name-of-the-father

is the idea that paternal authority is considered to be a linguistic function.

Name-of-theFather, paternal authority now considered as a linguistic function.' (Jameson 1984:72)

is the laws and restrictions (whose acceptance double as one's entrance into language/society) which control both your desire and the rules of communication.

The symbolic is made possible because of your acceptance of the Name-of-the-Father, those laws and restrictions that control both your desire and the rules of communication: 'It is in the name of the father that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law' (ecrits 67). Through recognition of the Name-of-the-Father, you are able to enter into a community of others. The symbolic, through language, is 'the pact which links. . . subjects together in one action. The human action par excellence is originally founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, namely on laws and contracts' (Freud's Papers 230). (NET)

is paternal authority now considered as a linguistic function.

is a pun that works only in French. suggesting that when we learn language, we become disciplined to it by submitting ourselves to the Non (“no’) and Nom (name/authority) of the father.

Lacanian psychoanalysis takes from Freud the idea of the forbidding Father (with a capital F, because this figure is a structural position rather than the actual person who romps with the kids or helps them do their homework). Lacan is enough of a Freudian to retain the idea that children want everything (including their mothers). The lynchpin of the culture they must learn to obey is the Father, who says ‘no’ to most of what they want (especially their mothers). Lacan inscribes this point in a pun that works only in French. When we learn language, we submit to the Non/Nom that the Father bequeaths us, his ‘no’, as well as his name.

name of the father, n.Definitions

name of the father