The Impotence of truth 6

The Impotence of truth 6
真理论述的无能为力
From The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
精神分析学的另一面
By Jacques Lacan
雅克、拉岡

I am persuaded that there are five or six people here who will be very well able to displace what I am saying in such a way that it will have a chance of reemerging.

有人劝告过我，有五六个人能够胜任地代替我演讲的内容，让它们有机会唯妙唯肖地重现。

I won’t say that this is Archimedes’ lever. I will not tell you that this makes the slightest claim to a renewal of the world system, or of thinking about history. I am only indicating how it is that analysis places us on a footing to accept, through chance encounters, a number of things that may appear to be illuminating.

我不愿意说，这就是阿基米德的槓杆。我也不会告诉你，这种代替的宣称对於世界体系的复兴，或对於历史的思维，没有任何意义。我只是会指明出来，精神分析学如何让我们有一个立足点，透过偶然的机缘，来接受许多看起来具有啟蒙意义的事情。

Myself, for example, I might easily have never encountered Kojeve. If I had never encountered him, it is highly likely that, like all French people educated over a certain period, I would never have suspected that there was anything in The Phenomenology of Spirit.

以我自己当例子，我很幸运地曾经有这个机缘遇到柯爵比。假如我不曾遇到他，很有可能，我会像所有曾经受过一段教育後的法国人一样，我本来永远不会怀疑到，黑格尔的「精神现象学」有什麽不对劲的地方。

It would not be a bad thing if analysis enabled you to realize what the impossibility is due to, that is to say, what it is that stands in the way of grasping, of seizing the only thing that could perhaps ultimately introduce a mutation, namely, the naked real, without truth.

这也不是一件不好的事情，假如精神分析学使你们能够体会到，真事界不可能掌握的原因是什麽，换句话说，是什麽阻碍到我们无法理解，是什麽阻碍我们无法掌握，那唯一在我们生命大限来临时，促使我们恍然大悟的蜕变，换句话说，没有真理论述掩饰下的赤裸裸的真实界。

But there’s the rub. Between us and the real, there is truth. Truth, as I once told you one day in a flight of lyricism, is the dear little sister of jouissance. I hope that this has come back to mind, at least for some of you, at the moment when I am stressing the contrast between the first line and the second in each of the four formulas that I have given you.

但是，那就是关键所在。在我们跟真实界之间，存在着我们对於真理的论述。真理的论述，如同有一天我诗情洋溢地跟你们说，就是「欢爽」的亲爱小姐妹。我希望我这样说，已经让你们至少有一些人回想起那个时刻，我正在强调，我曾经给你们的四个真理论述的公式，第一条法则跟第二条法则的对比。

The first line comprises a relation, indicated here by an arrow, which is always defined as impossible. In the master’s discourse, for instance, it is effectively impossible that there be a master who makes the entire world function. Getting people to work is even more tiring, if one really has to do it, than working oneself. The master never does it. He gives a sign, the master signifier, everybody jumps. That’s where you have to start, which is, in effect, completely impossible. It’s tangle every day.

第一条法则所形成的关系，这里我用一个箭头来表示，那总是被定义为不可能。例如，在主人的真理论述中，这是千真萬确地不可能，会有一位主人在使整个世界运转起来。假如我们人类真的非工作不可的话，那麽强迫别人去工作，远比自己来工作，还更加令人疲倦。主人自己从来不工作。他只是发出讯号，主人的意符，然後每个人就争先恐後地工作。那就是你们必须开始的地方，那个地方实际上是完全不可能的。它在我们每天的生活中具体可看出。

With impossibility written on the first line, it is now a matter of seeing, as is already indicated by the place given to the term “ truth,” whether it might be at the level of the second line that one would have the last word.

如同在「真理的论述」这个术语的位置，所已经表明出来，在第一条所书写的不可能，是否它跟作为结论之用的第二条是相同的层次，现在是一件可以看的出来的事情。

However, at the level of the second line there is no suggestion of an arrow. And not only is there no communication, but there is something that acts as a block.

可是，在第二条的层次，並没有一个箭头的指示。不但彼此之间没有沟通，而且还有某件东西，作为阻碍。

What is it that is blocking? It is what results from the work. And what a certain Marx’s discovery accomplished was to give full weight to a term that was already known prior to him and that designates what work occupies itself with—it’s called production.

什麽东西正在阻碍呢？那就是由於工作的结果。马克思一生所发现的最大成就之一，就是极力强调一个在他之前，已经廣为人知的术语，那个术语明白指出，人类为什麽要孜孜不息地工作？那就是为了所谓的生产。

Whatever the signs, whatever the master signifiers that come to be inscribed in the place of the agent, under no circumstances will production have a relationship to truth. One can do all one wants, one can say all one wants, one can try to conjoin this production with needs, which are the needs one fashions—there is nothing doing.
Between the existence of master and a production’s relation with truth, there is no way of getting it work.

无论主人发出的讯号是什麽，无论铭记在代理人位置的主人的意符是什麽，生产绝对跟真理的论述没有任何关系。我们可以做我们高兴做的事，我们可以说我们高兴说的话，我们可以设法将我们的生产，跟我们自己創造的的需要结合起来，但是先决条件是没有主人的真理论述。若一边是主人的真理论述的存在，另一边是生产与真理论述的关系，那就不可能行得通。

Each impossibility, whatever it may be, between the terms that we put in play here is always linked to this—if it leaves us in suspense over its truth, it is because something is protecting it, which we shall impotence.

无论不可能的情况是什麽，我们在这里所提出的这两个术语，彼此之间不可能行得通的原因，总是如下：假如它使我们对於它的真理的论述半信半疑，那是因为某件东西正在保护它，这个东西，我们称之为真理论述的无能为力。

Take, for instance, in the university discourse, the initial term, the one that is articulated here under the terms S2 and is in this position of unheard-of pretension of having a thinking being, a subject, as its production. As subject, in its production, there is no question of it being able to see itself for a single instant as the master of knowledge.

以大学的真理论述的第一个术语来当例子。这个术语在此我们用第二意符S2这个符号来表达，它所处的立场是前所未闻的伪装，因为人在此拥有一个思想的存在生命，一个生命的主体，作为自己的生产。人作为一个生命的主体，在自己的生产过程，根本不可能有任何时刻，看到自己是充当真理论述的知识的主人。

This can be detected here, tangibly, but it extends much further back, back to the level of the master’s discourse which, thanks to Hegel, I allow myself to presuppose since, as you will see, we no longer know it now except in a considerably modified form.

这一点在这里能够很具体地觉察出来，但是它延伸得更遥运，一直洄溯到主人的真理论述。由於黑格尔的论述，我才能够让自己从事这样的主人的真理论述。你们也明白，我们不再知道何谓主人的真理论述，除了它已经改头换面。

This surplus jouissance that I have articulated this year is a construction, even a reconstruction, and I am putting it at the start as a support. It is a truer support. Let’s be careful, this is indeed what is dangerous about it, but all the same it does have the strength to be articulated in this way, as one can see by reading people like Aristotle,, principally, who have not read Hegel.

我今年所表达的这个剩余欢爽，是一个建设，甚至是一个重新的建设。我开门见山地提出，作为一种支撑。它是一种更加真实的支撑。不过，让我们小心些，这确实是它的危险所在，但是儘管如此，它确实有力量，足以用这样的方式来表达。我们从阅读像亚里斯多德这样的人，我们就会看的出来，主要是他並没有阅读过黑格尔。

When we read Aristotle we have the suspicion that the master’s relation to the slave really presented him with a problem. He was looking for the slave’s truth, and it is really magnificent to see the way in which he tries to extricate himself in the three or four passages in which he deals with it—he only goes in a single direction, that of an essential difference from which the slave’s good would emerge.

当我们阅读亚里斯多德，我们猜疑到，主人与奴隶的关系带给他一个困扰的问题。他在寻找奴隶的真理论述，看到他设法从他处理的三四段的文本的纠缠中挣脱出来，不禁令人动容。他只朝着单一方向前进，那就是奴隶的德行将会出现的基本的相反的方向。

He is not an academic. He is not a clever little fellow like Hegel. He senses that when he utters this or that, it gets away from him, it slides all over the place. He is neither very sure nor very passionate. He does not impose his own opinion. But then, he feels that this is where there might well be something that motivates the relationship between master and slave. Ah! If they were not the same sex, if they were man and woman, this would be truly sublime, and he hints that there would some hope. Unfortunately, that’s not how is, they are not of different senses, and he shrugs his shoulders. We can see clearly what is going on, it’s what , in the name of surplus jouissance. The master receives from the slave’s work.

他不是一位学院派的人物。他不是像黑格尔那样的精明小人物。他意识到，当他侃侃而谈时，他会无法自制地洋洋洒洒谈下去。他既没有完全把握，也不会激情洋溢。他不会将自己的意见强加在别人身上。但是，他会觉得，就在这个地方，会有某件事情触动主人与奴隶的紧张关系。啊！假如他们不是属於相同性别，假如他们分别是男人与女人，这种紧张关系确实是很崇高，他暗示说，那还有一点希望。不幸地，情况不是那个样子。他们並不是属於不同的性别，他只好耸耸肩膀作罢。我们能够很清楚看出，正在发生什麽事。那就是，以剩余欢爽的名义，主人从奴隶的工作中所得来的东西。

It would seem that this has to be self-evident. And what is unheard of is that nobody seems to notice that there is, precisely, a lesson to be learned from the fact that it is not self-evident. The problems of ethics here, suddenly, start to abound—the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, and several other works of moral reflection

似乎，这种情况必须是显而自明的。前所未闻的是，似乎没有人注意到，事实上，这种情况並不是显而自明，我们确实可以从这个事实学习到一个教训。在此，伦理学的问题突然如雨後春笋般冒出，尼康马奇伦理学、欧迪米安伦理学，以及无数其它有关道德问题的反思的论述著作。

It’s irresolvable. Nobody knows what to do with this surplus jouissance. In order to successfully place a sovereign good at the heart of the world, you need to be as embarrassed as a fish with an apple. And yet the surplus jouissance that the slave brings us lies within arm’s reach.

这个问题无法解答。没有人知道如何来处理这个剩余欢爽。为了成功地摆置一个统治的德行在世界的中心，你所需要面临的尴尬，不下於鱼不知道要如何吃蘋果。可是奴隶带给我们的这个剩余欢爽，却是距离我们只有一臂之遥。

What is demonstrated, attested to, by all the thought of Antiquity that Hegel makes us revisit with his wonderful sleight of hand and other acts, including the politicized masochism of the Stoics, is that to calmly set one-self up as the master’s subject cannot be done qua surplus jouissance.

憑藉古人的思想智慧，黑格尔以其生花妙笔的灵巧手腕，及其它行径，包括禁欲学派的自虐行为，替我们证明及验证，人作为剩余欢爽的生命主体，仅是泰然自若地自许为主人的真理论述，是无法达成的。

Let’s now take the hysteric’s discourse, as it is articulated—place the $ on the top left-hand corner, the S1 on the right, the S2 underneath, the small a in the place of truth. It cannot be the case, either, that the hysteric’s division, symptomatic tearing apart, is motivated as the production of knowledge. Her truth is that she has to be the object a in order to be desired. The object a is a bit thin, at the end of the day, although, of course, men go crazy about it and they are unable even to suspect that they could get by with anything else—another sign of the impotence that coverts the subtle of all impossibilities.

现在，让我们以歇斯底里症的真理论述当例子。如这个公式所表达的，我们将这个被禁制的生命主体，摆在左边的上方角落，第一个生命主体摆在右边，第二个生命主体摆在底下，小客体摆在真理论述的位置。歇斯底里症的分裂，受到病癥的撕裂，被激发起来，作为生产的真理论述的认知，也不可能是这种情况。她的真理论述是，她必须先成为小客体，才有办法被人所渴望。这个小客体经过一天的劳累，看起来有点单薄，但是男人当然还是对它着迷若狂，他们甚至於没有怀疑到，它能够被任何其它东西所替代。这是另外一个无能为力的迹象，涵盖了所有的不可能的奥秘。

Let’s move on to the level of the analyst’s discourse. Naturally, nobody has made the observation that it is fairly curious that what he produces is nothing other than the master’s discourse since it’s S1 which comes to occupy the place of production. And, as I was saying last time when I was leaving Vincennes, perhaps it’s from the analyst’s discourse that there can emerge another style of master signifier.

让我们继续谈精神分析师的真理论述的层次。当然，没有人曾经观察到，这是一件很耐人寻味的事情，精神分析师所生产的真理论述，道道地地就是主人的真理论述，因为佔据这真理论述的生产的位置，就是第一个生命的主体。上一次，我刚要离开萬塞纳大学时，我这样说过，很有可能，从精神分析师的真理论述那里，会出现另外一种风格的主人论述。

In truth, whether it is another style or not, it is not in two days’ time that we will learn what it is, and at least for the moment we are completely impotent when it comes to referring it to what is at play in the analyst’s position, namely, this seduction of truth that he presents in the fact that he would know a bit about what, in principle, he represents.

在真理论述里，无论它是另外一种风个与否，我们都不可能在一两天内，就会知道它的内涵。至少在目前，当我们提到在精神分析师的立场，是什麽力量在运作时，换句话说，精神分析师呈现真理的论述作为诱拐，他对於原则上他所代表的真理论述，自己到底懂多少这一点，我们是完全地无能为力。

Am I adequately stressing the features of the impossibility of his situation？–insofar as the analyst puts himself in the position of representing, through being the agent, the cause of desire？

精神分析师将自己的立场定位为，透过充当代理人的角色，代表欲望的原因，但是他的这个立场，使他不可能直达真实界，这个特癥，我现在强调得足够吧？

雄伯译
springherohsiung@gmail.com