The Conversation

Jacques-Alain Miller

THE WICKEDNESS OF THE SIGNIFYING CHAIN

[...]It ought to be done against the fundamental clinical background, that of the great nobility of paranoia. If I may say so, paranoia is noble with respect to schizophrenia. Let us not forget that Lacan, before designating hysteria as the fundamental state of the subject—the $ of every subject of language is the same signifier that Lacan reserved to the subject of hysteria—Lacan began by saying that paranoia was the native state of the subject. To say that paranoia is primary is to make of psychosis, and the paranoiac psychosis in particular, the original state of the subject. The two claims are compatible from the moment we make clear that hysteria designates the fundamental subject of neurosis, and paranoia that of psychosis. But I digress[...]

 

 

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