{"id":9454,"date":"2026-10-13T20:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T18:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pipolcongres.eu\/?p=9454"},"modified":"2026-10-11T20:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T18:12:22","slug":"fundamental-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pipolcongres.eu\/en\/2026\/10\/13\/fundamental-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Fundamental Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The question, <\/span>To Say<\/span> It All? <\/span><\/em>touches on the very principle of the analytic setting, its fundamental rule as Freud stated it: \u201cSay whatever comes to mind.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The care with which we can state it\u2014in various ways, more or less explicitly\u2014is the same care with which the subject can respond:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>To Say<\/span> It All? If they have to add a question mark, it\u2019s because they don\u2019t believe it\u2019s possible to comply with this rule, however fundamental it may be.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Let us see. First of all, we have not simply asked him to \u201csay it all,\u201d much less have we asked him to promise to comply with that traditional legal formula, \u201cTell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know your Lacanian maxim, the one about that truth which cannot be fully said. However, what do you mean by: \u2018Say everything that may come to mind\u2019? And what about what I don\u2019t think of? Couldn\u2019t I eventually say it? Actually, I came here to learn something that has never occurred to me, even to be able to say it. Will you tell me? Besides, if you look closely, you\u2019ve phrased your impossible request with an imperative\u2014\u2018Say\u2019\u2014followed by the subjunctive [in Spanish, an expression of possibility]\u2014\u2018everything that may come to mind.\u2019 If you haven\u2019t followed it with the present indicative, \u2018Say\u2026 everything that comes to mind,\u2019 it\u2019s probably also due to some subtle precaution. You surely anticipate that I\u2019ll think of things I won\u2019t want to say, <\/span>that I\u2019ll be tempted to say to myself \u2018that this or that is irrelevant here, or is quite unimportant, or nonsensical.\u2019 <\/span><\/em>[1]<\/span> Isn\u2019t that a bit misleading?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In reality, if we have used the subjunctive, it is due to a linguistic artifice that has something of a trick about it. <\/span>We have, momentarily, wanted to observe ourselves from a place outside ourselves, as if we could position ourselves outside, before or after, the very act of enunciation, and talk about what we say, as if we could even legislate on the act of speaking, on what can or cannot be said, from a superior language that would take our saying <\/span>as its object.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I also know that other maxim, \u2018there is no metalanguage.\u2019 That would be the illusion of wanting to say everything, everything about my language.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, it is with a similar image that Freud wanted to explain his fundamental rule: \u201cAct as though [\u2026] you were a traveler sitting next to the window of a railway carriage and describing to someone inside the carriage the changing views which you see outside.\u201d[2]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u201cBut it turns out that, if I am that landscape, if I am the very object I am trying to grasp in the flow of my thoughts, I cannot simultaneously be inside the train carriage saying what I think, what I see of the external landscape that is myself. I will then try to think what I say. But if I think what I say, I will surely never manage to say what I think, neither all nor even a little. His rule now seems even more impossible to fulfill.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Let us say, then, that the subject of the analytic experience is constituted precisely as the very frame of the Freudian train window. It is not in the supposed interior of the train carriage, but neith<\/span>er is it in the exterior of the landscape in which it is only supposed. The subject is properly the very frame of the train window, the frame of the fantasy in which it is divided by the fact of speaking of an object that inevitably eludes it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fundamental rule, as Freud formulated it in German, then acquires its raison <\/span>d\u2019\u00eatre: <\/span>Sagen Sie also alles, was Ihnen durch den Sinn geht<\/span><\/em> would literally mean, Tell me, then, everything that happens to you (that transpires) <\/span>durch den Sinn<\/span><\/em>, through the mind, through the <\/span>Sinn<\/span><\/em> which is also meaning. The train passing through the landscape is indistinguishable from the landscape itself that seems to be passing by, the passing of meaning as it flees, from an ungraspable referent. <\/span><\/p>\n

Let us note in passing that the different languages \u200b\u200bof the Congress modulate this landscape in different ways. In French, \u201cDire tout?\u201d, and in Italian, \u201cDire tutto?\u201d, make One of the All, while the grammar of Spanish, \u201c\u00bfDecirlo todo?\u201d, and of English, \u201cTo Say It All,\u201d require it to be reduplicated with the pronoun.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fundamental rule asks the analysand to describe the landscape unfolding before their eyes\u2014their own discourse, which will always be the discourse of the Other\u2014knowing that this landscape is already a fragment of the real and that, moreover, the more they try to grasp the real from a supposed exterior or interior, the more it eludes them. It is only by accepting this wager, by acknowledging this division, that they can come to know something of that which they never thought to express. It is only by relinquishing the desire to say everything, by accepting to repeat what they already believe they know, that they will come to say something new of their unconscious knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, Freud\u2019s formula of the fundamental rule is a polite way\u2014<\/span>Sagen Sie\u2026<\/span><\/em>, \u201cSay\u2026\u201d\u2014of putting into action that other, more abrupt formula, which Nietzsche put in the mouth of Zarathustra when he said to himself, <\/span>Sprich dein Wort und zerbrich!<\/span><\/em>\u2014\u201cSpeak your word and break!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

[1] Sigmund Freud, \u201cOn Beginning the Treatment\u201d (1913), trans. <\/span>James Strachey, <\/span>SE<\/span><\/em>, vol. XII, 1955, 134.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] <\/span><\/a>Ibid.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question, To Say It All? touches on the very principle of the analytic setting, its fundamental rule as Freud stated it: \u201cSay whatever comes to mind.\u201d The care with which we can state it\u2014in various ways, more or less explicitly\u2014is the same care with which the subject can respond: \u201cTo Say It All? If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[578],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nFundamental Rule - Pipol Congr\u00e8s<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pipolcongres.eu\/en\/2026\/10\/13\/fundamental-rule\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fundamental Rule - Pipol Congr\u00e8s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The question, To Say It All? touches on the very principle of the analytic setting, its fundamental rule as Freud stated it: \u201cSay whatever comes to mind.\u201d The care with which we can state it\u2014in various ways, more or less explicitly\u2014is the same care with which the subject can respond: \u201cTo Say It All? 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