Research in Lost Time
Across academia, science, and industry, research is expected to produce generalizable knowledge. This expectation effaces the singularity of the work of research itself: a work founded on lost time, errancy, mistake, forgetting, delirium, procrastination, and other apparent obstacles. These moments are usually dismissed as subjective illusions, external to truth as objective knowledge, or valued only from a humanist standpoint.
Analysis, however, insofar as it takes the symptom as an index of truth, cannot treat these obstacles as accidents or merely human concerns. It recognizes in them the trace of the object of research: an errant object whose site is also the site of discovery and invention. Research conducted within an economy of truth and desire, rather than an economy of goods, must therefore show the universal through its singularity: time regained within lost time.
“When we start looking for the psychological conditions in which scientific progress is made, we are soon convinced that the problem of scientific knowledge must be posed in terms of obstacles. This is not a matter of considering external obstacles, such as the complexity and transience of phenomena, or indeed of incriminating the weakness of the senses or of the human mind. It is at the very heart of the act of cognition that, by some kind of functional necessity, sluggishness and disturbances arise.”
— G. Bachelard, The Formation of the Scientific Spirit: A Contribution to a Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge
“While it remains true that time gradually brings about forgetting (although it was distraction—the desire for Mlle d’Éporcheville—that had suddenly made forgetting effective and tangible for me), forgetting itself does not occur without profoundly altering the notion of time. There are optical errors in time as there are in space. The persistence in myself of an old tendency to work, to make up for lost time …”
— M. Proust, The Fugitive, In Search of Lost Time
Open Problems
Those in the analytical field are often adept at asking important questions. Indeed, the first gesture of analytic practice is to refuse to treat the symptom simply as a problem to be solved and dissolved, and instead to receive it as a question to be listened to and deciphered.
Yet if not every question can be reduced to a problem, it is still necessary to ask whether questions can be reformulated as problems for which solutions can be sought. For without this step, analytic practice risks remaining confined to a purely interpretive or critical procedure, thereby remaining, not only pre-Lacanian, but also pre-Freudian:
“Psychoanalysis is not an art of interpretation, it is a construction.”
— S. Freud, Constructions in Analysis, 1932
For this reason, we begin to enumerate here the open problems either in works published by Lacan (P), in works that remained unpublished (U) in his work with his students-analysands, or those extracted after his death by those working at PLACE (X).
- (Underconstruction)
- U1 The Knot Classification Problem: Show how the Borromean chain is the primary generator in the classification of knots and links.
- U2 The Homophony of Conscience-Conscient in French: Coordinate the two pairs conscience–conscient and inconscience–inconscient, then show that le conscient is not simply defined in terms of la conscience, just as l’inconscient is not simply defined in terms of l’inconscience.
- U3 The Gap Between 0 and 1: Explain the reasons for the solution to the equation 10 = 1. Give a geometric and algebraic interpretation (Lacan’s letter to G. Kreisel via J. M.Vappereau).
P1 The Theory of n-Discourses: Determine a cycle of n places, each occupied with one and only one m letter, where the number n of places = the number of letters m. Hold one letter constant in a different place before, turning the letters in a subcycle of (m–1) letters on the places. Continue rotating the letters until all possible cyclic permutations of the places have occurred – making sure that the letter held constant is always in a different place before each rotation. The rotation of letters ends when there is no way to hold one letter in a different place. Thus, determining the number of discourses on n = m places and letters. (L’Envers De Psychanalyse).
X1 Redefining the Phoneme: Give a non-semiotic definition of the phoneme, i.e, one which does not proceed by the commutation test and double articulation.
Preprints
PLACE supports new modes of publication that allow for the circulation and peer-review (both top-down and bottom-up) of works in development. We maintain that publication should not be restricted only to “finished” works which are all too quickly standardized in an academic discipline or a marketplace of knowledge. We also support a platform that promotes the publication of collaborative articles.
For this reason we are collaborating with and supporting the independent preprint server Stoicheion.org. For more information about their submission process visit their about page.
Events
In addition to cartels and seminars, PLACE also organizes summer courses and occasional conferences—where guest lecturers from around the world are invited to present their work.
Visit our calendar for more information about upcoming events.
Workers in the Field
Baker, Zachary
U.S.A., Los Angeles
zdbaker07(at)gmail.com
Bertheux-Epron, Nathalie
France, Cannes
bertheuxnathalie(at)gmail.com
Bettie, Miles
U.S.A., New York
milesbeattie(at)mail.adelphi.edu
Bolin, Hunter
U.S.A., San Diego
h.bolin779(at)gmail.com
Groome, Scully Robert
U.S.A., Santa Monica
scullymaywood(at)gmail.com
Lotfalian, Aria
U.S.A., Los Angeles
arialotfalian(at)gmail.com
Sideras, Christos
Greece, Athens
c.sideras(at)ucl.ac.uk
Library & Resources
A digital library of crucial articles and books can be found here.
Additionally, PLACE maintains a lending library located in Santa Monica. Adherents of PLACE living in the area have a borrowing option.