=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 That the unconscious is [[structured]] like a language is Lacan's central [[thesis]] and probably his most influential contribution to Lacan, [[psychoanalysis ]] The [[unconscious]] is governed by the rules of the [[signifier]] as it is a science[[language]] We can only [[know]] the unconscious through speech and language; therefore.It the unconscious is constituted through the science of [[subject]]'s articulation in [[the symbolic]] [[order]]. The [[Lacanian]] unconscious is not an [[individual]] unconscious subject, and this subject first emerged in the seventeenth century with [[sense]] that Freud speaks of the unconscious The Lacanian unconscious is rather the founder effect of modern philosophy RenE Descartes (1596a trans-1650)individual [[symbolic order]] upon [[The Subject|the subject]]. We can draw from this [[three]] related theses: # The unconscious is not [[biological]] but is something that signifies.Lacan interprets # The unconscious is the Freduain unconsicous as both effect - the direct heir of impact - upon the Cartesian subject and, at of the same time, that which undermines all philosophies deriving from ittrans-individual symbolic order.In ''Meditations'' (1642) Descartes asked how we might know the truth of our beliefs and our perceptions of reality# The unconscious is structured like a language.He suggested Fink argues that we could the Lacanian unconscious is not only do this scientifically if we rejected everything 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 had cause to doubt and then saw what remained with certainty as truemean by language.The difficulty with this approachLanguage, Descartes observedfor Lacan, 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 sense that it could lead one is a signifying [[process]] that involves coding and decoding, or ciphering and deciphering. The unconscious comes into more difficulties [[being]] in [[The Symbolic|the symbolic]] order in the gap between signifier and [[signified]], through the sliding of the signified beneath the signifier and uncertainty than the position from which one originally startedfailure of [[meaning]] to be fixed (see Chapter 2). In short, the unconscious is something that signifies and must be deciphered.One would have to accept, THE [[Unconscious is the discourse of the Other|UNCONSCIOUS IS THE DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER]] [[Lacan]] defines the [[unconscious]] as Descartes put itthe "[[discourse]] of the [[Other]]."<ref>* "[[Subversion du sujet et dialectique du désir dans l'inconscient freudien]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, that 1966: 793-827 ["there was nothing at all [[The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the worldFreudian unconscious]]." Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]] ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. [[London]]: no skyTavistock, no earth1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, no minds or bodies1977: 292-325]."<ref>1968: 103</ref>Descartes concluded, then, that all we could be certain of was the existence of God and ourselves.
SKIP
From a Lacanian perspective, on 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 this.
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 the certainty of conscious mind, Freud moves in the opposite direction aand places the emphasis on the ''doubt'' that support certainty.
For Freud, it is the central tenet 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 the surface.
Lacan argues that if we take the Freudian unconscious seriously then we must reverse Descartes' formulation thus: "By virtue of the fact that I doubt, I am sure that I think."<ref>1979: 35</ref>
The certainty of consciousness is always supported by something else: by doubt, by the unknown or unknowable, or by what Freud will designate as the unconscious.
For Lacan, thereforee, the only thing we can know with certainty after Freud is t"that the subject of the unconscious manifests itself, that it thinks before it attains certainty."<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 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=
According to Lacan we cannot know waht the unconscious is.
Indeed, it is not a thing as such but a hypothesis; we cannot know the unconscious, but only deduce it from a subject's speech.
We can deduce that there is "knowledge", an X, that exists elsewhere.
In this sense, the unconscious manifests itself in the symbolic order and emerges through the subject's encounter with a trans-individual symbolic order.
There can be no unconscious without an Other.
The unconscious depends upon the existence of an Other - an interlocutor, reader or analyst who can depiher its inscriptions.
Simiarly the subject of the unconscious, the subject of desire, is not th esame as an indiviudal human being, but something that is constituted in the gap between the signifier and the signified.
The subject is the subject of the signifier insofar as it is marked by language.
At the same time, the subject is the breach in the signifying chain - the gap that opens up between the symbolic and the real, through which the drive manifests itself.
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:PeopleGuide]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Subject]]
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