S1 and S2 Are Positions, Not Signifiers: What Lacan Saw in the Möbius Cut
Lacan wrote that a signifier represents the subject for another signifier — S1 → S2 — and the subject is often pictured as a loop between S1 and S2. Read as a labelling of a closed chain, that picture has a flaw two crayons can expose: around a chain with an odd number of links, two colours cannot alternate. This note...