The Case of Gegensinn: Opposed Senses and Indiscernible Names

Abstract

We present here a translation of Jean-Claude Milner’s “Sens opposés et noms indiscernables” (republished in Le Périple Structural, 2008, Verdier) together with a critical introduction. In this article, Milner presents a reading of the critique that the eminent linguist Émile Benveniste had formulated against Freud’s appropriation of the notion of Gegensinn (or opposed senses)—as a way of characterizing the elements of the unconscious. He shows, and our introduction attempts to make this clear, that the symptomatic inconsistencies in which the linguist is embroiled in rejecting this notion point directly to the heart of the notion of identity & difference at stake in the signifier.

Jean-Claude Milner is a renowned linguist, French essayist, and professor emeritus of linguistics at Paris VII. His work is widely regarded as indispensable to the clarification of Lacan’s work, especially as regards his references to the field of linguistics.