Knowledge

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French: connaissance/savoir

Jacques Lacan

The term "knowledge" has two meanings in Lacan's work:

Lacan distinguishes between two types of knowledge:

Symbolic Knowledge

Symbolic knowledge refers to both the knowledge of the subject's relation to the symbolic order, and also to that relation itself.

It is the articulation of signifiers in the subject's symbolic universe, the signifying chain (SS2.gif).

Unconscious as an "Unknown Knowledge"

The "unconscious" is simply another name for symbolic knowledge insofar as it is an "unknown knowledge," a knowledge which the subject does not know it knows.


Aim of Psychoanalytic Treatment

Symbolic knowledge, and its progressive reveletion of this knowledge is the end of analysis of psychoanalytic treatment.

The progressive reveletion of Symbolic knowledge is the end of analysis of psychoanalytic treatment.

The end of analysis of psychoanalytic treatment is the progressive reveletion of Symbolic knowledge.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, treatment aims towards the progressive reveletion of Symbolic knowledge.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the aim of treatment is the progressive reveletion of Symbolic knowledge.


Savoir is the kind of knowledge which psychoanalytic treatment aims at.

Psychoanalytic treatment aims at a progressive revelation of this knowledge to the subject, and is based on the premise that the only means of access to this knowledge is via a particular form of speech called free association.

However, psychoanalytic treatment does not aim at a Hegelian "absolute knowledge," because the unconscious is irreducible; there is an inescapable division between the subject and knowledge.

"Knowledge is the Jouissance of the Other"

Symbolic knowledge is knowledge of the truth about one's unconscious desire.

Knowledge in this sense is a form of jouissance: "knowledge is the jouissance of the Other."[1]

Subject Supposed to Know

Symbolic knowledge does not reside in any particular subject, nor in the Other (which is not a subject but a locus), but is intersubjective.

However, this does not prevent one supposing that somewhere there is a subject who possesses this symbolic knowledge (the subject supposed to know).

Connaissance

Imaginary Knowledge

Connaissance (and its necessary correlate, méconnaissance) is the kind of self-knowledge that belongs to the imaginary order.

It is by misunderstanding and misrecognition (méconnaissance) that the subject comes to the imaginary knowledge of himself (me-connaissance) which is constitutive of the ego.[2]

The ego is thus an illusory kind of self-knowledge based on a fantasy of self-mastery and unity.

"Paranoiac Knowledge"

Imaginary knowledge is called "paranoiac knowledge" by Lacan because it has the same structure as paranoia (both involve a delusion of absolute knowledge and mastery), and because one of the preconditions of all human knowledge is the "paranoiac alienation of the ego."[3]

Imaginary Obstacle to Symbolic Knowledge

Imaginary knowledge is an obstacle which hinders the subjects access to symbolic knowledge.

Psychoanalytic treatment must therefore continually subvert the subject's imaginary self-knowledge in order to reveal the symbolic self-knowledge which it blocks.

See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XVII. L'envers de la psychanalyse, 19669-70. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.13
  2. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.306
  3. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.2