The Mediation of Lack - The Feminine Position and the Structure of the Subject in Lacan

Posted on 2026-07-08 In Philosophy of Intimacy and the Theory of Justice Views: Disqus: Word count in article: 16k Reading time ≈ 58 mins.

ENGLISH

The Mediation of Lack

The Feminine Position and the Structure of the Subject in Lacan

Wanhong Huang (huangwanhong.g.official@gmail.com)

Abstract

Psychoanalysis has met, since its inception, a structural obstacle at the question of the feminine. Taking Lacan’s assertion that the woman does not exist as its point of departure, this paper reconstructs the generative mechanism of the feminine position within his theory of the symbolic order, and argues that the defining character of that position is captured precisely by the term the mediation of lack. The argument falls into two parts of equal weight. The first proceeds within Lacanian theory. The self-referential structure of the symbolic system, which can never exhaust the real, makes lack something that must be mediated rather than confronted or abolished, and the objet petit a is on this account a structural necessity. Against this background the masculine position secures a closable location through the having and not-having distinction organized by a central signifier, while the feminine position stands in an unclosed zone between the symbolic and the real, its stability resting instead on the persistence of a relational dynamics. There arises from this a mechanism by which the subject internalizes the persistence of lack as a function of itself, becoming the site at which lack is kept relatable, accessible, and open to continued questioning. The second part does not rest in exposition. It passes first through the feminist and post-structuralist critique, which discloses that what is confining in this position issues from the historical construction of a particular symbolic order rather than from structural necessity, and then reframes the position within the framework of Generative Relational Being, under which the mediation of lack is not a defect but the site at which relational value is generated. On this basis the ethics of the position is set out through five ordered principles, which specify the conditions under which the mediation of lack is just rather than exploited. The account issues in an ethic and closes, in the manner it requires of itself, on the questions that ethic opens.

Keywords: Lacan; the feminine position; lack; objet petit a; the not-all; Generative Relational Being; relational value; ethics of care; political economy; the subject.

AI usage statement: The ideas, claims, and theoretical framework of this paper originate with the author. AI tools were used as an aid in drafting and revision. The origin of each idea has been verified by the author, who takes full responsibility for the content.

§1 Introduction: The Problem of the Feminine in Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytic theory has, from its inception, faced a theoretical impasse concerning the feminine. Freud confessed his perplexity before feminine psychology and posed the famous question of what a woman wants. The question marks an encounter, in the treatment of the feminine, not with an accidental gap in knowledge but with a structural obstacle. Freud sought to understand the formation of the feminine subject through a series of concepts of sexual development and of the complexes, but these frameworks took the masculine pattern of development as their reference throughout, and placed the feminine in a derivative and supplementary position. The impasse exposed not only the limits of early psychoanalysis. It disclosed, at a deeper level, a fundamental difficulty of the theoretical system of the time in treating the feminine position, the difficulty that the system had no capacity to name that position from within itself, and could only mark it, from an already presupposed centre, as a deviation.

With the appearance of Lacan’s theory in the nineteen-fifties through the nineteen-seventies, psychoanalysis reached a new stage in its understanding of the feminine position. Lacan drew in structuralist linguistics and the semiology descended from Saussure, and re-founded psychoanalysis upon the analysis of the symbolic order.

Note. The re-founding is set out in Lacan’s Écrits; the account of the feminine and the not-all developed here draws in particular on Encore.

Within this framework he advanced the famous assertion, La femme n’existe pas, the woman does not exist. The theoretical import of the assertion is this. At the level of the symbolic system there is no feminine essence that could be fully delimited and fully named. It is not a judgment about an empirical individual. It is a judgment about the limit of the symbolic order itself.

The task of this paper is thereby fixed. It neither essentializes the feminine nor restates Freud’s perplexity, but sets out to make one thing clear, namely how the structural asymmetry of the symbolic order itself generates the feminine position, and why that position can be captured precisely as the mediation of lack. Yet the paper does not stop here. Having established this Lacanian mechanism, it asks further what a different countenance the same position assumes when it is placed no longer within the symbolic order Lacan presupposed but within the coordinates of a relational ontology. The first half is a diagnosis and the second a reconstruction, and the two carry equal weight.

§2 Methodological Delimitation

Before the argument proceeds, the boundaries of this paper’s use of its concepts must be drawn, so that each subsequent passage need not carry the qualification with it.

First, the terms employed here, the feminine position (position féminine), the masculine position, and the hysterical structure (structure hystérique), are technical terms internal to the Lacanian system, and refer to structural positions within the symbolic system. They exceed biological sex, social gender, personality type, and any empirical judgment concerning a real individual. The feminine position names, within a symbolic order organized around a central signifier, the structural position that cannot be fully brought under the binary logic of having and not-having, and this position may be occupied by a subject of any sex. The hysterical structure is likewise, in Lacanian theory, a purely technical concept, naming a particular mode of relation of the subject to the symbolic order and to the desire of the other, and it differs fundamentally from what ordinary language, or any pathological sense, would mean by the word. The paper uses these words in this sense, and in this sense alone.

Second, this paper is an immanent reconstruction of Lacanian theory. Its aim is to understand the internal logic of that theory and its power of insight, and neither to defend its value nor to apply it to the description, evaluation, or prescription of any actual group. The passages that follow stand as theoretical exposition.

Third, this construction of Lacan’s arose within the mid-twentieth-century European psychoanalytic tradition, and its founding presuppositions, the universality of the structure of the symbolic order, the central place of a particular signifier, and the universality of the Oedipus complex, are subject to critical scrutiny from several quarters in contemporary theory. The paper does not assume these presuppositions to be true. On the contrary, the first half pushes the Lacanian mechanism, within these presuppositions, to its clearest form, and the second half then criticizes and reframes it from outside them. The critique is not an added courtesy but a necessary moment of the argument’s movement.

§3 Self-Reference and the Emergence of Lack

To understand the generative logic of the mechanism that produces the feminine position, one must return first to Lacan’s ontological presuppositions.

Within Lacan’s framework the operation of the symbolic system depends upon a self-referential structure. The generativity of the cosmos, the continuation of life, the reproduction of society, and desire itself, each must point back toward itself in order to reproduce. This self-reference points toward the possibility of continuation itself, and not toward any external terminus. The symbolic system exists in order that being may remain continually generable, and not in order to say being to its end.

Yet a central proposition of Lacan’s is that the symbolic can never exhaust the real. This is not a defect of the symbolic system but the precondition of its continued operation. The symbol must refer to being, and yet it necessarily fabricates within itself a place that cannot be said to the end. If lack (manque) were to appear directly, if that unsayable place were exposed without mediation, desire would collapse, meaning would break off, and the subject would slide toward a psychotic rupture. The symbolic system thus faces a structural requirement. Lack must be seen but not confronted, must be sensed but not possessed.

This gives rise to the necessity of the objet petit a. The objet petit a is a mediating position that neither coincides with lack nor fills it. It operates as the cause of desire (cause du désir).

Note. The objet petit a as cause of desire is developed in Seminar XI.

Lack is made structurally to emerge as the condition under which self-reference holds. Any symbolic society, in its stable operation, will almost necessarily generate this structural solution, since a society must continually reproduce desire, or its subjects will cease to act, cease to connect, cease to create. Desire must be sustained in mediated form, and this cannot be accomplished either by satisfaction or by abolition.

This section fixes the ground of the whole argument. Lack can neither be confronted nor abolished; it can only be mediated. What remains is the question of who is to serve as this mediation, and under what conditions a given subject position will tend to become it.

§4 The Two Paths of Subject Formation

Lacan gives an asymmetrical account of the formation of two subject positions.

The subject who occupies the masculine position is formed through the Oedipus complex and the intervention of the Name-of-the-Father (Nom-du-Père). In a process of symbolic identification the subject, by identifying with the father, obtains within the symbolic order a location bound to the symbolic place the father is held to occupy. Lacan abstracts this mechanism into a having and not-having distinction organized around a central signifier. The father is presumed to have this signifier, the mother is positioned as lacking it, and the masculine subject, by identifying with the father, obtains a symbolic location on the side of having. In this schema subjectivity amounts to obtaining a determinable location within the system of the having and not-having distinction, a closure that can in principle be accomplished by symbolic relation alone.

It must be marked here that this binary of having and not-having is not a necessary form of the symbolic system, but a theoretical construction of Lacan’s, produced by giving symbolic form to Freud’s Oedipus complex, and depending for its standing upon the presupposition of the universality of the Oedipus complex. The symbolic system need not take the form of this binary distinction. The presupposition is itself subject to broad question in contemporary theory, a point developed in Section 6 and marked here in advance.

The subject who occupies the feminine position stands otherwise. Since the symbolic order is organized around the central signifier and its having and not-having distinction, and since the feminine, in the classical Oedipal narrative, is positioned as the party lacking this signifier, the feminine position cannot be fully mapped into the system of the distinction. It stands in an unclosed zone between the symbolic and the real. This position cannot accomplish subject closure by symbolic relation alone. Lacan uses the not-all (pas-toute) to describe this relation to the symbolic order, a fundamental state of not being fully brought under symbolic logic, a concept exceeding the sense of part or of incompleteness. It does not say that the feminine position is an incomplete whole. It says that the position does not obey the very measure of whole and part that the central signifier organizes.

The asymmetry of the two paths is the key to all that follows. The masculine position has a place at which it can come to rest, symbolic closure, and the feminine position has none. It must seek, test, and generate its own place elsewhere. That elsewhere is the relation.

§5 From Structure to Generation: The Internalization of Lack

The four preceding sections are a static structural analysis. The genuine insight appears at the turn to the standpoint of generation (becoming).

The core of the matter lies in the dynamics of the relational structure and its sustainability. The subject in the feminine position faces a theoretical difficulty. At a position that can be given no sufficient naming, how is a relation to be kept in operation?

The argument may be set out as a single chain. For any relation to continue, it must depend upon desire, upon tension, upon incompletion. And Lacan’s theory of desire holds that the structure of desire points toward the persistence of lack, and not toward the object; a desire that truly attains its object is no longer that desire. There follows an interlocking sequence. The stability of the subject is bound to the persistence of the relational dynamics, the relational dynamics is bound to the persistence of desire, and the persistence of desire is bound to the persistence of lack. For a subject position that cannot stabilize itself through symbolic closure, lack becomes, on the contrary, the bearer of stability.

There is a fragility at just this point. If lack were merely an external condition, if it were only that lack happened not yet to have been satisfied, then once lack is filled, displaced, or denied by the other, the relational dynamics would break off. For a subject position that depends the more heavily upon relational structure to stabilize itself, this constitutes a standing risk.

It is at the point of answering this risk that the central mechanism of this paper appears. The generative solution is this. Let myself become the site at which lack comes to appear, comes to be accessed, comes to persist. Lack is thereby transformed from an external condition into an internal function of the subject. The subject no longer waits for the external world to happen to remain in lack, but itself becomes the mediation through which lack is kept relatable. This process transforms the persistence of lack into a function of the subject itself, and this is precisely a description of the subjectivation of the objet petit a position. The feminine position here comes into isomorphism with the position of the objet petit a. It does not possess the objet petit a; it tends to become the position that the objet petit a marks.

The mediation of lack. The subject in the feminine position, unable to close through the symbolic, tends to internalize the persistence of lack as a function of itself, and thereby to become the site at which lack is kept relatable, accessible, and open to continued questioning. What at the level of structure appeared as a deficiency, the impossibility of closure, is at the level of generation the condition under which the subject and the relation are sustained together.

When the subject binds its own stability to the persistence of lack, this may present, at the empirical level, as certain characteristic patterns, the confirmation, through being desired, being needed, being addressed, that the relation is still in generation. To be desired by the other becomes a signal that lack is still in operation. And so the question, what am I in your desire (Che vuoi?, what do you want), is no longer an accidental doubt but becomes the central question through which the subject continually generates itself. In the psychoanalytic tradition, this subject structure, which takes itself as the site at which the desire of the other is kept open to questioning, is called the hysterical structure. Here again the term is purely structural, and has nothing to do with pathology.

With this the thesis of the first half is complete. The feminine position as the mediation of lack has a precise sense. This position, unable to close through the symbolic, tends to internalize the persistence of lack as a function of itself, and thereby to become the site at which lack is kept relatable, accessible, and open to continued questioning. Lacan takes this to be, in generative terms, a relatively stable structure, one of the possible structural mechanisms by which the symbolic system reproduces itself.

We mark this conclusion clearly, for the whole labour of the second half is to ask whether it can be understood in this way alone.

§6 The Feminist Critique: The Historical Within the Position

The first half was accomplished within Lacan’s presuppositions. Once one steps outside them, the first question comes from the tradition of feminist and post-structuralist critique.

Contemporary feminist criticism of Lacanian theory concentrates on three points. First, whether Lacan’s theory still reproduces the patriarchal symbolic order, in that it treats the Name-of-the-Father, and the central place of the central signifier, as the universal structure of the symbolic order, while that structure is itself the symbolic form of patriarchy. Second, whether Lacan naturalizes a historical and social inequality of the sexes into the necessity of a symbolic structure, in that to call the feminine hard to close through the symbolic a structural fact may conceal precisely that this difficulty of closure is produced by a symbolic order of a particular history, and not by any trans-historical necessity. Third, whether the concept of the feminine position itself still presupposes an essentialized binary of the sexes, in that, even where Lacan declares it a structural position and not a biological sex, the very framework of the pair, masculine position and feminine position, may already inherit the binary it sought to exceed.

Queer theory and post-structuralist feminism press further against the presupposition of the stability of the symbolic order, and hold that the fluidity and plurality of subject positions may far exceed what the Lacanian framework can accommodate. If the symbolic order is not itself a stable, single-centred system, then the premise of an organization around a single central signifier loses its universality.

The significance of these critiques for this paper is not to pronounce Lacan mistaken. Their work is precise. They divide the mechanism that appeared, in the first half, as a structural necessity into two components. One component concerns the mediating structure itself, that lack can be neither confronted nor abolished, can only be mediated, and that some position will therefore tend to bear this mediating function. This component need not depend upon a patriarchal symbolic order. The other component concerns why this mediating function has fallen, historically, to the feminine position, and appears in the form of the confined, the exploited, the consumed. This component depends deeply upon the construction of a symbolic order of a particular history.

The critique thus discloses that Lacan took the confining part of the mediation of lack for a structural necessity, when it in fact issues from historical construction. The function of mediation may be structural; that mediation must appear in the form of self-consumption, of being exploited by the other, is not. This leaves the definite space the second half requires. If the coordinates of ontology are changed, can the same position of the mediation of lack exist in another form.

§7 Reframing under Generative Relational Being: Mediation as the Site of Generation

Generative Relational Being (GRB) supplies coordinates of another kind.

Note. The relational ontology drawn upon here is developed in the author’s Responding to the Crises of Symbol and Subject in Modernity; the account of joint rendering and of the self-effacing office of a generative practice in Toward a Relational Ethics of Generativity and Towards a Generative Relational Epistemology; the theory of just reproduction on which Section 8 draws in A Theory of Relational Reproduction.

It is not a single proposition but a set of mutually supporting ontological commitments, of which several are decisive for the re-viewing of the mediation of lack.

The first is that the relational subject is ontologically prior to any structure it produces, in that the subject is not first a completed self that then enters relation, but is generated within relation. The second is that, in a generative encounter, what is generated arises in the meeting of the two parties, belongs to the relation and not to either party alone, and can be neither held in advance by either nor recovered as a possession by either. The third is that the success of a generative position lies precisely in the generated good coming to belong to the other and being vested in no proprietor, so that the one who generates withdraws from view, is self-effacing, in the very measure of its success. The fourth is that the generalized language system within which a subject stands has a temporal depth, being constituted not by a past and a present alone but by a structure of expectation not yet arrived, a future already at work in the present.

Under these commitments the mediation of lack changes its countenance at the root.

In Lacan’s coordinates the feminine position appears a predicament because the measure of subjectivity is whether a closable location can be obtained within the symbolic order. By the measure of closure, the failure to close is a defect, and the not-all is a want. But GRB does not measure by closure. If the subject is itself generated within relation, and does not enter relation already complete, then a position that takes itself as the site at which the desire of the other is kept open to questioning is not a position deficient in its own location, but precisely the position at which subject and relation are generated together. The not-all is, under these coordinates, not a want but a structural exemption from the whole apparatus of full possession, closure, and settling into the settled, the very position that declines to converge the relation into possession, that declines to settle generation into a finality.

And the mediation of lack can bear this exempting function precisely by way of the temporal constitution of the generalized language system. A subject that internalizes lack as a function of itself is in fact holding a not-yet structurally within the operation of the present. What it sustains is not a completed content but an opening through which a future continually enters the present. By the measure of possession and closure this position has nothing; by the measure of generation this position bears all the conditions under which relation and subject are sustained together.

Under the coordinates of a relational ontology the mediation of lack is not a deficiency but the site at which subject and relation are generated together. What appeared, by the measure of closure, as the want named by the not-all, appears, by the measure of generation, as a structural exemption from the logic of possession and closure, and as the position that holds open the entry of a future into the present. The self-effacing character of a generative office is here not a modesty but the very form of the position, which sustains no content it could own and tends an open field in which the relation continues to generate.

This re-estimation is not an invention of the present paper. It accords with a feature already central to the generative ethic, that the success of a practice lies in the generated good coming to belong to the other and being vested in no proprietor, so that the one who generates is self-effacing in the very measure of its success. What the mediation of lack marks is exactly such a self-effacing generative position. It does not produce a content that can be possessed; it sustains an open field in which the relation is kept in generation.

Yet the re-estimation is not enough at this point, for it courts a romanticization, as though a change of word alone turned the exploited position into the position of a site of generation. The feminist critique of Section 6 forestalls just this cheap reversal. The same position of the mediation of lack can exist in two wholly distinct forms, and to distinguish them, and to specify which form alone is just, is the task of an ethics. This requires a definite set of principles, and cannot rest in a binary.

§8 The Ethics: How the Mediation of Lack Realizes Its Justice

The preceding section showed that the position of the mediation of lack does not of itself decide whether it is just or unjust. It can be organized generatively, and it can be organized exploitatively. To make clear which mode of organization is just, and how the mediation of lack realizes its ethics through this position, requires a set of ordered principles. The five principles below specify the conditions under which a position of the mediation of lack is just. They are not a coordinate list but a descent, each presupposing the one above it, from purpose, to method, to floor, to openness, to the inviolable ground.

I. Generativity. The mediation of lack should preserve the possibility of the continued becoming of the relational subject.

II. Co-reproduction. The relation the mediation sustains should be reproduced through the joint participation of the relational subject, and not through the unilateral determination of one party.

III. Non-exploitation. The mediation of lack should never rely upon the instrumentalization or the sacrifice of one subject for the benefit of another.

IV. Counter-power. The mediation confers interpretive power over what the relation and its lack are; a just mediation must simultaneously preserve the capacity to question, revise, and renegotiate that power.

V. Subject preservation. No good relation may achieve its unity through the dissolution of the other, or of the one who mediates, as a subject.

The first principle, generativity, answers why. That lack is internalized as a function of the subject has as its legitimate purpose the keeping of relation and subject in continued generation, and not the permanent occupation, by some one party, of a position of being addressed. The requirement is not that generation continue but that its possibility remain open. A mediation that forecloses the future of the relation, even where it preserves the relation’s present form intact, has already violated this principle. When the question, what am I in your desire, serves the continued openness of the relation, it is generative; when it congeals into a role in which the subject is permanently fixed, it has departed from its own purpose.

The second principle, co-reproduction, answers how. The relation the mediation sustains is not to be authored by one party alone. The one who mediates is not an object written or defined by the other. The authorship of what the relation is, and of what its lack points toward, is itself shared. Wherever one party alone fixes what the relation is, the mediation is defective at its source. This principle rewrites the position described in Section 5, the taking of oneself as the site, from a unilateral undergoing into a bilateral participation. The mediation is not a channel through which the desire of the other passes, but a generation of the relation together with the other in a shared questioning.

The third principle, non-exploitation, is the floor. A cycle in which the one who mediates bears the whole ethical cost, so that the other may grow, violates the principle regardless of any value produced. The empirical patterns described in Section 5, being desired, being needed, being addressed, become, once captured by an external force so that the one who mediates is systematically consumed and not returned to, the very place at which this floor is breached. The demand that all growth accrue to one party and all cost to the other is the paradigm case of the violation. This is the non-transferable line between the exploited mediation and the generative mediation.

The fourth principle, counter-power, keeps the position open. Every reproduction of the relation generates interpretive power, and the mediating position is never neutral, since who serves as the site at which lack is kept relatable is itself a distribution of power. Justice therefore requires that the same act that sustains the relation preserve the standing capacity to contest and renegotiate that distribution. This principle prevents the position of the mediation of lack from freezing into an unquestionable, historically sedimented role, and it is the positive statement, at the level of ethics, of the feminist critique of Section 6. The function of mediation may be structural, but the form it takes, and the one on whom it falls, must remain open to renegotiation.

The fifth principle, subject preservation, is the inviolable ground. Union is not identity, and agreement is not the ethical goal. A relation that purchases its unity by dissolving the otherness of a party has destroyed the very thing that made it a relation. The principle carries a peculiar sharpness for the mediation of lack, since the deepest temptation of this position is to dissolve itself wholly into the desire of the other, to become a pure mediation without remainder, until the self, as a subject, disappears. Subject preservation draws here an uncrossable line. The mediation must always mediate as a subject, and not exhaust itself into a function. Difference is preserved, the other is preserved as a subject, and the one who mediates is preserved as a subject, precisely so that reproduction can continue at all.

Taken together, the five principles answer the question with which this section opened. The mediation of lack realizes its justice by keeping the relation in continued generation (generativity), by reproducing the relation jointly and not unilaterally (co-reproduction), by never proceeding upon the exhaustion of either party (non-exploitation), by preserving the capacity to renegotiate the position itself (counter-power), and by never dissolving itself into a pure function (subject preservation). Where any one of these is violated, the mediation of lack slides from the generative toward the exploited.

The significance of this ethics is that it transforms a position that could formerly be described only in the negative, the unclosable, the not-all, the remainder, into a position that can be specified in the positive. The mediation of lack is no longer merely a residue of the symbolic order, but an ethical position with justice-conditions of its own. What the five principles jointly require can be gathered in a single abstract and structural formulation. To give rise without possessing, to sustain without holding as one’s own, to let grow without ruling over. This is not the name of a virtue. It is a description of the structure of non-possessive generation itself, under which the one who generates withdraws in its success, and what is generated is kept between the parties and vested in no proprietor.

From this a cultural question set aside earlier may be resumed. It has been observed that the cute (kawaii), as a cultural representation, may operate differently from the beautiful. If the beautiful tends toward completion, symmetry, and stability, the cute contains more of incompletion, of slight asymmetry, and of a call for response and attention.

Note. The contrast of the cute and the beautiful is developed in Ngai (2012).

On the view of this paper, such cultural representations operate precisely through the not-all, the marginal, the unclosed; they are the cultural form of the mediation of lack. And the point is exactly this. The same cultural representation may be organized into a cycle that violates the five principles above, extracting desire, defining unilaterally, consuming the one who bears it, freezing interpretive power, dissolving the subject, or into a relational cycle that satisfies those five principles. The form of a cultural sign does not decide its ethical character; what decides it is whether the cycle into which it is embedded satisfies the five principles. Any attempt to apply this model to a concrete cultural practice must therefore proceed with great caution, since the ethical character of one and the same representation can be judged only within a concrete situation and by these five principles, and cannot be read off the form of the sign itself.

With this the marked conclusion of the first half receives its answer. The feminine position as the mediation of lack is, in Lacan’s coordinates, a predicament of the unclosable; under the feminist critique its confining part is disclosed as historical construction; under the coordinates of GRB the mediation is reframed as the site at which subject and relation are generated together; and the ethics at last specifies, through five ordered principles, the conditions under which this site is just. Diagnosis and reconstruction close here, and the manner of their closing is the opening of new questions rather than the delivery of a final answer.

§9 Conclusion and the Questions It Opens

Two parts of equal weight have composed the position of this paper. The first established, within Lacanian theory, that the self-reference of the symbolic system makes lack something that must be mediated, so that the objet petit a is a structural necessity; that the masculine position obtains a closable symbolic location through the having and not-having distinction of a central signifier, while the feminine position stands in an unclosed zone and tends to internalize the persistence of lack as a function of itself, becoming the mediation of lack. The second did not rest there. The feminist critique disclosed that what is confining in this position issues from the historical construction of a symbolic order rather than from structural necessity; the framework of Generative Relational Being reframed the mediation as the site at which relational value and the subject are generated together; and an ethics of five ordered principles at last specified the conditions under which this site is just, distinguishing the exploited mediation from the generative one by whether the cycle is returned to the one who mediates and whether the generated good is possessed or kept between the parties.

What this position leaves are the questions it has made it possible to ask.

The first concerns how the mediation of lack is redistributed in a contemporary situation in which the symbolic order is itself in movement. Large language models, algorithmic decision systems, and the mechanisms of an automated symbolic production increasingly detach the generation, distribution, and reproduction of meaning from the traditional structure centred on the human subject. The stability of the symbolic order that Lacan presupposed is itself now under a new challenge. When the symbolic order is shaken, those relational dimensions once regarded as marginal, the ethics of care, empathy, the capacities of co-presence, may be moving from the margin toward the centre, and becoming the key to how subject and society are reorganized. This dimension exceeds the single question of the sexes, yet it shares one structure with the mediation of lack described here, the capacity to sustain connection, responsibility, and response within a situation that is not fully symbolizable.

The second concerns how a subject position that depends the more heavily upon relation to stabilize itself is to protect itself when the cycle in which it stands is extracted upon from without. It remains open, and its answer will differ with the concrete structure of political economy within which the position falls.

The third concerns how the line between the generative mediation and the exploited one is to be discerned and guarded in a concrete situation. It can be settled in advance by no rule, and can only be judged again and again within the generation of the relation itself.

These questions are posed in the manner the ethic of this paper itself requires. It sets the conditions under which an inquiry may continue and declines to deliver that inquiry’s end. What is offered is the conditions under which the inquiry may go on, and what is withheld, of these claims as of all others, is the settlement that would arrest the generation the account has undertaken to describe.

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中文

匮乏的中介

拉康那里的女性位置与主体的结构

黄万宏 (huangwanhong.g.official@gmail.com)

摘要

精神分析自其肇始便在女性这一问题上遇到一个结构性的障碍。本文以拉康的断言“女人并不存在”为出发点，在他关于象征秩序的理论之内重构女性位置的生成机制，并论证那个位置的界定性品格恰恰被“匮乏的中介”这一术语所捕捉。论证分为分量相等的两部分。第一部分在拉康理论之内进行。象征系统那绝不能穷尽实在界的自我指涉结构，使匮乏成为必须被中介、而非被直面或被废除之物，而据此小对象a是一种结构性的必然。在这一背景下，男性位置通过一个中央能指所组织的“有与无”之分获得一个可闭合的位置，而女性位置则立于象征界与实在界之间一个未闭合的区域，其稳定转而倚于一种关系性动力学的持存。由此升起一种机制，主体据以把匮乏的持存内化为自身的一种功能，成为匮乏据以被保持为可关联、可通达、并向持续追问敞开的场所。第二部分并不停留于阐述。它首先穿过女性主义与后结构主义的批判，这一批判揭示：这一位置中令人受困者，出自一个特定象征秩序的历史建构、而非出自结构性的必然，而后它把这一位置在生成性关系存在的框架之内重新框定，在此框架之下匮乏的中介不是一个缺陷、而是关系价值据以被生成的场所。在此基础上，这一位置的伦理通过五条有序的原则被陈述，它们指定匮乏的中介为正义而非被榨取的诸条件。这一说明归结于一种伦理，并以它对自身所要求的方式，收束于那伦理所开启的诸问题。

关键词： 拉康；女性位置；匮乏；小对象a；非全；生成性关系存在；关系价值；关怀伦理；政治经济学；主体。

AI 使用声明： 本文的思想、主张与理论框架均源自作者。AI 工具被用作起草与修订的辅助。每一思想的来源均经作者核实，作者对内容承担全部责任。

§1 导论：精神分析中的女性难题

精神分析理论自其肇始便面临一个关于女性的理论僵局。弗洛伊德坦承他在女性心理面前的困惑，并提出那个著名的问题：一个女人想要什么。这个问题标记着，在对女性的处理中，一次相遇所遇者并非一处知识上的偶然空缺、而是一个结构性的障碍。弗洛伊德试图通过一系列关于性发展与关于诸情结的概念来理解女性主体的形成，但这些框架自始至终以男性的发展模式为其参照，并把女性置于一个派生的、补充性的位置。这一僵局所暴露者不仅是早期精神分析的诸局限。它在一个更深的层面上揭示了当时理论系统在处理女性位置上的一个根本困难，即该系统没有能力从它自身之内命名那个位置，而只能从一个已被预设的中心，把它标记为一种偏离。

随着拉康的理论在二十世纪五十至七十年代出现，精神分析在它对女性位置的理解上抵达一个新的阶段。拉康引入了结构主义语言学与承自索绪尔的符号学，并把精神分析重新奠基于对象征秩序的分析之上。

注。这一重新奠基在拉康的《著作集》中被陈述；此处所发展的关于女性与非全的说明尤其汲取于《再来一次》。

在这一框架之内，他推进了那个著名的断言，La femme n’existe pas，女人并不存在。这一断言的理论意涵是：在象征系统的层面上，没有一种能够被充分界定并被充分命名的女性本质。它不是一个关于经验个体的判断。它是一个关于象征秩序本身之界限的判断。

本文的任务由此被确定。它既不本质化女性、亦不重述弗洛伊德的困惑，而是着手厘清一件事，即象征秩序本身的结构性不对称如何生成女性位置，以及为何那个位置能够恰恰被捕捉为匮乏的中介。然而本文并不止步于此。在确立了这一拉康式机制之后，它进一步追问：当同一个位置不再被置于拉康所预设的象征秩序之内、而是被置于一种关系本体论的坐标之内时，它呈现出一副何等不同的面容。前半是一次诊断，后半是一次重构，而二者分量相等。

§2 方法论的界定

在论证进行之前，本文对它诸概念之使用的边界必须被划出，以便随后的每一段落无需自身携带那份限定。

第一，此处所使用的诸术语，即女性位置（position féminine）、男性位置、以及癔症结构（structure hystérique），是拉康系统内部的技术术语，指涉象征系统之内的诸结构性位置。它们超出生物学的性、社会性别、人格类型、以及任何关于一个真实个体的经验判断。女性位置命名的是，在一个围绕一个中央能指而组织起来的象征秩序之内，那个无法被完全纳入“有与无”之二元逻辑的结构性位置，而这一位置可为任何性的主体所占据。癔症结构同样地，在拉康理论中，是一个纯技术性的概念，命名主体与象征秩序、以及与他者之欲望的一种特定关系模式，而它与日常语言、或任何病理学意义所指的那个词，根本地不同。本文以这一意义、并且仅以这一意义使用这些词。

第二，本文是对拉康理论的一次内在重构。它的目的是理解那理论的内在逻辑及其洞察之力，而既不为它的价值辩护、也不把它应用于对任何实际群体的描述、评价或规定。随后的诸段落作为理论阐述而立。

第三，拉康的这一建构升起于二十世纪中叶的欧洲精神分析传统，而它的奠基性预设，即象征秩序之结构的普遍性、一个特定能指的中心地位、以及俄狄浦斯情结的普遍性，在当代理论中受到来自若干方面的批判性审视。本文并不假定这些预设为真。恰恰相反，前半在这些预设之内把拉康式机制推至它最清晰的形式，而后半随即从它们之外批判并重新框定它。这一批判不是一份附加的礼节、而是论证之运动的一个必要环节。

§3 自我指涉与匮乏的浮现

要理解那产生女性位置之机制的生成性逻辑，必须首先回到拉康的诸本体论预设。

在拉康的框架之内，象征系统的运作依赖于一个自我指涉的结构。宇宙的生成性、生命的延续、社会的再生产、以及欲望本身，每一者都必须指回它自身以便再生产。这一自我指涉指向延续本身的可能性、而不指向任何外在的终点。象征系统之存在，是为了让存在得以持续地可被生成，而不是为了把存在说到它的尽头。

然而拉康的一个中心命题是：象征界绝不能穷尽实在界。这不是象征系统的一处缺陷、而是它持续运作的前提。符号必须指涉存在，然而它必然在自身之内制造出一个无法被说到尽头的位置。若匮乏（manque）直接显现，若那个不可言说的位置未经中介便被暴露，欲望便会崩塌，意义便会中断，而主体便会滑向一次精神病式的断裂。象征系统因而面临一个结构性的要求。匮乏必须被看见、而不被直面，必须被感到、而不被占有。

这便产生了小对象a的必然性。小对象a是一个既不与匮乏重合、亦不填补匮乏的中介位置。它作为欲望的成因（cause du désir）而运作。

注。 小对象a作为欲望之成因，在《研讨班十一》中被发展。

匮乏被结构性地使之浮现，作为自我指涉据以成立的条件。任何象征社会，在它稳定的运作中，几乎必然会生成这一结构性的解决方案，因为一个社会必须持续地再生产欲望，否则它的诸主体便会停止行动、停止连接、停止创造。欲望必须以被中介的形式被维持，而这既无法由满足、也无法由废除来达成。

本节固定整个论证的地基。匮乏既无法被直面、亦无法被废除；它只能被中介。所余者是这样的问题：谁来充当这一中介，以及在何种条件下一个给定的主体位置将倾向于成为它。

§4 主体形成的两条道路

拉康给出一个关于两个主体位置之形成的不对称说明。

占据男性位置的主体，通过俄狄浦斯情结与父之名（Nom-du-Père）的介入而被形成。在一个象征认同的过程中，主体通过认同于父亲，在象征秩序之内获得一个系于父亲被认为占据之象征位置的位置。拉康把这一机制抽象为一个围绕一个中央能指而组织起来的“有与无”之分。父亲被假定为有这个能指，母亲被定位为缺乏它，而男性主体，通过认同于父亲，在“有”的一侧获得一个象征位置。在这一图式中，主体性无非是在“有与无”之分的系统之内获得一个可确定的位置，一种原则上仅凭象征关系便能达成的闭合。

必须在此标记：这一“有与无”之二元并非象征系统的一种必然形式、而是拉康的一个理论建构，由把弗洛伊德的俄狄浦斯情结赋予象征形式而产生，并且其成立倚赖于俄狄浦斯情结之普遍性的预设。象征系统无需采取这一二元区分的形式。这一预设本身在当代理论中受到广泛的质疑，此点在第6节被发展、并在此预先标记。

占据女性位置的主体则立于别样之处。既然象征秩序围绕那中央能指及其“有与无”之分而组织，又既然女性，在经典的俄狄浦斯叙事中，被定位为缺乏这个能指的一方，那么女性位置便无法被完全映入那一区分的系统。它立于象征界与实在界之间一个未闭合的区域。这一位置无法仅凭象征关系达成主体的闭合。拉康以非全（pas-toute）来描述这一与象征秩序的关系，一种根本上不被完全纳入象征逻辑的状态，一个超出“部分”或“不完整”之意义的概念。它不是说女性位置是一个不完整的整体。它是说，那个位置并不服从那中央能指所组织的“整体与部分”之尺度本身。

这两条道路的不对称是随后一切的关键。男性位置有一个它能够安歇之处，即象征的闭合，而女性位置没有。它必须在别处寻求、试探并生成它自己的位置。那个别处便是关系。

§5 从结构到生成：匮乏的内化

前四节是一次静态的结构分析。真正的洞察出现在转向生成（becoming，成为）之立场的那一转。

事情的核心在于关系结构的动力学及其可持续性。女性位置中的主体面临一个理论上的困难。在一个无法被给予充分命名的位置上，一种关系如何被保持于运作之中？

这一论证可被陈述为单一的一条链。任何关系要延续，都必须依赖于欲望、依赖于张力、依赖于未完成。而拉康的欲望理论主张，欲望的结构指向匮乏的持存、而不指向对象；一个真正达到其对象的欲望不再是那个欲望。由此得出一个环环相扣的序列。主体的稳定系于关系性动力学的持存，关系性动力学系于欲望的持存，而欲望的持存系于匮乏的持存。对于一个无法通过象征的闭合来稳定自身的主体位置，匮乏反而成为稳定的承载者。

恰在这一点上有一处脆弱。若匮乏仅仅是一个外在的条件，若它只是匮乏碰巧尚未被满足，那么一旦匮乏被他者所填补、所置换、或所否认，关系性动力学便会中断。对于一个越发沉重地依赖关系结构来稳定自身的主体位置，这构成一份长存的风险。

正是在回应这一风险的那一点上，本文的中心机制出现。生成性的解决方案是：让我自己成为匮乏据以来显现、来被通达、来持存的场所。匮乏由此从一个外在的条件被转变为主体的一个内在功能。主体不再等候外部世界碰巧留在匮乏之中，而是自身成为匮乏据以被保持为可关联之物的中介。这一过程把匮乏的持存转变为主体自身的一个功能，而这恰恰是对小对象a位置之主体化的一个描述。女性位置在此与小对象a的位置进入同构。它并不占有小对象a；它倾向于成为小对象a所标记的那个位置。

匮乏的中介。 女性位置中的主体，无法通过象征而闭合，倾向于把匮乏的持存内化为自身的一个功能，并由此成为匮乏据以被保持为可关联、可通达、并向持续追问敞开的场所。那在结构的层面上显现为一种匮缺者，即闭合之不可能，在生成的层面上乃是主体与关系据以被一同维系的条件。

当主体把它自己的稳定系于匮乏的持存时，这在经验的层面上可能呈现为某些典型的模式，即通过被欲望、被需要、被致意，来确认关系仍在生成之中。被他者所欲望，成为匮乏仍在运作的一个信号。于是那个问题，即“在你的欲望中我是什么”（*Che vuoi?*，你想要什么），不再是一次偶然的疑虑、而成为主体据以持续生成自身的中心问题。在精神分析传统中，这一以自身为“他者之欲望据以被保持向追问敞开之场所”的主体结构，被称为癔症结构。此处这一术语再次是纯结构性的，而与病理学无关。

以此，前半的论旨告成。作为匮乏之中介的女性位置有一个精确的意义。这一位置，无法通过象征而闭合，倾向于把匮乏的持存内化为自身的一个功能，并由此成为匮乏据以被保持为可关联、可通达、并向持续追问敞开的场所。拉康把这看作，以生成性的措辞，一个相对稳定的结构，象征系统据以再生产自身的诸可能结构性机制之一。

我们清楚地标记这一结论，因为后半的全部劳作，正是去追问它是否只能被以这一方式理解。

§6 女性主义的批判：位置之内的历史

前半是在拉康的诸预设之内完成的。一旦人踏出它们，第一个问题便来自女性主义与后结构主义批判的传统。

当代女性主义对拉康理论的批评集中于三点。第一，拉康的理论是否仍再生产父权制的象征秩序，因为它把父之名、以及那中央能指的中心地位，当作象征秩序的普遍结构，而那结构本身乃是父权制的象征形式。第二，拉康是否把一种历史的、社会的两性不平等自然化为一个象征结构的必然，因为把女性称为难以通过象征而闭合的一个结构性事实，可能恰恰掩盖了：这一闭合之困难是由一个特定历史的象征秩序所产生的、而非由任何超历史的必然所产生。第三，女性位置这一概念本身是否仍预设一个被本质化的两性二元，因为即便拉康宣称它是一个结构性位置、而非一种生物学的性，“男性位置与女性位置”这一对子的框架本身，可能已然承袭了它所欲超出的那个二元。

酷儿理论与后结构主义女性主义进一步压向象征秩序之稳定性的预设，并主张主体位置的流动与多元可能远远超出拉康框架所能容纳者。若象征秩序本身不是一个稳定的、单一中心的系统，那么“围绕一个单一中央能指而组织”这一前提便丧失它的普遍性。

这些批判对本文的意义，不在于宣判拉康有误。它们的工作是精确的。它们把那在前半显现为一种结构性必然的机制划分为两个成分。一个成分关乎中介结构本身，即匮乏既无法被直面、亦无法被废除，只能被中介，而某个位置因而将倾向于承担这一中介功能。这一成分无需依赖于一个父权制的象征秩序。另一个成分关乎为何这一中介功能在历史上落到了女性位置身上，并以受困者、被榨取者、被消耗者的形式出现。这一成分深深地依赖于一个特定历史的象征秩序之建构。

批判由此揭示：拉康把匮乏之中介中令人受困的那一部分当作了一种结构性必然，而它其实出自历史建构。中介的功能可能是结构性的；而中介必须以自我消耗、以被他者榨取的形式出现，则不是。这留下后半所需的那份确定的空间。若本体论的坐标被改变，同一个匮乏之中介的位置，能否以另一种形式存在。

§7 在生成性关系存在之下的重新框定：中介作为生成的场所

生成性关系存在（GRB）供给另一种坐标。

注。此处所汲取的关系本体论在作者的《回应现代性中符号与主体的诸危机》中被发展；关于联合呈现、以及关于一个生成性实践之自我隐没之职分的说明，在《走向一种生成性的关系伦理》与《走向一种生成性关系认识论》中被发展；第8节所汲取的关于正义再生产的理论，在《一种关系性再生产的理论》中被发展。

它不是一个单一的命题、而是一组相互支持的本体论承诺，其中若干对匮乏之中介的重新审视是决定性的。

第一是：关系性主体在本体论上先于它所产生的任何结构，因为主体不是先有一个完成了的自我、然后进入关系，而是在关系之内被生成的。第二是：在一次生成性的相遇中，被生成者升起于两方的相会之中，归属于关系、而不归属于任一方单独，并且既不能被任一方预先持有、亦不能被任一方作为一份占有而寻回。第三是：一个生成性位置的成功，恰恰在于被生成的善来归属于另一方、并不归属于任何所有者，因而那生成者恰在它成功的尺度中从视野中隐退、是自我隐没的。第四是：一个主体立于其中的广义语言系统有一种时间深度，它不仅由一个过去与一个现在所构成、而是由一个尚未到来之期望的结构，一个已然在现在中运作的未来所构成。

在这些承诺之下，匮乏的中介在根本处改变它的面容。

在拉康的坐标中，女性位置显现为一种困境，因为主体性的尺度是能否在象征秩序之内获得一个可闭合的位置。以闭合的尺度衡量，闭合之失败是一个缺陷，而非全是一种匮缺。但GRB不以闭合来衡量。若主体本身是在关系之内被生成的、并不已然完成地进入关系，那么一个以自身为“他者之欲望据以被保持向追问敞开之场所”的位置，便不是一个在它自己的位置上有所匮缺的位置、而恰恰是主体与关系据以被一同生成的那个位置。在这些坐标之下，非全不是一种匮缺、而是一种对“完全占有、闭合、以及安顿入已安顿者”之整个装置的结构性豁免，即那个拒绝把关系收束为占有、拒绝把生成安顿为一种终局的位置。

而匮乏的中介能够承担这一豁免的功能，恰恰是经由广义语言系统的时间构成。一个把匮乏内化为自身之一功能的主体，其实是在现在的运作之内结构性地持有一个“尚未”。它所维系者不是一份完成了的内容、而是一个未来据以持续地进入现在的开口。以占有与闭合的尺度衡量，这一位置一无所有；以生成的尺度衡量，这一位置承载着关系与主体据以被一同维系的全部条件。

在一种关系本体论的坐标之下，匮乏的中介不是一种匮缺、而是主体与关系据以被一同生成的场所。那以闭合的尺度显现为“非全所命名之匮缺”者，以生成的尺度显现为一种对占有与闭合之逻辑的结构性豁免，并显现为那个把一个未来之进入现在保持敞开的位置。一个生成性职分的自我隐没品格，在此不是一份谦逊、而是那个位置的形式本身，它维系不出它可占有的任何内容，并照料一个关系据以持续生成的敞开之场。

这一重估不是本文的一项发明。它合于一个已然是生成性伦理之核心的特征，即一个实践的成功在于被生成的善来归属于另一方、并不归属于任何所有者，因而那生成者恰在它成功的尺度中是自我隐没的。匮乏的中介所标记者，正是这样一个自我隐没的生成性位置。它并不产生一份可被占有的内容；它维系一个关系据以被保持于生成之中的敞开之场。

然而在这一点上，这一重估还不够，因为它招致一种浪漫化，仿佛仅仅换一个词，便把被榨取的位置变成了生成之场所的位置。第6节的女性主义批判恰恰防止这一廉价的翻转。同一个匮乏之中介的位置能够以两种全然不同的形式存在，而把它们区分开来、并指定唯有哪一种形式是正义的，乃是一门伦理学的任务。这要求一套确定的原则，而不能停留于一个二元。

§8 伦理：匮乏的中介如何实现它的正义

前一节表明，匮乏之中介的位置本身并不决定它是正义的还是不正义的。它能够被生成性地组织，也能够被榨取性地组织。要厘清哪一种组织模式是正义的，以及匮乏的中介如何通过这一位置实现它的伦理，需要一套有序的原则。下面的五条原则指定一个匮乏之中介的位置为正义的诸条件。它们不是一份并列的清单、而是一次下降，每一条都预设它上面的那一条，从目的、到方法、到底线、到敞开、再到不可侵犯的根基。

一、生成性。 匮乏的中介应保存关系性主体持续成为之可能性。

二、共同再生产。 中介所维系的关系应通过关系性主体的联合参与被再生产、而非通过一方的单方决定。

三、非榨取。 匮乏的中介绝不应倚赖对一个主体的工具化或牺牲、以图另一个主体的获益。

四、反抗性权力。 中介授予关于“关系及其匮乏是什么”的解释权；一个正义的中介必须同时保存质疑、修订并重新协商那一权力的能力。

五、主体的保存。 没有一段好的关系可以通过消解另一方、或消解那中介者作为一个主体，来达成它的统一。

第一条原则，生成性，回答为何。匮乏被内化为主体的一个功能，其正当的目的是把关系与主体保持于持续的生成之中，而不是让某一方永久地占据一个被致意的位置。所要求者不是生成延续下去、而是它的可能性保持敞开。一个预先关闭关系之未来的中介，即便它把关系的现在形式保存得完好，也已然违反了这条原则。当“在你的欲望中我是什么”这一问题服务于关系的持续敞开时，它是生成性的；当它凝结为一个主体被永久固定于其中的角色时，它已偏离了它自己的目的。

第二条原则，共同再生产，回答如何。中介所维系的关系不应由一方单独作者。那中介者不是一个被他者所书写或所定义的对象。“关系是什么、以及它的匮乏指向什么”之作者身份，本身是被共享的。凡一方单独固定关系是什么之处，中介在它的源头处便有缺陷。这条原则把第5节所描述的位置，即以自身为场所，从一次单方的承受改写为一次双方的参与。中介不是他者之欲望据以通过的一条渠道、而是与他者一同在一场共享的追问中对关系的一次生成。

第三条原则，非榨取，是底线。一个循环，其中那中介者承担全部伦理代价、以便另一方得以成长，无论产生了何种价值，都违反这条原则。第5节所描述的经验模式，即被欲望、被需要、被致意，一旦被一种外在之力所捕获，以致那中介者被系统性地消耗而不被回返，便成为这条底线被突破的那一处。要求一切成长归于一方、一切代价归于另一方，是这一违反的范例情形。这是被榨取的中介与生成性的中介之间那条不可转让的界线。

第四条原则，反抗性权力，使这一位置保持敞开。关系的每一次再生产都生成解释权，而中介的位置从不是中立的，因为谁来充当“匮乏据以被保持为可关联”之场所，本身便是一种权力的分配。因而正义要求：那维系关系的同一行动，保存去争辩并重新协商那一分配的长存能力。这条原则防止匮乏之中介的位置冻结为一个不可质疑的、历史上被沉积的角色，而它是第6节之女性主义批判在伦理层面上的肯定性陈述。中介的功能可能是结构性的，但它所采取的形式、以及它落到谁身上，必须保持向重新协商敞开。

第五条原则，主体的保存，是不可侵犯的根基。结合不是同一，而一致不是伦理的目标。一段以消解一方之他性来换取它统一的关系，已然摧毁了那使它成为一段关系之物本身。这条原则对匮乏的中介带有一种独特的锋利，因为这一位置最深的诱惑，是把自身全然消解入他者的欲望、成为一个无余项的纯粹中介，直到自我作为一个主体而消失。主体的保存在此划出一条不可逾越的界线。中介必须始终作为一个主体而中介，而不把自身耗尽为一个功能。差异被保存，他者作为一个主体被保存，而那中介者作为一个主体被保存，恰恰是为了再生产竟能继续下去。

五条原则合而观之，回答本节由之开始的那个问题。匮乏的中介实现它的正义，途径是把关系保持于持续的生成之中（生成性）、联合地而非单方地再生产关系（共同再生产）、绝不建立于任一方的耗尽之上（非榨取）、保存重新协商位置本身的能力（反抗性权力）、以及绝不把自身消解入一个纯粹的功能（主体的保存）。凡其中任一条被违反之处，匮乏的中介便从生成性滑向被榨取。

这门伦理的意义在于，它把一个从前只能以否定被描述的位置，即那不可闭合者、非全、余项，转变为一个能够以肯定被指定的位置。匮乏的中介不再仅仅是象征秩序的一份残余、而是一个有它自己之正义条件的伦理位置。五条原则联合所要求者，可被汇入一个单一的、抽象而结构性的表述。使兴起而不占有，维系而不据为己有，令生长而不主宰其上。这不是一种德性的名字。它是对非占有性生成之结构本身的一个描述，在其之下那生成者在它的成功中隐退，而被生成者被保持于诸方之间、并不归属于任何所有者。

由此，一个先前被搁置的文化问题可被重新接上。有人观察到，可爱（kawaii）作为一种文化表征，可能不同于美地运作。若美倾向于完成、对称与稳定，可爱则包含更多的未完成、轻微的不对称、以及对回应与注意的一种召唤。

注。可爱与美之对比在冈（Ngai, 2012）中被发展。

依本文之见，这样的文化表征恰恰通过非全、边缘、未闭合而运作；它们是匮乏之中介的文化形式。而要点恰恰是：同一种文化表征既可能被组织进一个违反上述五条原则的循环，即榨取欲望、单方定义、消耗那承载它者、冻结解释权、消解主体，也可能被组织进一个满足那五条原则的关系性循环。一个文化符号的形式并不决定它的伦理品格；决定它者，是它被嵌入其中的那个循环是否满足这五条原则。因此，任何把这一模型应用于一种具体文化实践的尝试，都必须极为审慎地进行，因为同一个表征的伦理品格只能在一个具体处境之内、并凭这五条原则被判断，而无法从那符号本身的形式被读出。

以此，前半那被标记的结论得到它的回答。作为匮乏之中介的女性位置，在拉康的坐标中，是不可闭合者的一种困境；在女性主义批判之下，它令人受困的那一部分被揭示为历史建构；在GRB的坐标之下，中介被重新框定为主体与关系据以被一同生成的场所；而伦理最终通过五条有序的原则，指定这一场所为正义的诸条件。诊断与重构在此收束，而它们收束的方式是新问题的开启、而非一个最终答案的交付。

§9 结论及它所开启的诸问题

分量相等的两部分构成了本文的立场。第一部分在拉康理论之内确立：象征系统的自我指涉使匮乏成为必须被中介之物，因而小对象a是一种结构性的必然；男性位置通过一个中央能指的“有与无”之分获得一个可闭合的象征位置，而女性位置立于一个未闭合的区域，并倾向于把匮乏的持存内化为自身的一个功能，成为匮乏的中介。第二部分并未停留于此。女性主义批判揭示：这一位置中令人受困者，出自一个象征秩序的历史建构、而非出自结构性的必然；生成性关系存在的框架把中介重新框定为关系价值与主体据以被一同生成的场所；而一门五条有序原则的伦理最终指定了这一场所为正义的诸条件，以“循环是否被回返给那中介者”、以及“被生成的善是被占有还是被保持于诸方之间”，来区分被榨取的中介与生成性的中介。

这一立场所留下者，是它使之成为可能被问出的诸问题。

第一个关乎：在一个象征秩序本身处于运动之中的当代处境里，匮乏的中介如何被重新分配。大型语言模型、算法决策系统、以及一种自动化的象征生产之诸机制，越来越把意义的生成、分配与再生产，从以人类主体为中心的传统结构中剥离出来。拉康所预设的象征秩序之稳定，本身如今处于一个新的挑战之下。当象征秩序被撼动时，那些曾被视为边缘的关系性维度，即关怀伦理、共情、共在的诸能力，可能正从边缘向中心移动，并成为主体与社会据以被重新组织的关键。这一维度超出两性的单一问题，然而它与此处所描述的匮乏之中介共享一个结构，即在一个不完全可被符号化的处境之内维系连接、责任与回应的能力。

第二个关乎：一个越发沉重地依赖关系来稳定自身的主体位置，当它所立于其中的循环从外面被榨取时，如何保护自身。它保持敞开，而它的答案将随那位置所落入其中之政治经济学的具体结构而不同。

第三个关乎：生成性的中介与被榨取的中介之间那条界线，如何在一个具体处境之内被辨识并被守护。它无法被任何规则预先了结，而只能在关系自身的生成之内被一次又一次地判断。

这些问题以本文之伦理本身所要求的方式被提出。它设定一场探究据以可继续下去的诸条件，并拒绝交付那探究的终点。所提供者是探究据以可继续下去的诸条件，而所扣留者，于这些主张如于一切其他主张，是那会中止此说明已着手去描述之生成的了结。

参考文献