Transference: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII

Transference: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII

€œAlcibiades attempted to seduce Socrates, he wanted to make him, and in the most openly avowed way possible, into someone instrumental and subordinate to what? To the object of Alcibiades€ desire €“ ¡galma, the good object.<br /><br />I would go even further. How can we analysts fail to recognize what is involved? He says quite clearly: Socrates has the good object in his stomach. Here Socrates is nothing but the envelope in which the object of desire is found.<br /><br />It is in order to clearly emphasize that he is nothing but this envelope that Alcibiades tries to show that Socrates is desire€s serf in his relations with Alcibiades, that Socrates is enslaved to Alcibiades by his desire. Although Alcibiades was aware that Socrates desired him, he wanted to see Socrates€ desire manifest itself in a sign, in order to know that the other €“ the object, ¡galma €“ was at his mercy.<br /><br />Now, it is precisely because he failed in this undertaking that Alcibiades disgraces himself, and makes of his confession something that is so affectively laden. The daemon of Αá°Î´á½½Ï‚ (Aid³s), Shame, about which I spoke to you before in this context, is what intervenes here. This is what is violated here. The most shocking secret is unveiled before everyone; the ultimate mainspring of desire, which in love relations must always be more or less dissimulated, is revealed €“ its aim is the fall of the Other, A, into the other, a.€<br /><br /><b>Jacques Lacan</b>