Imaginary

French: imaginaire

Lacan's use of the term 'imaginary' as a substantive dates back to 1936 (Ec, 81).

From the beginning, the term has connotations of illusion, fascination and seduction, and relates specifically to the DUAL RELATION between the EGO and the SPECULAR IMAGE.

It is important to note, however, that while the imaginary always retains connotations of illusion and lure, it is not simply synonymous with 'the illusory' insofar as the latter term implies something unnecessary and inconsequential (Ec, 723).

The imaginary is far from inconsequential; it has powerful effects in the real, and is not simply something that can be dispensed with or 'overcome'.

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From 1953 on, the imaginary becomes one of the three ORDERS which constitute the tripartite scheme at the centre of Lacanian thought, being opposed to the symbolic and the real.

The basis of the imaginary order continues to be the formation of the ego in the MIRROR STAGE.

Since the ego is formed by identifying with the counterpart or specular image, IDENTIFICATION is an important aspect of the imaginary order. The ego and the counterpart form the prototypical dual relationship, and are interchangeable.

This relation­ship whereby the ego is constituted by identification with the little other means that the ego, and the imaginary order itself, are both sites of a radical ALIENATION; 'alienation is constitutive of the imaginary order' (S3, 146).

The dual relationship between the ego and the counterpart is fundamentally narcissistic, and NARCISSISM is another characteristic of the imaginary order.

Narcissism is always accompanied by a certain AGGRESSIVITY.

The imaginary is the realm of image and imagination, deception and lure.

The principal illusions of the imaginary are those of wholeness, synthesis, autonomy, duality and, above all, similarity.

The imaginary is thus the order of surface appearances which are deceptive, observable phenomena which hide underlying structure; the affects are such phenomena.

However, the opposition between the imaginary and the symbolic does not mean that the imaginary is lacking in structure.

On the contrary, the imaginary is always already structured by the symbolic order.

For example in his ussion of the mirror stage in 1949, Lacan speaks of the relations in ginary space, which imply a symbolic structuring of that space (E, I).

expression 'imaginary matrix' also implies an imaginary which is struc­d by the symbolic (Ec, 221), and in 1964 Lacan discusses how the visual I is structured by symbolic laws (Sll, 91-2). ) he imaginary also involves a linguistic dimension. Whereas the signifier is foundation of the symbolic order, the SIGNIFIED and SIGNIFICATION are part of imaginary order. Thus language has both symbolic and imaginary aspects; ts imaginary aspect, language is the 'wall of language' which inverts and orts the discourse of the Other (see SCHEMA L). he imaginary exerts a captivating power over the subject, founded in the ost hypnotic effect of the specular image. The imaginary is thus rooted in subject's relationship to his own body (or rather to the image of his body). s captivating/capturing power is both seductive (the imaginary is mani­ed above all on the sexual plane, in such forms as sexual display and lrtship rituals; Lacan, 1956b: 272) and disabling: it imprisons the subject in ~ries of static fixations (see CAPTATION).

~he imaginary is the dimension of the human subject which is most closely ced to ethology and animal psychology (S3, 253). All attempts to explain nan subjectivity in terms of animal psychology are thus limited to the Iginary (see NATURE). Although the imaginary represents the closest point ~ontact between human subjectivity and animal ethology (S2, 166), it is not Iply identical; the imaginary order in human beings is structured by the nbolic, and this means that 'in man, the imaginary relation has deviated )m the realm of nature]' (S2, 210) ..

~acan has a Cartesian mistrust of the imagination as a cognitive tool. He ists, like Descartes, on the supremacy of pure intellection, without depen­lce on images, as the only way of arriving at certain knowledge. It is this It lies behind Lacan's use of topological figures, which cannot be repre­lted in the imagination, to explore the structure of the unconscious (see 'OLOGY). This mistrust of the imagination and the senses puts Lacan firmly the side of rationalism rather than empiricism (see SCIENCE).