Why Speak to Anyone?

Lacan Shots (01)

“Shots” is a series aiming to introduce core philosophical ideas in digestible shots. To get full access to this series you can become a paid subscriber on this Substack, or become a member of The Portal.

---

Lacan opens the Écrits with a meta-challenge for why he would even bother releasing his writings to the world. We find this challenge presented on the level of the unsure reference point of “man” (or the individual):¹

““The style is the man himself,” people repeat […] without worrying about the fact that man is no longer so sure a reference point. […]

Shall we adopt the formulation — the style is the man — if we simply add to it: the man one addresses?

This would be simply to comply with the principle that I have proposed: that in language our message comes to us from the Other […] in an inverted form.”

Here Lacan is uncertain about the modern notion of individuality as a reference point (“style is the man himself” = “man is no longer so sure a reference point”). He immediately moves to find what would be a “surer foundation” with reference to “the other” or “the man one addresses”. In this simple gesture Lacan is suggesting that, if we are looking for the “certainty of our substance”, we will not find it in the classical interpretations of the “Cartesian cogito” (res cogitans, “I think, therefore I am”). What we will find on the level of the individual (man) is only a persistent doubt (i.e. an unsure reference point).²

The paradox that this immediately presents to us is that the foundation for our certainty is in “the other”. But this a paradox: how can we derive certainty from “the other”, when “the other” is nothing but unknown/uncertain for us as an individual? (i.e. we cannot see inside an other person’s mind, they inhabit a different body from us, and so forth). In short: the other is inherently anxiety provoking, even terrifying, from the perspective of our individuality.