Lacan and Gdel

Richard Klein
http://www.lacan.com/thesymptom/?p=54
In Science and Truth there is a reference to Gdels theorem of incompleteness (Lacan,
1965: 861). Gdel was a mathematical logician who invented his theorem in 1931. It is
applied to formal systems and asserts that those containing minimum of arithmetic are
incomplete and inconsistent. The arithmetic they contain is logical according to Peano s
axioms.
Lacan is applying this theorem to the subject of science. I will try to show that this is the
point in the crits at which a formalisation of psychoanalysis begins as a system which
contains a minimum of arithmetic.
Gdels proof his conclusion is left for whomsoever desires to work through it. Only the
conclusion is stated as follows: In any formal language A there exists a statement S such
that if A is consistent, neither S nor its negative can be proved in A. The propositions of A
cannot be proved by reference to A. It does not mean that S is false but undecidable. The
axioms of A are not just incomplete but incompletable since the addition of an axiom does
not block the emergence of another statement S that cannot be decided. His theorem of
incompleteness entails that the consistency of A cannot be proved by any means within A.
Let A be the Other which is the concept of the unconscia-us. In Science and Truth, Lacan is
not applying the theorem to the concept of the unconscious but to the subject of the
unconscious. Nevertheless, Gdels theorem asserts that there is a lack in the Other, that
the Other is incomplete and inconsistent, which is why Lacan writes it as the barred Other:
A
A statement S in the field of the Other cannot be guaranteed as true. Take a construction or
any form of interpretation which attempts to complete the Other and make it consistent,
that is, to fill out the lack in the Other. Such an intelpretation is neither true nor false, but
undecidable; it is a proposition of the Other and cannot be proved by reference to the Other.
Whatever fresh knowledge follows in the wake of an interpretation is not an indication of its
truth since this knowledge is also a proposition of the Other. Neither the analysands yes
nor his no are signs of the truth or falsity of an interpretation. Freud says in Constructions
in Analysis that what is important is what comes indirectly (Freud, 1937d). The analysand
says no and somewhere else says yes. That would be an interpretation that keeps the
subject divided between the true and the false, which does not suture the subject.
The subject of science is being made the focus of logic. Modem logic sutures the subject of
science. Gdels theorem, says Lacan, demonstrates that the suture has failed.<
Logic makes a decision on what is true and false. Aristotelian logic makes it in natural
language. Modern logic creates an artificial language, that is, a formal system, in which the
decision is made.
The subject of natura! language is described by Lacan in Science and Truth as the
speaking suhject of linguistics in which the subject is determined as meaning in a battery of
signifiers (Lacan, 1965: 860). This is not the subject of science. The subject in
psychoanalysis, however, is the subject of science (Lacan, 1965: 858). The subject of

science cannot be, then, a subject of natural language. It seems to me that this can be
taken as the point at which a formalisation is beginning.
Modern logic attempts to reveal the structure of science ostensibly. Lacan says it sutures,
not science, but the subject of science. Science does not say true or false; the subject does.
In a philosophy of science called logical empiricism theoretical terms are made dependent
on observation terms. The truth of the observation terms must be guaranteed in theoretical
terms. The subject of science must always be true. The subject who says no and
somewhere else says yes is divided between the true and the false (see Miller, 1994).
Suturing this division makes the subject true. Gdels theorem confIrms the existence of the
division. The subject is a logical inconsistency. The fIrst step in this formalisation asserts
that the subject is undecidable, which is an indication that the subject contains arithmetic.
In the clinic it is an empirical fact that the subject speaks a natural language. On the other
hand. the division of the subject is not an empirical fact but the effect of a reduction which
may take a long time to accomplish (Lacan, 1965: 855). This reduction has to do with the
shrinkage of knowledge since the subject is also described by Lacan as the result of the
rejection of knowledge (Lacan, 1965: 856). The reduction is the direction of the treatment
to a decompleted and inconsistent Other. the effect of which is the subject of science.
The subject is divided, Lacan argues, between truth and knowledge (Lacan, 1965: 856). If
knowledge shrinks, it is contingent. In logic truth is necessary. It is not, however, the
subject thal is necessarily true. According to Gdels theorem, it is a logical inconsistency.
There is a formalisation of both ends of the fantasy; beginning with the subject, arithmetic
is introduced into the system, and, therefore, Gdels theorem is asserted. In the paper that
precedes the one under consideration, Lacan begins by stating that the drive as constructed
by Freud is prohibited to psychologising thought which supposes a moral in nature (Lacan,
1964: 851). Here is a good reason for formalisation. The basis of psychologising thought is
natural language. The drive cannot enter natural language.
In his introduction to the Foundarions of Arithmetic, Frege says that his method goes
against psychologising thought. Formalisation constitutes a reduction that may take a long
time of psychologising thought. Knowledge shrinks, and the subject encounters the truth of
the drive. The drive divides the subject and desire (Lacan, 1964: 853). The truth of desire
seems to account for the logical inconsistency of the subject. Such is the structure of
fantasy, according to Lacan.
Also in the article which precedes Science and Truth is Lacans account of the point at
which an analyst is made (Lacan, 1964: 854). At the end of analysis the drive has
something to do with the emergence of the desire of the analyst. This is not enlarged upon
by Lacan here, though elsewhere he states that it is also the desire of the analyst which has
been operating in the accomplishment of the analysis. It must be the desire to create a
language in which the subject can say the truth. Formalisatbn is the expression of the
relation of the desire of the analyst to the truth. It seems to me that the desire of the
analyst is structured by Gdels theorem, and the form of interpretation must be affected by
it. Without it, there will be no concept of the sometimes long reduction to the division of the
subject, to the point of a manque savoir, a want-to-know, since the subject is a lack
outside knowledge. It seems to be a reduction to the first axiom of Peano: zero is a number.
A lack in the foundations is just this zero; a painful emptiness that will make the subject
inconsistent between the true and the false, and make it desire to find an Other that is
complete and consistent.

Gdels Incompleteness theorem

The opening paragraph of Kurt Gdels 1931 paper:
The development of mathematics in the direction of greater precision has led to large areas
of it being formalized, so that proofs can be carried out according to a few mechanical rules.
The most comprehensive formal systems to date are, on the one hand, the Principia
Mathematica of Whitehead and Russell and, on the other, the Zermelo-Fraenkel system of
axiomatic set theory. Both systems are so extensive that all methods of proof used in
mathematics today can be formalized in them; i.e., can be reduced to a few axioms and
rules of inference It would seem reasonable, therefore, to surmise that these axioms and
rules of inference are sufficient to decide all mathematical questions which can be
formulated in the system concerned. In what follows it will be shown that this is not the
case, but rather that, in both of the cited systems, there exist relatively simple problems of
theory of ordinary whole numbers which cannot be decided on the basis of the axioms.
Kurt Gdel, ber unentscheidbare Stze del Principia Mathematica und verwandter
Systeme I, Monatshefte fr Mathematik und Physik 38: 173-98. Composite translation,
cited in Raymond Smullyan, The Lady or the Tiger?, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982, p.
163.