ABSTRACT
Let me begin by summarizing our trajectory here. Lacan grounded his clinical theory of affect on the operativity of the language of the unconscious which, by imposing a loss on jouissance, gives rise to an insatiable demand for love – in other words, inexhaustible re-petitio. In a reversal of perspective – based in fact on an examination of symptoms in which knowledge is enjoyed without a loss – Lacan's work on affect leads in the end to the thesis that affect becomes a sign, a sign that reveals the unknown knowledge residing in lalangue. These symptoms must be called real, insofar as they are outside of meaning, the real having no other definition than that of “excluding meaning.” Whether we are talking about knowledge residing in the unconscious that is responsible for the failure to enjoy (manque à jouir), or the enjoyed knowledge of the unconscious as lalangue, in both cases the parlêtre is affected by it and what we want to know is how analysis intervenes in it.
