in the S (A barred) and read as: signifier of a lack in the Other, inherent in[that is
immanent to] its very functionas the treasury of the signifier”;^63 the signifier of the
lack in the Other is at the same time the signifier that, as S1, allows any “effect” of
signification to follow “from the unconscious enunciation.” Lacan then adds that
the “lack referred to here is that which I’ve already formulated: that there is no
Other of the Other.” If we compare these quotations with another passage from the
same article in which Lacan argues that S (A barred) must be distinguished from
other signifiers but not separatedfrom them,^64 we can conclude that the “inherency”
in the function of the Other as the “treasury of the signifier” should be attributed
to both the lack and its signifier.What precisely does Lacan imply when he claims that S (A barred) is to be distin-
guishedfrom while not being separated from the signifiers S2? I believe this can be
explained by emphasizing how Lacan also mathematically qualifies S (A barred) as
−1. Given that there is always a signifier missing from the Other, A is ultimately A
barred. S (A barred) is −1 in the sense that the missing signifier is itself signifier-
ized as missing, and hence as −1. We could equally argue that Φis the signifier that,
due to castration and the resolution of the Oedipus complex, signifierizes itself as
missing (−φ). Although the real lack in the Symbolic is never canceled, it is pre-
cisely by becoming −1 that it is phallically “organized”: such an “organization” of
lack is nothing less than what allows the functioning of the symbolic order toutthere is no other of the other
Graph 4.6