Like a fool, like a bungler

elucidating Lacan's L'étourdit

pp. 127-169

in: Raul Moncayo, Knowing, not-knowing, and jouissance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This chapter represents a commentary on Lacan's notoriously difficult late text L"étourdit.Language is the structure or texture, and the saying is the cut that changes the structure and topology of a sentence. In this sense, we can use a gap of meaning in the sentence to cut and rewrite the entire sentence so long as the sentence says more than is included in the ordinary meaning of the words. Thought also has non-signifying dimensions emerging from the non-linguistic dimensions of structure or what thought is made of beyond the neuronal or solely linguistic or cognitive nature of the mind/psyche. For Lacan (1972–1973) thought in the Real is a form of jouissance. Jouissance is what grounds thought with the real hands and feet of reality despite the apparent immateriality of thought.