法：sinthome
正如拉康所指出的那样，“圣状”这一术语是一种古老的写法，该词在近来更多地被拼写为“症状”(symptome)。拉康在1975年引入了这一术语，作为1975一1976年度研讨班的标题，该期研讨班既是对于其拓扑学的继续阐发，延伸了上期研讨班对于博洛米结 (BORROMEAN KNOT)的聚焦，同时又是对詹姆斯·乔伊斯作品的一种探索。经由这种“对立统一”（coincidentia opposito-rum)集合了数学理论与乔伊斯文本的缠结交织一拉康便根据其晚年的主体拓扑学而重新定义了精神分析的症状。
(1)在“圣状”出现之前，拉康思想中的一些发散趋势便导致了症状 (SYMPTOM)概念的不同变形。早在1957年，症状即被说成是“铭写于一种书写过程”(Ec, 445), 这便已然暗示出了一种不同于把症状看作一则加密信息的观点。在1963年，拉康继而声称症状与行动搬演不同，它并不要求解释，就其本身而言，它并非对于大他者的一种呼唤，而是不指向任何人的一种纯粹的“享乐”(Lacan, 1962-3:1963年1月24日的研讨班；见：Miller, 1987:11)。这些评论皆预期了拉康思想的根本性转变，即他从症状的语言学定义一症状作为一个能指一转向在1974一1975年度的研讨班上声称：“就无意识决定着主体而言，症状只能被定义为每个主体借以享乐 (jouit)其无意识的方式。”(Lacan, 1974-5:1975年2月18日的研讨班)
从把症状构想为可以通过参照“像一种语言那样结构的”无意识来解码的某种信息，到把它看作主体享乐的特殊形态的痕迹，这一转变在引入“圣状”这一术语时达到了巅峰。“圣状”因而指的是一种超越分析的能指性表述 (signifying formulation), 它是免于象征界效力的一个享乐的内核。“圣状”非但不要求某种分析性的“消解”(dissolution), 它反而是通过提供一种独特的“享乐”组织而“允许我们得以活着”的东西。因而，在拉康有关分析结束的一则最终定义之中，分析的任务就变成了认同“圣状”。
(2)从语言学到标志着拉康后期著作的拓扑学，这一理论的转变即构成了“圣状”其不可分析的真正地位，而且也相当于是超出拉康常见的晦涩修辞的一个注释学难题。1975一1976年度的研讨班把“圣状”作为第四环加诸实在界、象征界与想象界的三元组，通过把一个不断威胁要解开的扭结拴系在一起，从而拓展了在上一期研讨班中作为主体的基本结构而被提出的博洛米结的理论。这个扭结不是作为一种模型，而是作为对“想象力会在其面前失败”的拓扑学的一种严格的非隐喻性的描述而被提供的 (Lacan, 1975-6:1975年12月9日的研讨班)。因为意义 (ses)已然在此一扭结中被标示在了象征界与想象界的交界 (见：图1)，由此可知“圣状”的功能一介入进来以便把实在界、象征界与想象界扭结在一起一便不可避免地是超越意义的。
(3)自其青年时代开始，拉康便一直是乔伊斯的忠实读者（见：Ec, 25与S20,37两处对于乔伊斯的提及）。在1975一1976年度的研讨班上，乔伊斯的作品被解读为一种延伸的“圣状”，它作为加诸RSI的博洛米结的第四项而允许了主体的凝聚。由于在其童年期面对着父亲的名义的根本缺乏/不起作用 (carence), 乔伊斯便设法通过把他的艺术作为“增补”(suppleance)来展开一作为主体扭结中的一条增补性的纽带一一而避免精神病。拉康把乔伊斯青年时的“灵瞬”①(epiphany, 即当时在那些谜一般的、碎片化的文本中所记录的那种几乎带有幻觉强度的经验)作为“根本性排除”的实例来加以关注，在其中“实在界排除了意义”(1976年3月16日的研讨班)。乔伊斯的文本一从灵光乍现到《芬尼根的守灵夜》(Finnegans Wake)一便蕴含着与语言之间的一种特殊关系，即把语言化作“圣状”的一种“毁灭性”再造，主体的隐秘享乐对于象征秩序的人侵。“合成人”(synth-homme)作为拉康的双关语之一便隐含了此种“人为的”自我创造。
拉康坚持强调，他对乔伊斯作品的着手并不蕴含着某种“应用精神分析”(applied psychoanalysis)。拓扑学理论并非被仅仅构想为另一种表征性的说明，而是被构想为一种书写的形式，也就是说，是一种旨在描绘出是什么逃离了想象界的实践。就此意义而言，乔伊斯便不是一个理论的对象或者“案例”，而是变成了一位“圣人”(saint homme)的典范，他因为拒绝任何想象性的解决办法而能够发明出一种全新的方式来用语言去组织享乐。
(本词条作者：卢克·瑟斯顿)
The term sinthome is, as Lacan points out, an archaic way of writing what has morerecently been spelt symptome. Lacan introduces the term in 1975, as the title for the1975-6 seminar, which is both a continuing elaboration of his topology, extending theprevious seminar's focus on the BORROMEAN KNOT, and an exploration of thewritings of James Joyce. Through this coincidentia oppositorum-bringing togethermathematical theory and the intricate weave of the Joycean text-Lacan redefines thepsychoanalytic symptom in terms of his final topology of the subject.
- Before the appearance of sinthome, divergent currents in Lacan's thinking lead todifferent inflections of the concept of the SYMPTOM. As early as 1957, the symptom issaid to be 'inscribed in a writing process' (Ec, 445), which already implies a differentview to that which regards the symptom as a ciphered message. In 1963 Lacan goes on tostate that the symptom, unlike acting out, does not call for interpretation; in itself, it is nota call to the Other but a pure jouissance addressed to no one (Lacan, 1962-3: seminar of23 January 1963; see Miller, 1987:11). Such comments anticipate the radicaltransformation of Lacan's thought implicit in his shift from the linguistic definition of thesymptom-as a signifier-to his statement, in the 1974-5 seminar, that 'the symptom canonly be defined as the way in which each subject enjoys Ljouit/the unconscious, in so faras the unconscious determines him' (Lacan, 1974-5: seminar of 18 February 1975).
This move from conceiving of the symptom as a message which can be deciphered byreference to the unconscious 'structured like a language', to seeing it as the trace of theparticular modality of the subject's jouissance, culminates in the introduction of the termsinthome. The sinthome thus designates a signifying formulation beyond analysis, akernel of enjoyment immune to the efficacy of the symbolic. Far from calling for someanalytic 'dissolution', the sinthome is what 'allows one to live'by providing a uniqueorganisation of jouissance. The task of analysis thus becomes, in one of Lacan's lastdefinitions of the end of analysis, to identify with the sinthome. 2. The theoretical shift from linguistics to topology which marks the final period of Lacan's work constitutes the true status of the sinthome as unanalysable, and amounts toan exegetical problem beyond the familiar one of Lacan's dense rhetoric. The 1975-6seminar extends the theory of the Borromean knot, which in the previous seminar hadbeen proposed as the essential structure of the subject, by adding the sinthome as a fourthring to the triad of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, tying together a knot whichconstantly threatens to come undone. This knot is not offered as a model but as arigorously non-metaphorical description of a topology 'before which the imaginationfails' (Lacan, 1975-6: seminar of 9 December 1975). Since meaning (sens) is alreadyfigured within the knot, at the intersection of the symbolic and the imaginary (see Figure1), it follows that the function of the sinthome-intervening to knot together real, symbolic and imaginary-is inevitably beyond meaning. 3. Lacan had been an enthusiastic reader of Joyce since his youth (see the references to Joyce in Ec, 25 and S20,37). In the 1975-6 seminar, Joyce's writing is read as anextended sinthome, a fourth term whose addition to the Borromean knot of RSI allowsthe subject to cohere. Faced in his childhood by the radical non-function/absence (carence) of the Name-of-the-Father, Joyce managed to avoid psychosis by deploying hisart as suppleance, as a supplementary cord in the subjective knot. Lacan focuses on Joyce's youthful 'epiphanies' (experiences of an almost hallucinatory intensity whichwere then recorded in enigmatic, fragmentary texts) as instances of radical foreclosure', in which 'the real forecloses meaning' (seminar of 16 March 1976). The Joycean text-from the epiphany to Finnegans Wake-entailed a special relation to language; a'destructive'refashioning of it as sinthome, the invasion of the symbolic order by thesubject's private jouissance. One of Lacan's puns, synth-homme, implies this kind ofartificial'self-creation.
Lacan's engagement with Joyce's writing does not, he insists, entail 'appliedpsychoanalysis'. Topological theory is not conceived of as merely another kind ofrepresentational account, but as a form of writing, a praxis aiming to figure that whichescapes the imaginary. To that extent, rather than a theoretical object or 'case', Joycebecomes an exemplary saint homme who, by refusing any imaginary solution, was able toinvent a new way of using language to organise enjoyment.
(Author of this article: Luke Thurston)