‌‌‌‌　　英：dialectic;法：dialectique

‌‌‌‌　　“辩证法”这个术语起源于古希腊，对古希腊人而言，该词（尤其）是指通过在一场辩论中指出对手话语中的矛盾，从而让对手遭受质疑的一种话语程序。这是柏拉图归于苏格拉底的策略，在开始大多数对话的时候，苏格拉底都会首先使他的对话者陷入一种混乱和无助的状态。拉康将此种程序比作精神分析治疗的第一阶段，即分析家迫使分析者去面对自己叙述中的矛盾和缺口的时候。然而，正如苏格拉底当时着手从其对话者的混乱陈述中引出真理一样，分析家也着手从分析者的自由联想中引出真理（见：S8,140)。因而，拉康认为“精神分析是一种辩证的经验”(Ec, 216), 因为分析家必须使分析者卷入“一种辩证的运作”(S1,278)。唯有凭借“一种永无止境的辩证过程”，分析家才能够以一种与苏格拉底式对话相同的方式，来颠覆自我的永久性与稳定性的无力幻象 (Lacan, 1951b:12).

‌‌‌‌　　虽然辩证法的起源可追溯至古希腊的哲学家们，但是它在现代哲学中的统治地位却是由于后康德主义的唯心论者费希特与黑格尔在18世纪对于此一概念的复兴，他们将辩证法构想成了正题 (thesis)、反题 (antithesis)与合题 (synthesis)的三段式。对黑格尔而言，辩证法既是一种阐述方法，同时又是历史进程的结构本身。因而，在《精神现象学》(Heg©，1807)一书中，黑格尔便说明了意识如何凭借对立元素之间的一系列冲突而朝向绝对知识进展。每一冲突都会通过一种叫作“扬弃”(德：Aufhebung, 通常的英文泽法是“sublation”)的运作而得到解决，一种新的观念（合题）会在此一运作中从正题与反题之间的对立中诞生；这种合题会将此一对立同时废除、保留并提升至一个更高的层面。

‌‌‌‌　　拉康借用黑格尔式辩证法的特殊方式，在很大程度上都归功于亚历山大·科耶夫 (Alexandre Kojeve), 拉康曾在I930年代参加过科耶夫在巴黎举办的黑格尔讲座 (见：Kojeve, 1947)。遵循科耶夫的观点，拉康特别重视主人 (MASTER)对峙于奴隶的辩证法的特殊阶段，也非常注重欲望 (DESIRE)通过与大他者欲望的关系而得以辩证性构成的方式。通过用杜拉个案来阐明他的观点，拉康说明了精神分析治疗是如何经由一系列的辩证逆转而朝向真理进展的 (Lacan, 1951b)。此外，拉康还利用“扬弃”的概念来说明象征秩序如何能够把一个想象的对象（即想象的阳具）同时废除、保留并提升至一个能指的地位（即象征的阳具）：阳具于是就变成了“它由其消失而开创的这一扬弃本身的能指”(E, 288).

‌‌‌‌　　然而，在拉康的辩证法与黑格尔的辩证法之间也还存在着一些重要的差异。对拉康而言，由黑格尔的绝对知识所代表的最终综合是根本不存在的；无意识的不可归约性即代表着任何这种绝对知识的不可能性。故而，在拉康看来，“扬弃便是哲学的一场美梦”(S20,79)。这种对于最终综合的拒绝恰恰颠覆了进展的概念本身。因而，拉康将他自己有关扬弃的说法对比于黑格尔的说法，指出它以“一种缺失的化身”取代了黑格尔有关进展 (PROGRESS)的思想。

‌‌‌‌　　(dialectique) The term 'dialectic'originated with the Greeks, for whom it denoted (among other things) a discursive procedure in which an opponent in a debate isquestioned in such a way as to bring out the contradictions in his discourse. This is the tactic which Plato ascribes to Socrates, who is shown as beginning most dialogues byfirst reducing his interlocutor to a state of confusion and helplessness. Lacan comparesthis to the first stage of psychoanalytic treatment, when the analyst forces the analysandto confront the contradictions and gaps in his narrative. However, just as Socrates thenproceeds to draw out the truth from the confused statements of his interlocutor, so alsothe analyst proceeds to draw out the truth from the analysand's free associations (see S8,140). Thus Lacan argues that 'psychoanalysis is a dialectical experience' (Ec, 216), sincethe analyst must engage the analysand in 'a dialectical operation' (S1,278). It is only bymeans of 'an endless dialectical process'that the analyst can subvert the ego's disablingillusions of permanence and stability, in a manner identical to the Socratic Dialogue (Lacan, 1951b:12).

‌‌‌‌　　Although the origin of dialectics goes back to the Greek philosophers, its dominancein modem philosophy is due to the revival of the concept in the eighteenth century by thepost-Kantian idealists Fichte and Hegel, who conceived of the dialectic as a triad ofthesis, antithesis and synthesis. For Hegel, the dialectic is both a method of expositionand the structure of historical progress itself. Thus in Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel shows how consciousness progresses towards absolute knowledge by means of aseries of confrontations between opposing elements. Each confrontation is resolved by anoperation called the Aufhebung (usually translated as 'sublation') in which a new idea (the synthesis) is born from the opposition between thesis and antithesis; the synthesissimultaneously annuls, preserves and raises this opposition to a higher level

‌‌‌‌　　The particular way in which the Hegelian dialectic is appropriated by Lacan owesmuch to Alexandra Kojeve, whose lectures on Hegel Lacan attended in Paris in the 1930s (see Kojeve, 1947). Following Kojeve, Lacan puts great emphasis on the particular stageof the dialectic in which the MASTER confronts the slave, and on the way that DESIREis constituted dialectically by a relationship with the desire of the Other. Using the Doracase to illustrate his point, Lacan shows how psychoanalytic treatment progressestowards truth by a series of dialectical reversals (Lacan, 1951a). Lacan also makes use ofthe concept of Aufhebung to show how the symbolic order can simultaneously annul, preserve and raise an imaginary object (the imaginary phallus) to the status of a signifier (the symbolic phallus); the phallus then becomes 'the signifier of this Aufhebung itself, which it inaugurates by its disappearance' (E, 288).

‌‌‌‌　　However, there are also important differences between the Lacanian dialectic and the Hegelian dialectic. For Lacan, there is no such thing as a final synthesis such as isrepresented by Hegel's concept of absolute knowledge; the irreducibility of theunconscious represents the impossibility of any such absolute knowledge. For Lacan, then,'the Aufhebung is one of those sweet dreams of philosophy' (S20,79). This denialof a final synthesis subverts the very concept of progress itself. Thus Lacan contrasts hisown version of the Aufhebung with that of Hegel, arguing that it replaces Hegel's idea ofPROGRESS with 'the avatars of a lack' (Ec, 837)