voi Cesthan accumulated knowledge. descartes had maintained that ‘the things we conceive
very clearly and very distinctly are all true’ (descartes 1985 [1637]: 127). however,
lacan’s assertion that truth is only a fall of knowledge places this observation, and
the certainty established by the facts of unconscious thought, within the domain of
knowledge itself. This is very different from the Cartesian idea of a knowledge gleaned
from close observation, whose truth is ultimately guaranteed by a benevolent god.
The change in the position of the subject that inaugurates the analyst/investigator can
therefore be said to be composed of two elements – an initial embrace of the cogito with
its emphasis on a truth produced by observation, accompanied by a decisive re location
of that truth within knowledge itself, in the form of a division between conscious and
unconscious knowledge. The unconscious cannot be observed in its totality as a body
of knowledge, but the division between conscious and unconscious thought can be
observed as a fall of knowledge. This is the point of view that the analyst adopts as a
consequence of his renunciation of a belief in psychic freedom. in contrast, modern
science has moved away from descartes’ wager on a divine guarantor for an ‘i am’,
and placed its trust instead in the rigour of scientific method as the guarantee of truth.
psychoanalysis, however, has conceived of investigative rigour differently again. it does
this as an orientation or shift in the position of the subject that allows for the location
of a rigorous unconscious truth, rather than through the adoption of a particular
method by which truth is assured. For lacan, this subject position of the analyst can
itself take the form of a statement, for example in his use of the phrase ‘i always speak
the truth’ (lacan 2007 [1965]: 3), which, far from being hubristic, is another way of
accepting the Freudian idea of a determinism that governs mental life. a phrase such
as ‘i always speak the truth’ also affirms that it is the utterance itself that is the matter
of investigation and the locus of truth, rather than either the meta- truths of existence,
life experience or praxis beyond the utterance, or a scientific formula or equation that
attempts to demonstrate that truth inheres in the rigour of method.
the question of interpretation in arts- based researchlacan’s statement affirming the subject position of the analyst, dispenses with both
existential freedom and the freedom of interpretation, since the task of the analyst
is to locate a knowledge that the analysand already knows, rather than add an
intellectual construction of the analyst’s own. Consequently, if an artist- researcher
were to adopt a psychoanalytic paradigm, they would be required to note how the
adoption of the subject position of a researcher alters their previous view of the
determinations of their practice. This might begin with a radical gesture of positively
rejecting the thesis that the truths of the artist, the designer and the researcher alike
are to be found in the lifeworld of a practice. They would then be required to map
the difference that the agency of the researcher introduces within the established
patterns of artistic self- identity, noting any particular determinations or facts that
arise to disturb the construction of this identity, such as those previously mentioned
statistics that might impact the museum curator’s belief in his control of the world of
objects. it would also be essential for the artist- researcher or designer- researcher^3 who
adopts a psychoanalytic paradigm, to avoid becoming the theorist of his or her own
objects or adding a new layer of meaning or interpretation. Whether this extra layer of