Other is “marked by the [differential and thus lacking logic of the] signifier,” it
should itself be related to the dimension of desire; the phallus therefore signi-
fierizes the lack caused in the Other as desiring Other by the very nature of the
signifier. If we refer these observations back to the first quotation, we can con-
clude that in order for the subject’s own desire to be able to emerge, a superimpo-
sition of his relation with both the imaginary and the symbolic Other has to occur;
this is brought about by the symbolic phallus insofar as it manages to mark—sig-
nifierize—the Other as a lacking, desiring Other. This extremely complicated
process has already been explained from a slightly different angle in Chapter 3 ,
where I discussed the way in which the sexuation of the subject is made possible
only when the desire of the (m)Other is retroactively signifierized by the phallic
signifier: it will later be analyzed in more depth when we examine the funda-
mental fantasy.
For the time being, what should concern us the most is that both quotations en-
tail that, in Seminar V, Φas the signifier of the “signified as such” is also the signi-
fier of the lack in the Other, S (A barred), and thus has to be distinguished from
the Name-of-the-Father, the “signifier of signifiers” whose nature as a transcen-
dent sign excludes any irreducible lack. To cut a long story short, at this stage, there
still is an Other of the Other. It is important, however, to emphasize that in Semi-
nar V the Other of the Other is, for Lacan, by no means irreconcilable with S (A
barred). In other words, at this stage, the symbolic phallus Φto be understood as
that which “carries out” (“réalise”)S (A barred)^61 is still “encircled” by the Name-
of-the-Father. This is definitely not the case in “Subversion of the Subject,” where
Lacan makes it clear that there is no Other of the Other, nothing standing outside
of S (A barred).
Consequently, the most important effect of the passage from “there is an Other
of the Other” (A) to “there is no Other of the Other” (A barred) is that the lack in
the Other—the fact that, because of the differential logic of the signifying struc-
ture, a signifier is always missing from the battery of signifiers—is no longer in-
trasymbolic but should be considered as real,as a presence of the Real in the open
structure of the Symbolic. Whenever Lacan refers now to the Name(s)-of-the-
Father, he is speaking of something which is perfectly identifiable with Φand S (A
barred). In Seminar V, the Name-of-the-Father could be written as S (S/s), which
is, after all, the same as S (A). In “Subversion of the Subject,” when there is no
Other of the Other, the Name-of-the-Father is S (A barred); the statement “the
father [qualaw] is a dead father”^62 finds its true implication here. In other words,
this means: the Master-Signifier S1 relies on A barred; there isa Father or Master-
Signifier, but it cannot be detached from S (A barred). As Lacan writes: “If we are
to expect... an effect from the unconscious enunciation it is to be found here
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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