The title is not translated, so this is Julia Evans’ literal translation of ‘La mort est du domaine de la foi’

Anthony Chadwick notes, This text is the one transcribed from the tape‐ recording of the lecture Jacques Lacan gave in the great rotunda of Louvain University, 13 October 1972. Differences have been noted when compared to the video recording. The text appeared In Quarto (Belgian supplement to the Lettre mensuelle de l’École de la cause freudienne), 1981, n0 3, pp 5‐20.

Translated by Anthony Chadwick, bilingual version, published at www.Freud2Lacan.com /Lacan (156. La mort est du domaine de la foi. Conférence à Louvain, 1972)

To view a clip from this lecture: click here.

Jacques Lacan’s reference

The Case of Aimée, or Self-punitive Paranoia : 7th July 1932 : Jacques Lacan’s thesis, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19320701 or Index of Jacques Lacan’s texts)

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Notes on the English translation from Bruno de Florence – May 2020

-André Jacob was an eminent French biologist, who mixed philosophy in his writings on biology, asking “what is life, actually, why is there life?”.

-On Note 4, re “le” or “la”: my Larousse dictionary of French language makes no mention of the word “chose” being used on its own as a masculine noun. However, has a compound locution (quelque chose), the entire expression is considered masculine & singular, e.g. UN petit quelque chose. If you take Lacan’s sentence where this Le La occurs, “C’est, vais‐je dire, le ou la, disons pour frayer, la chose, c’est la jouissance; mais si vous mettez la chose en 2 mots avec un petit trait d’union, c’est le joui‐sens.” I think Lacan anticipates his use of “joui-sens“, since he says “disons pour frayer” i.e. “let’s say to clear the path“.

-The video of Louvain is on:

The text transcriptions, both French & English, do not mention the way the young chap interrupts Lacan. His Belgian French accent, which is not that pronounced, indicates a middle class chap. A working class male would have much more pronounced “R”, almost guttural, as well as a different syntax in the composition of his sentences.

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Citation

– We shall build up again… : 31st March 2020 : Jorge Assef, see this site /5 Authors A-Z (Assef or Index of Author’s texts)

Assef, ‘that resonate with Lacan’s words in his lecture in Louvain: “Death belongs to the domain of faith: you are right to believe you’ll die, it sustains you”’ : See The Death is from the Domain of the Faith : 13th October 1972 (Louvain University, Belgium) : Jacques Lacan

P7-8 of Anthony Chadwick’s translation – a longer quote is below : Let’s be serious! … Death is in the domain of faith. You are quite right to believe that you are going to die, of course; it keeps you going. If you don’t believe that, could you bear the life you have? If one wasn’t solidly based on that certainty that it will end, could you bear this tale; nevertheless it’s only an act of faith; to top it all, you are not sure of it.

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– Encounter with the Coronavirus : we, analysts, are mortal : 10th May 2020 : Nelson Feldman, see this site /5 Authors A-Z (Feldman)

Feldman states, Lacan told Louvain that: “Death belongs to the dimension of faith. You are right to believe you’re going to die, of course – it keeps you going. If you didn’t believe in it, could you bear the life you have?” (1)

Footnote (1), P7-8 of Anthony Chadwick’s translation : I have been, like that, a little drawn along to note that, on the subject of biology, psychoanalysis finally has not brought along a lot and yet, that’s all it speaks about: life drives then and “I suck you down”, death drives. Well have you heard a little bit about it, yes or no? because without that I’ll pass on, yes or no, is it “yes”, or is it “no”. Ah! You can’t trust all this chatter (applause). Let’s be serious! … Death is in the domain of faith. You are quite right to believe that you are going to die, of course; it keeps you going. If you don’t believe that, could you bear the life you have? If one wasn’t solidly based on that certainty that it will end, could you bear this tale; nevertheless it’s only an act of faith; to top it all, you are not sure of it. Why wouldn’t there be at least one man or woman who could live for 150 years, but really, it’s there that faith regains its strength. So, in the middle of all that, you know what I am saying there, it’s because I have seen it, there’s one of my patients (a very long time ago, so she won’t hear any of this, without that I wouldn’t tell her story) she dreamt one day that existence would spring up always by itself, the Pascalian dream, an infinity of lives succeeding each other with no possible end, she woke up almost mad. She told me; of course I did not find it funny. It’s just that, life is something solid, that on which we live precisely. In life, as soon as one starts talking about it, life of course, we are living it, it’s not in doubt, we realize it at every moment; often it’s a question of thinking it, taking life as a concept; so then, we all take shelter together to get warm with a certain number of little beasts which naturally warm us up, all the more that in so far as our life is concerned, we have no idea at all of what it is. Thank God, that’s the word, he has not left us alone! Since the beginning, since Genesis, there have been countless animals. That it is that which makes life seem the most probable, it’s what we have in common with the little animals.

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– Second citation, Feldman states, Death is responsible for reminding us of our existence because sometimes life hangs by a thread, the thread of desire, always unsatisfied, “a golden thread of enjoyment” (2), and this thread loops around the real of life. :

Footnote (2) p13 of Anthony Chadwick’s translation : See above or www.Freud2Lacan.com : Another form of deciphering is what I am putting into play here: another form of deciphering is proposed to us, but the strange thing is that it starts only from another discourse. There is no trace in the beginning of Freud’s discourse of a reference to life. It is a question of a discourse, of a discourse about which he teaches, that of the hysteric, and this discourse, what does he find there? Very precisely, a meaning. And this meaning, in relation to what has been evaluated up to then, is different. It is, will I say, “le” or “la”[4], let’s say to clear the way, the thing, it’s jouissance; but if you put the “thing” in two words with a little hyphen, it’s joui‐sens.[5] Not one of the sayings of those welcome visitors, those beloved – I called the patient in my thesis I was mentioning just now Aimée*, she was not a hysteric – not a single saying of those hysterics about whom we cannot determine which thread, golden thread of jouissance, guides them; and it is precisely for that that this discourse enunciates desire, and makes this desire in order to leave it unsatisfied. Freud guides us and he has given us, it’s true, a new discourse which means, you don’t even realize it, that all the ways that we have for approaching feeling, incident, affectuation6 for something in a certain field, you all (no need for that for you to be in analysis, nor an analyst) you know how to question it in a way for which there is nothing in all of previous literature, even if as such it is done, it bears witness to circling around that.

Footnotes :

TN4 “Chose” is normally feminine in French, but when masculine it can mean “thingymajig” or “odd”, “bizarre”. Lacan, I think, intends both, although opting expediently for “la chose”.

TN5 Lacan elaborates elsewhere that “joui‐sens” can be further broken down into je/oui‐sens”, I hear meanings. Another translator offers “enjoymeant”.

TN6 Transcriber’s footnote number 7 questions the word, “l’affectuation”, as either a typo, or a Lacanian neologism. I have opted for the latter. I take to be a portmanteau word combining: affectation, affection, and affecting.

Information & availability : The Case of Aimée, or Self-punitive Paranoia : 7th July 1932 : Jacques Lacan’s thesis, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19320707 or Index of Jacques Lacan’s texts)

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Other texts on Coronavirus/Covid on this site /1 A Lacanian Clinic/Cartel or Group Work/ c) Coronavirus/Pandemic/Plague or https://web.archive.org/web/20220718142509/https://lacanianworks.net/category/practice/case-studies/case-studies-clinical/coronavirus/

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