everyday reality as well as the inherently deceptive dimension of the symbolic
Other; in Aristotle’s universe, the Other of the Other still corresponds to the (pri-
mordial) Real.
On the other hand, for Lacan, modern science relies on an anomalous Judeo–
Christian tradition which is no longer preoccupied with what goes on in the
celestial domain but, rather, secures the Other to a nondeceptive a priori which is
itself symbolic.This is nothing but Descartes’s nondeceiving God. “The notion that
the real [everyday reality] is unable to play tricks on us,” which is so “essential
to the constitution of the world of [modern] science”—and still influences “the
mentality of people like us”^39 —ultimately depends on “Descartes’ meditation
about God as incapable of deceiving us.”^40 In other words, for modern science, the
Other of the Other is symbolic: this presupposes “an act of faith.”^41 Modern science
relies on a “unique principle at the foundation, not only of the universe [objects
as perceived in everyday reality], but of the law.”^42 The Law is thus created ex nihilo.
The reason why Lacan believes that science took such a step (“which was not ob-
vious”)^43 at a specific moment of its development will be analyzed in Chapter 5. In
Seminar III, Lacan does not offer any explanation of the transition from Aristotelian
to modern science: however, further hypotheses can be obtained by juxtaposing
this passage from Seminar III to a series of challenging passages that he dedicates
to the birth of modern science in Seminar VII.
For the time being, let us limit ourselves to the delineation of the differences
and similarities between Aristotelian and modern “non-deceptive elements.” To
recapitulate: at this stage of his thought, Lacan believes that all symbolic systems
necessitate a “non-deceptive element,” a basic Law that functions as the universal
Other of the Other in a given epoch of history, yet he also deems modernity to be
special insofar as it founds itself on a symbolic Other of the Other. Having said this,
one should not overlook the fact that the precise functioning of premodern sym-
bolic systems is irremediably lost to us—and this independently of whether we
still have faith in the Judeo–Christian God. Despite his own endeavor to sketch
the foundation of Aristotelian science “from the inside,” Lacan believes that we in-
evitably end up retroactively reinterpreting the Aristotelian (and pre-Aristotelian)
universe as being based on a symbolicOther of the Other: this is the only way in
which we can formulate any truth (as fiction) about it. Consequently, it should not
surprise us that: ( 1 ) in the same passage from Seminar III, Lacan speaks of a (non-
linear) “evolution of human thought” that—one presumes—would linkAristo-
telian science to modern science;^44 ( 2 ) in these years, he often attempts to apply
the “principle of the law” qua(Judeo–Christian) universal Name-of-the-Father to
the most disparate historical epochs, and consider its consequences at various lev-
els of man’s libidinal economy throughout history.^45 How can he do this?
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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