Subjectivity and Otherness A Philosophical Reading of Lacan

quence of −φ, is always missing, overlaps with the pursuit of the +of the phallic
Gestaltof which she has been deprived.
Two important points should be made with regard to this matter: ( 1 ) When-
ever woman is granted temporary access to the +of phallic Gestalt,in the guise of
the baby in the “pre-Oedipal” relation or in the guise of the penis during sexual
intercourse, she is not completely saturated by it. In other words, insofar as she
dwells in the symbolic order, φas the unachievable “universal object” always re-
mains for her beyond φas the imaginary aspect of the phallic Gestalt+/−. ( 2 )
Woman’s simultaneous search for φas the unachievable “universal object” and
the +of the phallic Gestaltis obviously also superimposed upon and facilitates her
(reproductive) relation to the real penis.^159

The question now arises concerning how to reinterpret the distinction and inter-
relation between the imaginary and the symbolic phalluses on the basis of the lin-
guistic distinction between signifier and signified. Lacan in fact believes that the
entire dynamics of the Oedipus complex and its resolution could be interpreted in
terms of a paternal metaphor: “The [symbolic] father is a metaphor.”^160 As we have
seen, a metaphor can be defined as the substitution of one signifier for another
which gives rise to an effect of signification: “It is in the relation between a signi-
fier and another that a certain relation signifier over signifiedwill be generated.”^161 This
can be expressed as shown in schema 3 .1:^162

The Oedipus complex is itself resolved after castration thanks to the metaphor-
ical substitution of the signifier Name-of-the-Father for the signifier Desire-of-the-
Mother: all subsequent metaphors—and consequently signification tout court—rely
on such a primordial paternal metaphor. As Lacan clearly states, “the father is a
signifier which is substituted for another signifier... the first signifier introduced
in symbolization, the maternal signifier... that is the mother who comes and
goes.”^163 He then proposes schema 3. 2 :^164

89

Father

Mother

Mother

x

⋅

Schema 3.1

S′

S

s

→ S

Schema 3.2