Subjectivity and Otherness A Philosophical Reading of Lacan

J (A barred) epitomizes the distance that separates Saint Teresa’s holy ecstasy, as re-
ferred to by Lacan in Seminar XX, from the “naming” of lack carried out by Joyce-
le-saint-homme,as analyzed in detail in Seminar XXIII. In this seminar, JA (of Woman;
of God) becomes impossible; however, feminine jouissancecould be redefined in
terms of J (A barred).^275 J (A barred) is therefore a (form of ) jouissanceof the im-
possibility of JA.Most importantly, I must emphasize that the jouissanceof the barred
Other differs from phallic jouissance withoutbeing “beyond” the phallus.
The elaboration of the notion of J (A barred) also has a significant repercus-
sion for Lacan’s late dictum according to which “Y a d’ l’Un” (“There’s such a thing
as One”).^276 In Seminar XX, Lacan seems to identify this One with JA, with the
idea of a pure Real conceived of in the guise of pure difference, a fermenting Na-
ture; although in Seminar XXIII he declares that JA is meant to designate the fact
that there is a Universe, he nevertheless specifies that it is quite improbable that
the Universe is, as such, a Uni-verse, that the Universe is a One (of pure, Other-
jouissance).^277 That is to say, a pure, mythical Real—the undead—must be presup-
posed retroactively, but it cannot be counted as (a self-enjoying, divine) One, not
even as the supposedly “weaker” One of pure difference.

At this stage, we should ask a crucial question: how does the jouissanceof the impos-
sibility of Other-jouissance,the jouissanceof the barred Other, distinguish itself from
“standard” phallic jouissance? After all, the latter is also, in its own way, a form of

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meaning

RS

I

JA

a

Jφ

Graph 5.4