Research in Lost Time

Within academia, science, and industry, research must produce its results as a general form of knowledge. What is effaced in this regard however is the singularity of the work whose foundation is lost time—often recognized in forms errancy, mistake, forgetting, delirium, procrastination, etc. These are all placed on the side of the illusions of subjectivity and treated as either external to the question of truth qua objective knowledge or worthy of concern and care only from a humanist standpoint.

But to the extent that psychoanalysis takes its orientation from the symptom, not as a mere pathological formation, but as an index of truth, it cannot treat these obstacles—which constitute the work’s duration—as either external accidents or objects of humanist valorization. Rather, it must see in them the trace of the very object of its practice and theory, a kind of errant object, whose site is also that of discovery.

For this reason, a work of research undertaken within an economy of truth and desire, rather than an economy of goods, must demonstrate the universal as given in its own singularity, i.e. as time regained in lost time.

“In psychoanalysis, there has existed from the very first an inseparable bond between cure and research..”

— S. Freud, The Question of Lay Analysis

“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

Open Problems

Those working in the analytic field are often quite capable of asking good questions. Indeed, the first gesture of analytic practice is to refuse to treat the symptom as a problem to be solved and dissolved but as a question to be listened to and deciphered. While recognizing that not every question can be turned into a problem, we nevertheless ask whether it is not a necessary part of a constructive practice to be able to formulate certain aspects of questions as problems for which solutions can be sought. For failing this our practice will remain stuck in a purely interpretive or critical procedure.

For this reason, we begin to enumerate here the open problems either in works published by Lacan (P), or that have remained unpublished (U) in his work with his students-analysands, or those that can be extracted after his death by current-day readers (X).

  • U1 The Knot Classification Problem: Show how the Borromean chain is the primary generator in the classification of knots and links.
  • U2 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.
  • U2 Explain the reasons for the solution to the equation 10 = 1. Give a geometric and algebraic interpretation (Lacan’s letter via J.M. Vappereaux to G. Kreisel).

P1 Determine the number of possible discourses with n places and m letters, where m = n, and one letter is held constant in a different place before each rotation of (m–1) letters on the places and until all possible permutations on the places have occurred (the letter held constant being in a different place after each rotation). (L’Envers De Psychanalyse)

X1 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 collective works.

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

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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 near the area have the option of requesting to borrow an item from the catalogue: /url/

Useful Links:

  • PLACE Moodle Site
  • Lou Kauffman
  • RTGroome
  • Stoicheion
  • Topologie En Extension
  • Freud2Lacan
  • Medium