The Monologue of l’apparole

Jacques-Alain Miller

In other words, when interpretation has to do with meaning, far from establishing a limit, interpretation creates the unlimited. Here, we are taking things completely to the opposite slope.

Not only does this line of argument position analytic interpretation as finite, but it says interpretation "finitizes." Analytic interpretation makes finite.

What I also like in the idea that analytic interpretation establishes limits, is that it situates interpretation as an ending rather than as a renewal, that is to say, the opposite of what a practice of interpretation might be. There is also in this sentence the notion that it is not meaning that is secured by interpretation, as it would normally be in the context of the first triad. It is instead the real that is secured by interpretation. What can we do with this notion? In what is the real secured by interpretation? This notion leads us toward thinking that, in speech as PDD, as pas-de-dialogue, in the monologue of I'apparole, there is no real, or in any case, on this level, the real is not secured. What can this really mean? What is Lacan aiming at with such things as these? At this point, we are not entirely sure that Lacan is addressing himself to us. We try to make believe, we try to make it seem as if he is addressing himself to us.

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The publishing of this text has been proposed by Florencia Shanahan:

THE MONOLOGUE OF L'APPAROLE
Author(s): Jacques-Alain Miller and M. Downing Roberts
Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 9, No. 2, Special Issue on Lacan (Spring/Summer 1996), pp. 160-182. Published by: University of Nebraska Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20686051 .