LOGIC ABSTINENCE

MARINO Elisa


In other opportunities we have already occupied ourselves with the question to which we return today, that of abstinence in relation to the function of the analyst in the space of the analytic device. One of those presentations was called "The Virtue of the Psychoanalyst". Abstinence was defined as the virtue that consisted in depriving satisfaction of ones own appetites, totally or parcially, while Aristoteles presents virtue as the correct way (le juste milieu). He who remains in between the more and the less in its proper proportion would be virtuous. Proportion that today we will look at from another perspective, but that in those time, we put in relation with the Freudian text that said:

"...within the possible measure, the analytical cure must be effectuated in a state of privation, of abstinence".

A short detour. In the book of dreams, when Freud approaches the subject of

condensation, questions can also be read that are related to measurement and proportion.

"...strictly speaking the portion of condensation is undeterminable."

"In this manner the disproportion between content and oneiric thoughts."

Mathematical uneasiness, for the measure and proportion present are in the Freudian text and re-taken by Lacan, to formalize the analytical praxis from subsequent mathematical developments that make it possible to make calculations with numbers that do not operate with totals.

The Gödel Theorem, Cantorian Infinite, a series by Fibonachi, Gold number – to name some of the problems that question the logicians and mathematicians – are put into work in the field of psychoanalysis to give logical statute to what Freud says (le dire de Freud).

In Seminar XIV, after having put into operation resources of mathematical thinking, Lacan does not stop advising that the use of these means always implies some partiality for the theory. It is not necessary to know more than what is needed to serve as an instrument.

In "The Logic of the Phantom" the Gold number(numero de Oro) is introduced to give mathematical support to the topological presentation of the repetition, in terms of double curl. The fold of a trace over itself becomes apt to represent the Freudian operation of the repetition. The places that engender definite cuts in a certain relationship, allow the measurement of the incommensurability. Lacan substitutes, in this way, the biological Freudian metaphors, of "Beyond the principle of pleasure" ("Más alla del principio de placer") in relation to the repetition, for a numeric metaphor.

At the height of the reference seminary (class of 8/3/67) Lacan does not speak in terms of pleasure (jouissance), but of subjective satisfaction (Befriedigung).

 

After differenciating:

.sexual act

.acting

.analytical act

It presents the sexual act as that which produces the "illusion" of eliminating the rest (that it leads to sanction "there is no sexual act" in paradox with "there is only sexual act"). For the pleasurable activities of life it recommends, the necessity to forget the calculus rule, not such as in the interest of the analytical process.

Psychoanalysis as a radical practice of language is one of the few discursive practices where the word is the measurement of man. The Pithagorus theorem as an antecedent of the irrational numbers, marks the impossibility of the common measure, of harmonic relationship between the number and the universe. The absence of spaces, to represent the rational numbers on a straight line, is only illusory, an infinite number of intervals remain. For the Pithagorians, this supposedly means a fault in the universe. Harmonizing this fault was done by the use of proportions.

What interests Lacan about these mathematical developments is, fundamentally, the presence of the incommensurable, that which refers to the law of proportions that serves to advance his learning around the object a. Castration would imply this, an order of measure that Lacan exemplifies with the gold number.

The effect is interesting, in the construction of the proportion, the third term, in that so much potencial permits the existence of the universal insuring a comparison that will not be analogical. The third term that restores the proportion without acceeding to filling of the split (it produces holes as much as it manages encounters). It is interesting for our field as long as proportion does not give complementary. It is then, a matter of operating with established proportions through the use of the incommensurable so as not to confuse comparison with analogy, sliding the psychoanalysis of radical language practice into mere

hermeneutic.

In the same opportunity Lacna speaks of "the gross analogies between the father and the analyst". Not without irony, he compares the bed, the litter, with the divan. Understanding fecundates the non-analogical comparison between these two terms and particularly in the consequences referred to the subjective satisfaction (Befriedigung). The analytical bed is in relation to the sexual act. Contrary relationship, not contradictory, that leads it to set forth a unfolding, not a refolding, of the field of the Other.

 

The Other in its function of sexualized area – Oedipus area.

The Other desexualized, in its function of the truth, in that it is in the analytical experience where the truth intrudes on the field of knowing. This means to transfer that

sexual into an empty set by a logical process of abstinence. Therefore, only logically – since total reality is not approachable but phantasmagorically – it can set forth a desexualized area by law of abstinence. The interpretation, while cutting, has operated on the border between the sexualized area and the desexualized one making possible the function of a.

The suggestion – as attainment of the unity while illusionary of eliminating the rest, as was said in the sexual act – is one of the discursive modalities where the failure of the "logical abstinence" is predicted.

Failure of the "logical abstinence" that, maybe, in terms of the XVIII Semeimario, can be thought of as a failure in making appearance, not construction of object appearance in its function of making a limit to the totalization.

We could, now, extend the title of these notes: "either logical abstinence or incestuous discourse".

One of the possible advantages of re-thinking abstinence in logical terms is demoralizing its transmission. As long as the logic is not elevated to the ideal – inasmuchas the destiny of the ideal is to cause repression.

Elisa Marino

Letra, Institución Psicoanalítico

September,2000