Certainly. Lacan’s Four Discourses—introduced in Seminar XVII (The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, 1969–70)—are among his most political and structural contributions. These “discourses” are not about speech in the ordinary sense, but about social and psychic structures that organize how knowledge, power, desire, and subjectivity circulate.
They can be understood as four fundamental configurations of how speaking subjects are constituted and how authority functions in a given structure. Each discourse is structured like a rotating machine involving four positions and four terms.
I. The Four Positions in the Discourse Structure
Each discourse is arranged around four positions:
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Position |
Role |
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Agent |
The speaker / authority figure |
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Other |
The audience or addressee |
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Truth |
What underlies the agent (often hidden) |
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Production |
What is produced by the discourse |
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II. The Four Terms (Lacanian Algebra)
Each discourse arranges four terms into the above positions:
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Symbol |
Meaning |
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S₁ |
Master Signifier (signifier that anchors identity, law, or power) |
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S₂ |
Knowledge (systematized discourse, learning, institutions) |
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$ |
The split subject (divided between conscious and unconscious) |
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a |
The object a (cause of desire, what cannot be symbolized) |
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| III. The Four Discourses Let’s go through each one, showing how the terms rotate and what structure they describe. 1. The Master’s Discourse Power and Authority Structure: |
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Explanation: |
• Knowledge (S₂) speaks in the name of object a (managing the system, optimizing outcomes).
• The truth is S₁—the hidden ideological framework legitimating the knowledge.
• It produces split subjects ($)—normalized individuals, students, citizens.
Social form: academia, neoliberal expertise, technocratic rationality.
Critique: knowledge appears neutral but hides master signifiers (e.g., race, patriarchy, capitalism).
2. The University Discourse
Bureaucracy and Expertise
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Agent |
Other |
Truth |
Product |
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S₂ |
a |
S₁ |
$ |
Explanation:
• Knowledge (S₂) speaks in the name of object a (managing the system, optimizing outcomes).
• The truth is S₁—the hidden ideological framework legitimating the knowledge.
• It produces split subjects ($)—normalized individuals, students, citizens.
Social form: academia, neoliberal expertise, technocratic rationality.
Critique: knowledge appears neutral but hides master signifiers (e.g., race, patriarchy, capitalism).
3. The Hysteric’s Discourse
Critique and Interrogation
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Agent |
Other |
Truth |
Product |
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$ |
S₁ |
a |
S₂ |
Explanation:
• The split subject ($) challenges the master signifier (S₁).
• The truth driving their question is object a—their ungraspable desire.
• What is produced is new knowledge (S₂).
Social form: the analyst’s position, the revolutionary, the protester, the hysteric.
Psychoanalysis: the analysand demanding truth from the analyst—“Why am I this way?”
4. The Analyst’s Discourse
Interpretation and Desire
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Agent |
Other |
Truth |
Product |
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a |
$ |
S₂ |
S₁ |
Explanation:
• The object a (cause of desire) is in the position of agent.
• It addresses the split subject ($).
• Beneath this is knowledge (S₂)—the unconscious.
• What is produced is a new master signifier (S₁)—a way to speak desire differently.
Social form: the psychoanalytic cure.
Ethical stance: the analyst embodies the lack, not the authority; they do not impose knowledge but allow the subject to discover their own truth.
IV. Why They Matter
Lacan’s Four Discourses:
• Show that social structures are built on different configurations of power, knowledge, and desire.
• Help us analyze institutions, relationships, and ideologies through how they structure speech and subjectivity.
• Offer a political-ethical map: from domination (Master) to subversion (Hysteric) to transformation (Analyst).
V. Bonus: Rotation of the Discourses
Lacan’s idea is that each discourse eventually flips into another—for instance:
• The Master’s Discourse gives rise to the Hysteric’s Discourse (resistance).
• The University Discourse masks the Master beneath neutral knowledge.
• The Analyst’s Discourse enables a new relation to desire and truth.
Would you like me to show how these four discourses apply to institutions like education, psychotherapy, or nationalism? Or to a dialogue between patient and therapist?
