PURLOINED LETTER: ELEMENTS OF THE DISCOURSE

The key components of Lacan's seminar on the Purloined Letter

Lacan’s understanding of finite state automata allowed him to theorize that simple information machines were structured similarly to simple languages with limited functions; that the syntax of a finite-state automata was descriptive of the symbolic order.

Below I list the key theoretical objects discussed or referred to in seminar II and Lacan’s lecture on cybernetics in order to map out a local “discourse network”

1. the objects

2. where the objects occur:

1. the objects

Von Neumann & Morgenstern's  Game Theory and Economic Behaviour;

The Tale of the Purloined Letter by Edger Allen Poe;

The game of odds & evens (matching pennies);

Lacan describes a finite state automata that can play the game of odds and evens,

(with the same function as Claude Shannon & David Hagelbarger's SEER)

2. where the objects occur

A matrix of common themes interconnect the different elements of the discourse:

Odd & even (matching pennies) appears in Poe's story;

Poe and odd and even (matching pennies) appear in von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour;

Poe and odd and even (matching pennies) appear in von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour appear in Shannon’s account of SEER

Poe, odd and evens (matching pennies) and von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour; appear in Lacan’s seminar on the Putrloined letter;

Poe, odd and evens (matching pennies), von Neumann & Morganstern Game Theory and Economic Behaviour; and Lacan appear in texts by Guilbaud.

Guilbaud's What is Cybernetics? [1954] reference:

Poe's story and in a 1953 lecture he draws an equivalence between odds & evens and matching pennies.