Powers of Simulation and Hysterisation in Foucault and Lacan

This dissertation offers an analysis of the figure of the hysteric in Foucault and Lacan and argues that it is productive to approach simulation (Foucault) and hysterisation (Lacan) as demands for truth in order to understand the power of the hysteric’s position and her discourse, and her relationship with the Master/Other.

It contends that simulation and hysterisation, interpreted as demands for truth, reveal the potency of the hysteric’s position and the impotency of the Master/Other in the context of their relationship with truth, power and knowledge. The hysteric, through simulation and hysterisation, relates to truth in a way that exposes the impotency of the master. She makes the Master/Other completely reliant on her by positioning herself as a riddle and constitutes the Master/Other as perpetually lacking. Through her truth-demand, the hysteric traps the Master/Other in an endless cycle of production/failure of knowledge.

It argues that Foucault’s analysis of the simulator shows that the hysteric, through simulation as a demand for truth, hystericises the Other in the Lacanian sense. As explained by Foucault, the simulator adopts specific manoeuvres that introduce the question of truth and challenge the psychiatric power.