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Symbolic
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{{Top}}| align="[[right]]" style="line-height:2.0em;text-align:right;margin-left: 10px;background-color:#fcfcfc;border:1px solid #aaa" | [[French]]: ''[[symbolique{{Bottom}]]''|}
In [[Lacan]]ian [[psychoanalysis]], the "[[symbolic]]" is one of [[three]] [[order]]s that [[structure]] [[human]] [[existence]], the [[others]] [[being]] the [[imaginary]] and the [[real]].
==History==The term "[[symbolic]]" appears in adjectival [[form ]] in Lacan's earliest [[psychoanalytic ]] writings.The adjectival "[[symbolic]]" is often used by [[Lacan]] in a fairly conventional [[sense]], but in the 1950s he begins to use the [[word]] as a substantive, and it rapidly becomes the cornerstone of his [[theory]]: the [[subject]]'s [[relationship]] with the [[symbolic]] is the heart of [[psychoanalysis]]. It now becomes one of the three [[orders]] that remain central throughout the rest of Lacan's [[work]]. Of these three orders, the symbolic is the most crucial one for psychoanalysis; [[psychoanalysts]] are essentially 'practitioners of the symbolic function'.<ref>{{E}} p. 72</ref>
==Language==Since the most basic form of exchange is [[Lacancommunication]]'s concept itself (the exchange of [[words]], the [[symbolic|symbolic ordergift]] owes much to the anthropological work of [[Claude Lévi-Straussspeech]]);<ref>{{S4}} p.189</ref>and since the [[concepts]] of [[law]] and of [[structure]] are unthinkable without [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strausslanguage]], Claudethe [[symbolic]] is essentially a [[linguistic]] [[dimension]]. 1949a: 203</ref> Any aspect of the psychoanalytic [[experience]] which has a [[linguistic]] [[structure]] thus pertains to the [[symbolic order]]. The [[symbolic]] dimension of [[language]] is that of the [[signifier]]; a dimension in which elements have no positive [[existence]] but which are constituted purely by virtue of their mutual differences.
==Death==The concept [[symbolic order]] is also the realm of [[death]], of [[absence]] and of [[lack]]. The [[symbolic]] is both the gift[[pleasure principle]] which regulates the distance from the [[Thing]], and that the [[death drive]] which goes "[[pleasure principle|beyond the pleasure principle]]" by means of a circuit of exchange[[repetition]];<ref>{{S2}} p. 210</ref> in fact, are thus fundamental to Lacan's concept "the [[death drive]] is only the mask of the [[symbolicorder]]. "<ref>{{S4S2}} ppp. 153-4, 182326</ref>
==Autonomy==
The [[symbolic order]] is completely [[autonomous]]: it is not a superstructure determined by [[biology]] or [[biology|genetics]]. It is completely [[contingent]] with respect to the [[real]]: "There is no [[biological]] [[reason]], and in particular no genetic one, to account for exogamy. In the human order we are dealing with the [[complete]] emergence of a new function, encompassing the [[whole]] order in its entirety."<ref>{{S2}} p. 29</ref> Thus while the [[symbolic]] may seem to "spring from the real" as pre-given, this is an [[illusion]], and "one shouldn't [[think]] that [[symbols]] actually have come from the real."<ref>{{S2}} p. 238</ref> The totalising, all-encompassing effect of the [[symbolic order]] leads [[Lacan]] to [[speak]] of the [[symbolic]] as a [[universe]]: "In the symbolic order the [[totality]] is called a universe. The symbolic order from the first takes on its [[universal]] [[character]]. It isn't constituted bit by bit. As soon as the [[symbol]] arrives, there is a universe of symbols."<ref>{{S2}} p. 29</ref> There is therefore no question of a gradual continuous transition from the [[imaginary ]]to the [[symbolic]]; they are completely heterogeneous domains. Once the [[symbolic order]] has arisen, it creates the sense that it has always been there, since "we find it absolutely [[impossible]] to speculate on what preceded it other than by symbols."<ref>{{S2}} p. 5</ref> For this reason it is strictly [[speaking]] impossible to conceive the origin of [[language]], let alone what came before, which is why questions of [[development]] lie [[outside]] the field of [[psychoanalysis]].
{{See}}
* [[Communication]]
{{Also}}
{{OK}}
[[Category:Symbolic]]
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