Changes

[[Freud]] talks about the "splitting of the ego" (Ger. ''Ich-spaltung'', Fr. ''clivage du moi'') as a process, observable in [[fetishism]] and [[psychosis]], whereby two contradictory attitudes to reality come to exist side by side in the [[ego]]; those of acceptance and [[disavowal]].<ref>(see Freud, 1940b)</ref>

[[Lacan]] amplifies the concept of ''Spaltung'' to designate not a process unique to [[fetishism]] or [[psychosis]] but a general characteristic of [[subject]]ivity itself.

The [[subject]] can never be anything other than divided, split, [[alienation|alienated]] from himself.

The [[split]] is irreducible, can never be healed; there is no possibility of synthesis.

The [[split]] or '[[split|divided]] [[subject]]' is [[symbolization|symbolised]] by the [[bar]] which strikes through the S to produce the barred subject, S.<ref>(see E, 288)</ref>

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]].

It thus indicates the [[presence]] of the [[unconscious]], and is an effect of the [[signifier]].

The [[subject]] is [[split]] by the very fact that he is a 'speaking being',<ref>E 269</ref> since [[speech]] divides the [[subject]] of the [[enunciation]] from the [[subject]] of the statement.

In his [[seminar]] of 1964-5 [[Lacan]] theorises the [[split]] [[subject]] in terms of a division between [[truth]] and [[knowledge]] (''savoir'').<ref>(see Ec, 856)</ref>