Saint Girons, Baldine <br/><br/>
Writing as “Real Speech” in Lacan and Vico 

 -  2012.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Why was Lacan so persistent in his study of different types of writing? He shares this trait, although implicitly, with the philosopher Giambattista Vico who, in the first half of the 18th century, criticized traditional phonocentrism, claiming not only that “real speech” was not exclusively verbal, but that “silent” speech had the upper hand in the beginning of mankind and continues to have impacts. After making mathematics the “sanctuary of truth,” Vico found it increasingly difficult to consider math the one and only model of truth. Whereas the force of mathematics obviously stems from their operational autonomy, what is gained in autonomy and auto-reference is lost in reality: “The point, if represented, is no longer a point, and the unit, when multiplied, is no longer a unit.” Therefore, postulating that mathematics are homogeneous with nature runs a risk. The primacy given to reason in its highest form raises suspicion because it is necessarily out of touch with the world from which it is abstracted. In 1710, Vico laid out the convertibility of the verum and the factum. Yet, the factum appeared to him to be too equivocal. In any case, he no longer mentioned it in the scienza nouva, instead combining the verum with something else. The question is: what something else and how to designate it? Vico called it the certain, or certum. To establish something entails an operation that consists in “certifying” and ensuring through a series of very precise operations, which Vico joined together under the common denominator of “philology.” It is from the double angle of the certum and the verum that writing takes on an essential role as the letter, both purloining and purloined, both pursuing its trajectory and turning away from it. The characteristic of the letter in the end is not its “silence,” but its “real speech,” which is not merely the concern of communication, but also of transference.