The signifies as such, signifies nothing
能指自身并没意指著什么
THE NOTION OF STRUCTURE
结构的观念
SUBJECTIVITY IN THE REAL
实在界的主体性
HOW TO LOCATE THE BEGINNING OF A DELUSION
如何找出幻觉开始的位置
THE BETWEEN-I’S
在我与主体之间
Ad usum annum aratianis, incredibile e$t, nisi diligenter attenderis, quanta opera
machinata natura sit.
How many marvels there are concealed by the function of language, if you
want to pay diligent attention to it! You know that this is what we are striving
towards here. You won’t be astonished, therefore, that I should offer you
this sentence from Cicero as an epigraph, since it is on this theme that this
term we are going to return to the study of the Freudian structures of the
psychoses.
有多少的惊奇隐藏在语言的功能里,假如你们想要勤奋地注意它。你们知道,这是我们正在奋斗朝向这里的地方。因此,你们将不会大吃一惊,对于我竟然提供你们这个句子,从西塞录引述过来作为后记。因为我们将要将这个术语回归到弗洛依德学派对于精神病的结构的研究。
Effectively, it’s a question of what Freud left behind concerning the structures
of the psychoses, this being why we call them Freudian.
有效地,问题是弗洛依德留下怎样的东西,关于精神病的结构。这就是为什么我们称呼它们为弗洛依德学派的原因。
1
The notion of structure by itself deserves our attention. Given the manner in
which we efficaciously apply it in analysis, it implies a number of coordinates,
and the very notion of coordinate is part of it. A structure is in the first place
a group of elements forming a covariant set.
结构的观念本身就应该值得我们关注。假如考虑到这个方式,我们有效地将它应用到精神分析的方式。它暗示著许多的座标。座标的这个观念是它的一部分。结构首先是一组元素组成一个共同变数的集合。
I said a set, I didn’t say a totality. As a matter of fact, the notion of structure
is analytic. A structure is always established by referring something coherent
to something else, which is complementary to it. But the notion of totality
only comes into it if we are dealing with a closed relation with a correspondent,
where the structures are interdependent. On the other hand it is possible
to have an open relation, which we shall call a relation of supplementarity.
For those who have gone in for structural analyses the ideal has always appeared
to be to find what links the two, the closed and the open, to discover circularity
on the side of the open.
我说「集合」,我并没有说「整体」。事实上,结构的这个观念是精神分析。结构总是被建立,凭借将某件一贯的东西。指涉到某件跟它互补的其它东西。但是整体的这个观念,仅是当我们正在处理跟一个对应者的封闭的关系时,它才存在。在那里,各种结构是互相依靠的。在另一方面,它们可能拥有一个开放的关系,我们不妨称之为辅助的关系。对于那些喜欢结构的各种分析的人们,理想总是出现,为了能够找到联接这两者的东西,封闭的关系与开放的关系,为了在开放的这边,发现循环迴圈。
I think that you’re well enough oriented to understand that the notion of
structure is by itself already a manifestation of the signifier. The little I’ve
just indicated about its dynamics, about what it implies, points you towards
the notion of signifier. To be interested in structure is to be unable to neglect
the signifier. In structural analysis, as in the analysis of the relationship between
signifier and signified, we discover relations between groups founded on sets
that, whether open or closed, essentially comprise reciprocal references. In
the analysis of the relationship between signifier and signified we have learned
to stress synchrony and diachrony, and this reappears in a structural analysis.
我认为,你们具有充分条件来理解,结构的这个观念本身已经是能指的展现。关于能指的生命动力,我刚刚指示的一些东西,关于能指暗示的东西,引导你们朝向能指的观念。对于结构感到興趣,就是无法忽略能指。在结构的精神分析,如同在能指与所指之间的关系的分析,我们发现以集合作为基础的各个组群之间的关系。无论开放或是封闭,它基本上是由互惠的指涉所组成。在能指与所指之间的关系的分析,我们已经学习到要强调同时性与历时性。在结构的分析里,同时性与历时性会重复出现。
In the end, if we observe them closely, the notion of structure and that of
signifier appear inseparable. In fact, when we analyze a structure it’s always
at least ideally a question of the signifier. What satisfies us the most in a
structural analysis is an uncovering, that is as radical as possible, of the signifier.
最后,假如我们仔细观察,结构的观念与能指的观念似乎无法分开。事实上,当我们分析结构时,它总是能指的问题,至少在理想上。在结构的分析里,最让我们感到满意的东西是能指的揭露,那既是强烈,也是可能。
We situate ourselves in a field that is distinct from the field of the natural
sciences and that, as you know, it isn’t enough to call the field of the human
sciences. Where are we to draw the dividing line? How closely do we have to
approximate to the ideals of the sciences of nature such as they have developed
for us – for instance, physics as we know it? To what extent are we
unable to avoid differentiating ourselves from them? Well then, it’s in relation
to these definitions of the signifier and of structure that the appropriate
boundary can be drawn.
我们定位我们自己的位置,跟自然科学的领域的位置不同。众所周知,仅是称为人文科学的领域并不足够。我们应该如何划出这个分界线呢?对于自然科学的理想,我们必须靠近得多密切,自然科学替我们发展出来的理想。譬如,众所周知的物理。我们无法避免跟它们划清界限到什么程度?呵呵,就是跟能指与结构的这些定义的关系,适当的边界能够被划出。
In physics we have adopted the law that we proceed from the idea that in
nature nobody uses the signifier to signify. This is what distinguishes our
physics from mystical physics and even from the physics of antiquity, which
had nothing mystical about it, but which didn’t adopt this strict requirement.
It has become a fundamental law for us, one required of every utterance
within the order of the natural sciences, that there is nobody who uses the
signifier.
在物理学,我们曾经採用这个法则:在自然界,没有人使用能指来意指理念,我们赖以前进的理念。这就是我们的物理学与神秘主义的物理学不同的地方。甚至跟古代的物理学。它对于自然丝毫没有神秘的东西。但是它并没有採用这个严格的要求。对于我们,没有人使用能指来意涵,已经成为一个基本的法则,对于每个表达要求的法则,在自然科学的秩序之内。
The signifier is nevertheless there in nature, and if we weren’t looking for
the signifier, we shouldn’t find anything there at all. To extract a natural law
is to extract a meaningless formula. The less it signifies anything, the happier
we are. This is why we’re perfectly happy with the achievements of Einstei-
nian physics. You would be wrong to think that those little equations of
Einstein’s that express the relationship of inertial mass to a constant plus
some exponents have the slightest meaning. They are pure signifiers. And
this is why thanks to him we hold the world in the palm of our hand.
可是,能指在自然那里。假如我们没有正在寻找能指,我们在那里将会什么东西都没找到。将自然法则抽离出来,等于是抽离出一个无意义的公式。能指越是没有意指任何东西,我们越是快乐。这就是为什么我们非常感到快乐,对爱因斯坦的物理学的各项成就感到快乐。假如你们认为,爱因斯坦的那些精简的方程式,表惯性质量跟一个常数加某些的指数的关系的这个方程式,拥有丝毫的意义,那么你们就错误了。它们纯粹是各种能指。这就是为什么幸赖爱因斯坦,我们才将世界掌握于我们的手中。
The idea that the signifier signifies something, that there is someone who
uses this signifier to signify something, is called the Signature rerum. This is
the tide of a work by Jakob Boehme.1 It means that God is present in natural
phenomena and speaks to us in his language.
能指意涵著某件东西的这个观念,有某个使用这个能指来意涵某件东西的这个观念,被称之为万物签章Signature rerum 。这就是Jakob Boeme所写的一本著作的讯息。它意味著,上帝存在于自然的现象里,并且用他的语言跟我们言说。
209
You must nevertheless not think that our physics implies the elimination
of all meaning. There is a meaning at the limit, but there is nobody to signify
it. In physics the mere existence of a signifying system implies, at the very
least, the meaning that there is an Utmvelt. Physics implies the minimal conjunction
of the two signifiers, one and all – that all things are one or that the
one is all things
可是,你一定不要认为,我们的物理学暗示着减少所有的意义。在极限有一个意义,但是没有人能意指它。在物理学,意指的系统的存在本身至少就暗示着这个意义:有一种生态环境存在。物理学暗示着两个能指,「一」及「全部万物」的最小量的联系。万物是一,或一是万物。
You would be wrong to think that these signifiers belonging to science,
however simple they are, are given or that any form of empiricism would
enable one to abstract them. No empirical theory is able to account for the
existence of even the first whole numbers. Despite Mr. Jung’s best efforts to
convince us of the contrary, history, observation, and ethnography show us
that at a certain level of the signifier in a given culture, community, or tribe
of people, it’s an accomplishment to get access to the number five, for instance.
One can clearly distinguish on the banks of the Orinoco between a tribe that
has learned to signify the number four and not beyond, and one for which
the number five opens up surprising possibilities, consistent moreover with
the entire signifying system into which the tribe is inserted.
假如你们认为,这些属于科学的能指,无论它们多么简单,都是任何实验主义的形式,让我们能够将它们抽离出来的讯息,那你们就错误了。再多的实验主义的理论,都无法解释即使是最初的整数的存在。尽管荣格先生殚精力尽地说服我们,解释是可能的,历史,观察与种族学都告诉我们,在某个特定的文化,社区或部落种族的某个层次,譬如,要接近五这个数字都是一项成就。在Orinoco河的堤岸,我们能够清楚地区别一个部落,他们已经学习到用四这个数字来意指,再多就没了。这不同另一个部落,五的这个数字展开令人惊奇的各种可能性。而且,跟这个部落被插进的整个的意指化的系统前后一贯。
This isn’t a joke. It’s to be taken literally. The extraordinary effect the
number three had when it arrived in a certain Amazon tribe has been recorded
by people who knew what they were talking about. Uttering a series of whole
numbers isn’t self evident. It’s altogether conceivable, and experience shows
that this is so, that beyond a certain limit in this series things get mixed up
and one no longer sees anything but a confused multitude. Experience also
shows that since the number one necessarily implies its maximum effect, it’s
not the number one whose origin we are able, in acquiring the signifier, to
understand clearly.
这并不是一个笑话。它应该被实质地看待。三这个数字具有的特殊的影响,当它到达某个亚马逊的部落,曾经被记录下来,由那些知道他们究竟在谈论些什么的人们记录下来。表达一系列的整数并不是不证而明。它完全能够被构想,我们根据经验却知道,情况并非是如此。在这个系列,超过某个极限,事情就会混淆。我们不再看出任何东西,而是混沌一团。我们根据经验也知道,因为「一」这个数字必然会暗示着它的最大量的影响,当我们获得能指时,「一」这个数字的起源,我们并无法清楚地理解。
These considerations appear to contradict my remarks to you about the
fact that any system of language includes, or covers, the totality of possible
meanings. This isn’t so, for that didn’t mean that every system of language
exhausts the possibilities of the signifier, which is quite different. The proof
of this is the fact that, for example, the language of an Australian tribe may
express a given number by a crescent moon.
这些考虑似乎与我跟你们的谈论互相牴触,关于这个事实:语言的任何系统包括,或涵盖各种可能意义的整体性。情况并非是如此。因为那并不意味着,语言的每一个系统穷尽这个能指的各种可能性。这个能指是完全不同的。有关这个的证据是这个事实:譬如,澳洲部落的种族的语言可能根据一个弯月来表达一个特定的数字。
These remarks may appear to you to be way off the mark. It’s essential
however to take them up again at the beginning of our topic for this year.
Our starting point, the point we keep coming back to, since we shall always
be at the starting point, is that every real signifier is, as such, a signifier that
signifies nothing.
对于你们而言,这些谈论有点离题。可是,在今年我们的主题的开始,重新探讨它们是非常重要的。我们的起始点,我们持续地回到这个点。因为我们将总是处于起始点:每个真实的能指的自身,都是意指空无的一个能指。
雄伯译
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