after castration. The object aas desire of the (m)Other corresponds to a real lack
for the subject, since it is itself a real lack in the (m)Other. This fourth function of
the object aclearly demonstrates how it can be understood as the “cause” of the
subject’s desire, as that which lies “behind desire” in an “outside” which precedes
any “interiorization.”^113 After the emergence of the subject’s desire, the desire of
the (m)Other quaobject athen becomes the objectof desire.
( 5 ) In self-consciousness, the object ashould be related to what Lacan calls the
agalma,the hidden precious object which is in the other more than himself, and
the reason for which the subject ultimately desires him. This is nothing but the
necessarily concealed part-object φ, the object which is always missing in self-
consciousness, and can present itself only negatively as −φ; the most important
point to grasp here is that the subject continuously projects onto φas the non-
specular remainder of the body a libidinal investment which surpasses the specu-
lar relation he maintains with his ideal ego.^114 Such an investment is operative both
when the subject remains caught in the dialectic of demand—when he always de-
mands “something else,” and is not directly seeking the agalma—and when he ex-
plicitly desires the agalmaas that which is in the other more than the other, the void
in/of the other (his own desire).^115 As Safouan rightly observes, however, the
agalmais, strictly speaking, different from the object a(or φ) quahidden part-object:
it is an x“which preserves its nature as agalmaonly insofar as the part-object, a,does
notappear.”^116 In other words, the agalma qua xis the “other side,” the conscious side,
of the part-object a quareal object which was lost;as Lacan says: “We are not always
on the [unconscious] stage [of the fundamental fantasy], even though the stage
stretches very far, even into the domain of our dreams. And as not on the stage and
remaining on this [conscious] side of it... we find nothing but the lack at x.”^117
On the other hand, the part-object aappears as such in self-consciousness when
the empty place xof agalma,the direct consequence of −φin self-consciousness, can
be circumscribed (cerné)“by a certain edge, a certain opening... where the con-
stitution of the specular image shows its limits.” A “window” is thus opened onto
the void; this means that the void is itself delimited and “materialized” in self-
consciousness: Lacan defines the product of this process succinctly in terms of a
“lack of lack” (the suspension of −φ), which functions as the “elective locus of
anxiety.”^118 I shall return to these intricate issues shortly.^119By recognizing functions ( 4 ) and ( 5 ) as overlapping, we could suggest that the
subject, in desiring agalmaas object a,desires nothing but the Other’s desire as
void/lack. Although Lacan acknowledges this as early as Seminar V—“desire is the
desire of that lack which designates in the Other another desire”^120 —he usually
does not point out how such a definition involves two opposed implications. If de-the subject of the real (other)