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298 Noteswith his conclusions, and especially with his image of Freud as a ‘‘criminal investigator’’avid for details, as a kind of Sherlock Holmes, I take the liberty of referring readersinterested in this discussion to Carlo Ginzburg, ‘‘Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm’’(1979), in Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, trans. John and AnneTedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 96–125.45. P. Fédida, ‘‘La Sollicitation à interpréter,’’ 13.46. Fédida, ‘‘Technique psychanalytique et métapsychologie,’’ in Métapsychologie etphilosophie, proceedings of the third Rencontre psychanalytique d’Aix-en-Provence, 1984(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985), 46.47. N. Abraham and M. Torok, L’écorcé et le noyau (1978; Paris: Flammarion, 1987),209–11; here the notion of ‘‘psychoanalysis as antisemantic’’ is elaborated.48. See Interpretation, 488–506.49. Freud, ‘‘Psycho-analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia(Dementia Paranoides),’’ in SE 12: 49.50. It is only with regard to a criterion of certainty—and, ultimately, to the positivistcriterion of one object corresponding to one truth—that ‘‘overinterpretation’’ can appearto be an unacceptable principle. Nonetheless, we must not hesitate to enter into thedangerous world of interpretation. The whole problem then becomes finding and implementingprocedures of verification that are capable of guiding, inflecting, and stopping theinterpretive movement. This is an abiding problem for historians.51. Interpretation, 523 [translation altered; cf. Crick, 340].52. ‘‘Ce que vous devez savoir: ignorer ce que vous savez.’’ And he concluded, with lucidself-derision: ‘‘Psychoanalysis, that’s what it is, it’s the answer to an enigma, and an answer,it must indeed be said, quite particularly stupid’’ [tout à fait spécialement conne: notethat con also means, not incidentally, ‘‘cunt’’]. J. Lacan, ‘‘Séminaire sur le sinthome,’’Ornicar? no. 7 (1977): 16–17, and no. 9 (1977): 38. See Écrits, 358.53. Écrits, 689, 855–77 [Fink, 274–75; second citation not in this selection].54. ‘‘For laymen the symptoms constitute the essence of a disease, and its cure consistsin the removal of the symptoms. Physicians attach importance to distinguishing the symptomsfrom the disease and declare that getting rid of the symptoms does not amount tocuring the disease.’’ Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916–17), in SE 16: 358.55. It is worth noting here that the epigraph to The Interpretation of Dreams fromVirgil—‘‘Flectere si nequeo Superos/Acheronta movebo’’—had earlier been intended to introducea text on ‘‘symptom formation.’’ See Freud, letter to Wilhelm Fliess dated December4, 1896 (The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887–1904, trans. and ed.Jeffrey Moussaief Masson [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985], 206–7). Thisindicates the degree to which Freud’s conception of figurability in dreams was determinedby another ‘‘royal road,’’ namely, the hysterical symptom. My own approach has been tofollow the same path, proceeding from the figurative symptom to the figure conceived inits symptom. See Didi-Huberman, Invention de l’hystérie—Charcot et l’Iconographie photographiquede la Salptêtrière (Paris: Macula, 1982). On several occasions, Freud stated clearlythat hysteria might be a ‘‘royal road’’ leading to understanding of the symptom: ‘‘Thewisest plan will be to start from the symptoms produced by the hysterical neurosis.’’Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926), in SE 20: 100. See also Freud, IntroductoryLectures . . . , in SE 16: 359.56. ‘‘We must further remember that the same processes belonging to the unconsciousplay a part in the formation of symptoms (bei der Symptom-bildung) as in the formationof dreams (bei der Traumbilding).’’ Introductory Lectures . . . , in SE 16:366.57. Panofsky, ‘‘Zum Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken derBildenden Kunst’’ (1932), in Aufsätze, 92.