Abstract
In this chapter, we contrast a Lacanian approach to silence and language with another historically significant approach to the topics, studied and presented in detail by William Franke in a series of books, which we call apophatic discourse. We determine that the silence portrayed in this discourse is an imaginarized, impossible object, and we discuss how it manifests in some clinical cases Lacan discussed (Dora and the Papin sisters) as well as in his formulas for sexuation.
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Notes
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Arguably, perhaps the desire for the contemporary neurotic is to enjoy one’s ignorance, which precisely and deliberately locates silence as an effacing signifier.
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Pluth, E., Zeiher, C. (2019). Silence, the Impossible Object. In: On Silence. The Palgrave Lacan Series. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28147-2_1
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