主人与奴隶的真理论述。我称这种的奴隶为S2，但是你们也可以藉由「欢爽」这个术语，将他辨认出来。首先，奴隶並不想要抛弃这种欢爽，其次，他确实想要抛弃，因为他已经用工作来代替它。不过，两者根本就无法相等。

Owing to what? Owing to the series of dialectical mutations, to the ballet, the minuet that is established on the basis of this initial moment and that traverses the entire development of culture from start to finish, thread by thread, history finally compensates us with this knowledge that is not described as completed—there are good reaons for this—but as absolute, as indisputable. And the master subsequently appears only aas the instrument, the magnificent Cuckold of history.

什麽原因呢？由於一连串辩证法则的突变，就像巴蕾舞，这种小步舞之所以能够成立，是靠着开始时的脚尖触立，然后旋转全场，这一连串精神现象的辩证法，从一开始到结束，一步又一步地，贯穿整个文化的发展。历史最後给我们的補偿是，让我们觉醒地知道，我们有充份的理由觉醒，欢爽被工作所代替，尚未终了，而是绝对的，无可争辩的觉醒。主人的真理论述随後出现，只是作为工具，作为历史的光冕堂皇的遮羞者。

It is sublime that this quite remarkable dialectical deduction was undertaken, and that it should have succeeded, if one can say this. All the way through—take as an example what Hegel is able to say about Culture—the most pertinent remarks concerning the play of events and exercises of wit abound. I repeat, there is nothing more amusing.

这种高超的的辩证法则的推展，委实是令人肃然起敬，它本来是应该成功的，容我们这样说。一路推展过来，始终被当着是黑格尔对於文化的創见的例子。他一针见血地道中历史事件的演变，淋漓尽致，妙语如珠。我再重复一遍，这种辩证法则真是令人歎为观止。

The cunning of reason is, he tells us, what directed the entire game.

他告诉我们，指导整个历史演变的游戏法则，就是理性的狡狯。

This is a very fine term which has a lot of value for us, analysts, and we can follow it at the level of our ABC, whether reasonable or not, for we are dealing with something very cunning in speech where the unconscious is concerned. However, the high point of this cunning is not where one thinks it is. It is the cunning of reason, no doubt, but one has to recognize the cunning of the reasoner, and take one’s hat off to him.

这是一个很好的术语，对我们精神分析师很有价值。听起来有一点不可思议，但是我们可以从初级的阶段就开始使用它，因为就无意识而言，我们是在处理跟语言的狡狯有关的事情。可是这种狡狯的最高点，並不是在我们所认为的地方。那是理性的狡狯，没有错，但是我们必须辨认出来理性论者的狡狯，然後，对他脱帽致敬。

Had it been possible that at the beginning of the last century, at the time of the battle of Tena, this extraordinary dirty trick called The Phenomenology of Spirit should have subjugated anyone, the trick would have succeeded.

假如在上一世纪的开始，在拿破轮跟普鲁士的铁纳仗役，所谓的「精神现象学」的这个特殊的理性的狡狯，要是能够激发以寡敌众的斗志，它本来可以成功地产生出奇致胜的效果。

It is in effect quite evident that not for a single instant can one hold that we are in any way approaching the ascendancy of the slave. This unbelievable way of giving him the credit—giving his work the credit—for any kind of progress, as we say, of knowledge is, truly extraordinary futile.

事实上显而易见的是，我们没有任何丝毫时刻相信，我们有任何方法可以达到奴隶的超越前进。黑格尔对於奴隶的不可思议地推崇，对於奴隶的工作的推崇，就任何的觉醒知识的进步而言，是全然地徒劳无功。

But what I am calling the cunning of the reasoner is there to make us aware of an essential dimension, which one has to be careful about. If we designate the agent’s place—whoever it is, this place is not always that of the master signifier, since all the other signifiers are going to pass through there in truth—the question is as follows. What makes this agent act? How is it possible to produce this extraordinary circuit around which what deserves, strictly speaking, to be designated by the term “ revolution” revolves?

但是，我这里所谓的理性论者的狡狯，是为了使我们知道一个基本的向度，那是我们必须要小心处理的。假如我们指定不管是哪一位代理人的位置，这个位置未必总是主人的意符的位置，因为所有其他的意符在真理的论述过程，都会经过这里。这样就会发生以下的问题：什麽力量使这位代理人採取行动？严格来说，绕着「革命」这个术语，应该被指定的这个特别循环力量是如何可能产生？

Here, at a certain level, we rediscover Hegel’s expression, “ putting work back into the world.”

在此，在某个层次上，我们重新发现黑格尔的金玉良言：「劳工神圣！」

Which is truth? It is located there, with a question mark. What inaugurates this agent, what brings him into play? For, in the end, it has not been there forever, it has been there ever since historical time.

哪一个才是真理？这个问题摆在这里，是一个问号。最先是什麽力量激发这位代理人？是什麽力量使他开始运作？因为追根就底，那个力量並没有永远在那里，

A good thing to appreciate concerning such a brilliant case, so dazzling that precisely for that reason it doesn’t occur to one, one is unable to see it, is this. Hegel is the sublime representative of the discourse of knowledge and of university knowledge.

这是一件值得赞赏的好事，关於如此一件乾净俐落的辩证推展，如此令人眼花撩乱，因为那个理由，没有人会去想到，我们所无法看到的结果。黑格尔是知识的真理论述，以及大学知识的最崇高的代表。

We others in France only ever have as philosophers people who travel the highways and byways, little members of provincial societies, such as Maine de Biran, or else characters like Descartes, who wander all over Europe. You nevertheless have to know how to read him, too, and listen to his tone-he speaks of what he can expect from his birth. One sees what sort of a fellow he was. This doesn’t mean he was an idiot, far from it.

我们其他在法国的人，所拥有的哲学家，只有公路及乡野道路的行者，民间社团的会员，諸如缅因、比壤，或是其他人物，像环遊全欧洲的笛卡尔。可是，你也必须懂得如何去阅读他，听他讲话的语调，因为他会提到他从出生以来，对自己未来的期望。我们可以看出他是什样的一种人。这並不意谓着他是一位白痴，丝毫不是那个意思。

雄伯译
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