Subjectivity and Otherness A Philosophical Reading of Lacan

effected by Φ; such a paradox is well expressed by the formula of secondary iden-

tification, which is perfectly calibrated in order to evoke the inevitable loss entailed

by subjectivation/sexuation; claiming that the child has it (Φ), as Lacan did in

Seminar V, is no longer a sufficient explanation, since having Φnecessarily entails

symbolic castration. Hence the child hasΦonly insofar as he is not(the φof the

mother). We can thus assume that the standard phallic fantasy is ultimately one

with the fantasy of castration—or, more precisely, −φis “contained” in the scene that

promotes secondary identification; such a scene is, for the same reason, repressed,

and constitutes the anchor of the unconscious.^103

This conclusion concerning the standard fantasy seems to be confirmed by an

apparently unimportant remark made by Lacan in Seminar V apropos the perverse

fantasy of “A Child Is Being Beaten.” As we saw in Chapter 3 , Lacan believes he is

able to show that, despite a disturbance in the Oedipal relation with the mother

which hinders the emergence of the phallic Gestalt,a child can actively enter the

symbolic order—as a perverse masochist—through a fantasy of fustigation. The

child is in fact able to symbolize his predicament (the absence of love, and hence

of frustration, due to the presence of a sibling) through an imaginary signifier

(hieroglyphic) such as a stick or a whip which works as an alternative phallic sig-

nifier. “In being beaten, he is loved,” says Lacan: in other words, this (phantasized)

act finally institutes the child as a subject of the signifier for whom “the question

of love exists,” albeit in a negative manner.^104

What interests us here is that Lacan later specifies that, insofar as he is beaten,

the child isthe phallus φtout court.The whip with which the child is being beaten

is the Φwhich simultaneously castrates the child to be understood as φ: −φis thus

“contained” in the same scene that supports the symbolic identification with Φ.

This is what allows Lacan generally to maintain that, in the case of both perverse

and standard fundamental fantasies, “the phallus... is preserved [quahaving Φ]

only insofar as it went through... castration,” that is, the “marking” of the phallus

itself (quanot-being φ).^105

So what about the emergence of self-consciousness in concomitance with the

establishment of the fundamental fantasy? In representing himself in secondary

identification as the one who “is not without having it,” the child both subjec-

tivizes himself, insofar as he has Φ“through” the father, and represents lack, in-

sofar as he is not φ, by means of one and the same image. In so doing, the subject

pays with his being (φ) in order to sustain himself before a structurally lacking

Other, which therefore is itself sustained by the subject’s own payment, the part of

himself which he imaginarily loses. By having Φthrough the father, however, the

subject is able to give a “form” to the alienating imaginary identifications he had

previously acquired: the formation of the ego-ideal allows the amalgamation of his

the subject of the fantasy... and beyond