Split
From No Subject
| French: refente |
[edit] Sigmund Freud
[edit] Splitting of the Ego
Freud talks about the "splitting of the ego" (Gr. Ich-spaltung, Fr. clivage du moi) as a process -- observable in fetishism and psychosis -- whereby two contradictory attitudes come to exist side by side in the ego -- acceptance and disavowal.[1]
[edit] Jacques Lacan
[edit] Split Subject
Lacan expands the concept of Spaltung -- from a process unique to fetishism or psychosis -- to a general characteristic of subjectivity itself; the subject can never be anything other than split -- divided and alienated from himself.
The split is irreducible, can never be healed; there is no possibility of synthesis.
[edit] Barred Subject
The split or divided subject is symbolised by the bar which strikes through the S to produce the barred subject, 
.[2]
[edit] Self-Consciousness
The split denotes the impossibility of the ideal of a fully present self-consciousness.
The subject will never know himself completely, but will always be cut off from his own knowledge.
[edit] Unconscious
It thus indicates the presence of the unconscious, and is an effect of the signifier.
[edit] Speech
The subject is split by the very fact that he is a "speaking being,"[3]
because speech divides the subject of the enunciation from the subject of the statement.
[edit] Truth and Knowledge
In his seminar of 1964-5 Lacan theorises the split subject in terms of a division between truth and knowledge (savoir).[4]
[edit] See Also
[edit] References
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. "Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence." SE XXIII, 1938. p. 273
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 288
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 269
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p. 856
