=Introduction=THE UNCONSCIOUS AS GAP OR RUPTURE
In Seminar XI (1964) Lcan sought to distinguish his own conception The [[unconscious]] must "be apprehended in its [[experience]] of the unconscious from rupture, between [[perception]] and [[consciousness]], in that [[time|nontemporal locus]]... [[Freud's and more systematically formualte what is ''beyond'' language and structure]] calls [[scene|another scene]]."<ref>{{S11}}: 56</ref>
He also repalced The [[unconscious]] manifests itself at those moments in which [[processes]] beyond [[consciousness|conscious thought]] disrupt [[speech]], points when [[language]] fails. [[Lacan]] defines the linguistic categories [[unconscious]] in [[terms]] of "impediment", "failure" and "[[splitting]]". The [[metaphorunconscious]] and ''is'' precisely this [[gap]] or [[metonymygap|rupture]] with in the new concepts of [[alienationsymbolic]] and [[separationsignifyin chain|chain]].
The processes of alienation and separation are closely linked to the psychoanalytic conception of desire and the drive.
=Formations of the Unconscious=
The [[unconscious]] for [[Freud]] is essentially [[representation]], in the sense that it consists of the [[memory]] traces of earily [[infantile]] experiences and [[trauma]]s.
Lacan developed a number of different definitions of the unconscious and the emphasis that he placed on each conceptualization changed throughout his career.
According to Lacan, psychoanalysis is a science.
It is the science of the unconscious subject, and this subject first emerged in the seventeenth century with the founder of modern philosophy RenE Descartes (1596-1650).
Lacan interprets the Freduain unconsicous as both the direct heir of the Cartesian subject and, at the same time, that which undermines all philosophies deriving from it.
In ''Meditations'' (1642) Descartes asked how we might know the truth of our beliefs and our perceptions of reality.
He suggested that we could only do this scientifically if we rejected everything that we had cause to doubt and then saw what remained with certainty as true.
The difficulty with this approach, Descartes observed, is that it could lead one into more difficulties and uncertainty than the position from which one originally started.
One would have to accept, as Descartes put it, that "there was nothing at all in the world: no sky, no earth, no minds or bodies."<ref>1968: 103</ref>
Descartes concluded, then, that all we could be certain of was the existence of God and ourselves.
That the unconscious is [[structured]] like a language is Lacan's central [[thesis]] and probably his most influential contribution to [[psychoanalysis]]
SKIPThe [[unconscious]] is governed by the rules of the [[signifier]] as it is [[language]]
From a Lacanian perspective, on We can only [[know]] the other hand, as Slavoj Zizek puts it, the only thing one can be certaint of is that ''one does not exist''.LEt us try to clarify thisunconscious through speech and language; therefore.
Freud remains Cartesian to the extent that he sets out from a posiiton of doubt, but, whereas Descartes moves from a position of doubt to unconscious is constituted through the [[subject]]'s articulation in [[the certainty of conscious mindsymbolic]] [[order]]. The [[Lacanian]] unconscious is not an [[individual]] unconscious, Freud moves in the opposite direction aand places [[sense]] that Freud speaks of the emphasis on the ''doubt'' that support certainty.unconscious
For Freud, it The Lacanian unconscious is rather the central tenet effect of psychoanalysis that the vast majority of mental life and activity remains inaccessible to the consicous mind.He famously used the iamge of an iceberg to illustrate the human mind, in the sense that only a fraction of an iceberg is immediately visible and the majority of it remains submerged beneath trans-individual [[symbolic order]] upon [[The Subject|the surfacesubject]].We can draw from this [[three]] related theses:
Lacan argues that if we take the Freudian # The unconscious seriously then we must reverse Descartes' formulation thus: "By virtue of the fact is not [[biological]] but is something that I doubt, I am sure that I thinksignifies."<ref>1979: 35</ref># The certainty of consciousness unconscious is always supported by something else: by doubt, by the unknown or unknowable, or by what Freud will designate as effect - the impact - upon the subject of the trans-individual symbolic order.# The unconsciousis structured like a language.
For Fink argues that the Lacanian unconscious is not only structured like a language but is language, insofar as it is language that makes up the unconscious. This involves us in rethinking, however, what we mean by language. Language, for Lacan, thereforee, designates not simply [[verbal]] speech or written [[text]] but any signifying [[system]] that is based upon differential relations. The unconscious is structured like a language in the only thing we can know with certainty after Freud sense that it is t"a signifying [[process]] that involves coding and decoding, or ciphering and deciphering. The unconscious comes into [[being]] in [[The Symbolic|the symbolic]] order in the gap between signifier and [[signified]], through the subject sliding of the signified beneath the signifier and the failure of [[meaning]] to be fixed (see Chapter 2). In short, the unconscious manifests itself, is something that it thinks before it attains certaintysignifies and must be deciphered."<ref>1979: 37</ref>
In this sense the unconscious is pre-ontological; it is not a question of existence, of being or non-being, but rather of the ''unrealized'', the unknown of Cartesian doubt.
THe unconscious is not the act of doubting as such, as this presupposes an already existing subject.
The unconscious is the unknown that lies beyond doubt.
THE [[Unconscious is the discourse of the Other|UNCONSCIOUS IS THE DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER]]
[[Lacan]] defines the [[unconscious]] as the "[[discourse]] of the [[Other]]."<ref>* "[[Subversion du sujet et dialectique du désir dans l'inconscient freudien]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1966: 793-827 ["[[The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious]]." Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]] ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. [[London]]: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1977: 292-325]. </ref>
==The Unconscious as Gap or Rupture==
==The Unconscious is Structured like a Language==
==The Unconscious is the Discourse of the Other==
=Alienation and Separation=
=The Lacanian Subject=
=The Drive=
=''Hamlet'' and the Tragedy of Desire=
=Summary= [[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Guide]][[Category:Jacques Lacan]][[Category:Subject]][[Category:Real]]
