拉岡講座 204

The Rat of the Maze

迷宮之鼠

It is on the basis of the notion of a kind of knowledge that is transmitted, integrally

transmitted, that sifting occurred in the knowledge thanks to which the discourse
called scientific discourse was constituted.

根據某種被傳遞，完整被傳遞知識的觀念，知識界從事探究。憑藉這個探究，形
成所謂的科學真理的論述。

It wasn’t constituted without numerous misadventures. Hypotheses no fingo, Newton

believed he could say, “ I assume nothing.” But it was on the basis of a hypothesis
that the famous revolution—which wasn’t at all Copernican, but rather Newtonian—
hinged, substituting “ it falls” for “it turns.” The Newtonian hypothesis consisted in
positing that the astral turning is the same as falling. But in order to observe that—
which allows one to eliminate the hypothesis—he first had to make the hypothesis.

科學真理的論述曾經歷許多嘗試的錯誤。「不預設立場的假設」，牛頓相信他能
夠說「我沒有預先假設什麼。」但就是根據這種假設的基礎，產生了著名的物理
觀念的革新，不是哥白尼的革新，而是牛頓的革新，以「它墬落」代替「它旋轉」
牛頓的假設在於提出：星球的旋轉跟墬落是同一回事。但是為了觀察，因為憑藉
觀察他才能修正這種假設，首先他必須提出假設。

To introduce a scientific discourse concerning knowledge, one must investigate

knowledge where it is. That knowledge, insofar as it resides in the shelter of
Ilanguage, means the unconscious. I do not enter there, no more than did Newton,
without a hypothesis.

為了要介紹有關知識的科學的真理論述，我們必須在知識所在的地方研究知識。
就駐紮在「真語言」領域的知識而言，那個知識就是無意識。我是預先提出假設
才進入那個領域，跟牛頓一樣。

My hypothesis is that the individual who is affected by the unconscious is the same
individual who constitutes what I call the subject of a signifier. That is what I
enunciate in the minimal formulation that a signifier represents a subject to another
signifier.. The signifier in itself is nothing but what can be defined as a difference

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from another signifier. It is the introduction of difference as such into the field, which
allows one to extract from Ilanguage the nature of the signifier.

我的假設是：受到無意識影響的個人，跟組成我所謂意符的主體，是相同的一
個人。這就是我清楚表達的，在我最初的構想：意符代表對於另一個意符的主體
這個意符本身的定義，只能就相對於另一個意符的差異而定。我在這個領域介紹
這種差異，這樣我們才能從「真語言」中，抽取出意符的特性。

Stated otherwise, I reduce the hypothesis, according to the very formulation that lends
it substance, to the following: it is necessary to the functioning of Ilanguage. To say
that there is a subject is nothing other than to say that there is a hypothesis. The only
proof we have that the subject coincides with this hypothesis, and that it is the
speaking individual on whom it is based, is that the signifier becomes a sign.

換言之，依照這個將假設具體化的構想，我將假設簡化如下：假設對於「真語
言」的功用是必需的。說主體存在等於就是說假設存在。主體跟這個假設巧合，
說話的個人就是主體的基礎，我們擁有的唯一的証據是：意符成為符號

It is because there is the unconscious—namely, Ilanguage, insofaras it is on the basis

of the cohabitation with Ilanguage that a being known as speaking being is defined—
that the signifier can be called upon to constitute a sign. You can take “ sign” here as
you like, even as the English “ thing.”

說話的主體所以被認識為存在主體，就是根據無意識跟「真語言」的共同相處。
因為無意識，也就是「真語言」存在，意符才能被召喚組成一個符號。這個符號
各有差異，在英文甚至被稱為「物」。

The signifier is a subject’s sign. Qua formal medium, the signifier hits something
other than what it is quite crudely as signifier, an other that it affects and that is made
into a subject of the signifier, or at least which passes for such. It is in that respect that
the subject turns out to be—and this is only true for speaking beings—a being whose
being is always elsewhere, as the predicate shows. The subject is never more than
fleeting and vanishing, for it is a subject only by a signifier and to another signifier.

意符是主體的符號。作為正式的媒介，意符碰撞到另一個不同於原先裸裎的意符
一個它影響到另一意符，然後才形成這個意符的主體，或至少是如此的被認為。
以這種方式，就言說的存在主體而言，主體最後成為一個存在主體，其存在卻
總是在別處，依照形成的發展而定。主體本身總是瞬息萬變，因為主體存在僅是

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憑藉意符及跟另一意符的關係。

It is here that we must return to Aristotle. In a choice guided by we know not what,
Aristotle decided not to give any other definition of the individual than the body—the
body as organism, as what maintains itself as one, and not as what reproduces. We are
still hovering around the difference between the platonic idea and the Aristotelian
definition of the individual as grounding being. The question that arises for the
biologist is to know how a body reproduces. What is in question in any work in so-
called molecular chemistry is to know how something can be precipitated thanks to
the combination of a certain number of things in special soup—for example, the fact
that a bacterium begins to reproduce.

在此，我們必須回到亞力斯多德。不知受到怎樣的引導影響，亞力斯多德決定不
給個人下別的定義，除了就是身體：作為有機體的身體，自我維持的身體，而
不是能夠繁殖的身體。柏拉圖的理念，迴異於跟亞力斯多德對於以個人作為基礎
的存在主體的定義，現在依舊困擾著我們。對於生物學家，引起的問題是要知道
身體如何繁殖。在所謂分子化學領域，所質疑的問題是要知道某件物質如何產生
例如在一碗特別的湯中，某些物質的結合，使細菌開始繁殖。

What then is the body? Is it or isn’t it knowledge of the one?

那麼這個身體是什麼？身體是或不是主體的知識？

Knowledge of the one turns out not to come from the body. The little we can say
about knowledge of the one comes from the signifier “One.” Does the signifier “
One” derive from the fact that a signifier as such is never anything but one-among-
others, referred to those others, being but its difference from the others? The question
has been so little resolved to date that I devoted my whole seminar last year to
accentuating this “ There’s such a thing as “ One”

主體的知識後來發現不是來自身體。我們對於主體的知識，目前所能夠說的，是
來自「主體」的意符。這個意符的「主體」的形成，難道不就是意符道道地地是人
際之間的產物，相對於跟別人的關係，及迴異於別人的獨特性？這個問題迄今
懸而未決，所以我去年將整個講座專注於強調：「主體存在」。

What does “ There’s such a thing as One” mean? From the one-among-others—and
the point is to know whether it is any old which one—arises an S1, a signifying
swarm, a buzzing swarm. If I raise the question, “ Is it of them-two that I am

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speaking?” I will write this S1 of each signifier, first on the basis of its relation to S2.
and you can add as many of them as you like. This is the swarm I am talking about.

「主體存在」是什麼意思？從人際關係，重點是要知道在群體的意符，嗡嗡的群
體意符中，主體是否出現？假如我提出這個問題：「正在言說的我一分為二
嗎？」我將寫下每個意符為 S1，首先根據的是跟第二意符 S2 的關係。然後你可
以隨你高興再添加。這就是我正在談到的群體意符。

S1 (S1(S1(S1－S2)))
S1, the swarm or master signifier, is that which assures the unity, the unity of the
subject’s copulation with knowledge. It is in Ilanguage and nowhere else, insofar as
Ilanguage is investigated qua language, that what a primitive linguistics designated
with the term element—and that was no accident—can be discerned. The signifier “
One” is not just any old signifier. It is the signifying order insofar as it is instituted on
the basis of the envelopment by which the whole of the chain subsists.

S1 是群體或主子意符，確定了一致性，主體跟知識結合的一致性。就在「真語
言」，而非別處，原始語言學所指定的元素這個術語能夠被覺察出來。因為「真
語言」是當作是語言來探究，意符主體已經就不是原初的意符。這是符號化的順
序，一層包一層地涵蓋，整體的意符鎖鏈就是賴此存在。

I recently read the work of a person who investigates the relation of S1 to S2, which
that person takes to be a relation of representation. S1 is supposed ( by that person) to
be related to S2 in sofar as it represents a subject. Whether that relation is
symmetrical, antisymmetrical, transitive, or other, whether the subject is transferred
from S2 to S3 and so on and so forth, these questions must be taken up on the basis of
the schema that I am once again providing here.

我最近讀到一本書，作者探討主子意符跟次級意符的關係，認為那就是符號的
關係。主子意符被認為跟次級意符相關，因為它代表一個主體。是否這個關係是
均稱、反均稱，及物或不及物，是否主體被從次級意符轉移到主人意符，等等。
這些問題必須要依據我現在再一次提供出來的基型來探討。

The One incarnated in Ilanguage is something that remains indeterminate between the
phoneme, the word, the sentence, and even the whole of thought. That is what is at
stake in what I call the master signifier. It is the signifier One, and it was no accident
that, in order to illustrate the One, I brought to our last meeting that bit of string,
insofar as it constitutes a ring, whose possible knot with another ring I began to

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investigate.

在「真語言」具體表現的主體，在音符、文字、句子、及整體思想之間，地位始終
飄浮不定。這就是我所稱為的主子意符危機所在。這就是意符主體，為了解釋這
個主體，我上次講座特別介紹環圈的觀念。主體組成一個環圈，跟另外一個主體
的環圈可能的銜接。這是我開始要探究的。

I won’t pursue that point any further today, since we have been deprived of a class
due to exams at this university.

今天我只能先探討到這裡，因為學校的考試，我們少上了一節課。

雄伯譯
32hsiung@pchome.com.tw