What is nodal point?

Answer 1

traduction de point de capiton (Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. London: Routledge, 1993. p. 268) : points at which the "signified and signifier are knotted together". The point de capiton is thus the point in the signifying chain at which "the signifier stops the otherwise endless movement of the signification" and produces the necessary illusion of a fixed meaning" The signifiers or signifying chain are unstable and liable to slippages of meaning. How does an ideology maintain its consistency? What keeps of ideological field of meaning consistent? Any given ideological field is "quilted" by the point de capiton A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity. What is at issue in the conflict of ideologies is precisely the point de capiton. Signifiers such as "freedom", "democracy", "human rights," etc. are open-ended. Their meanings can slide about depending on the context of their use. For example, a right-wing interpretation of the word "freedom" might use it to designate the freedom to speculate on the market, whereas a left-wing interpretation of it might use it designate freedom from the inequalities of the market. The word "freedom" therefore does not mean the same thing in all possible worlds: what pins its meaning down is the point de capiton.