Changes

Translator, Alan [[Sheridan]], has decided to retain the French [[word]]. The [[sense ]] is of a "failure to recognize", or "misconstruction". The [[concept ]] is central to [[Lacan]]'s [[thinking]], since, for him, [[knowledge]] (''conaissance'') is inextricably bound up with ''méconnaissance''.

The [[French]] term ''[[méconnaissance]]'' corresponds roughly to the [[English]] [[words ]] "[[Méconnaissance|misunderstanding]]" and "[[Méconnaissance|misrecognition]]". However, the [[French]] term is usually [[left ]] untranslated when translating [[Lacan]] into [[English]] in order to show its close [[relationship ]] with the term ''[[connaissance]]'' ("[[knowledge]]").

Thus, in the [[imaginary]] [[order]], [[knowledge|self-knowledge]] (''me-connaissance'') is synonymous with [[méconnaissance|misunderstanding]] (''[[méconnaissance]]''), because the [[process ]] by which the [[ego]] is formed in the [[mirror stage]] is at the same [[time ]] the institution of [[alienation]] from the [[symbolic]] determination of [[being]].

As well as being the [[structure]] of ordinary [[neurotic]] [[knowledge|self-knowledge]], ''[[méconnaissance]]'' is also the [[structure]] of [[paranoiac]] [[delusions]], which are described in [[terms ]] of a ''[[méconnaissance|méconnaissance systématique de la reéalité]]''.<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Some Reflections on the Ego]]," ''Int. J. [[Psycho]]-[[Anal]].'', vol. 34, 1953 [1951b]. p. 12</ref>

This [[structural ]] homology between the ordinary [[constitution ]] of the [[ego]] and [[paranoiac]] [[delusions]] is what leads [[Lacan]] to describe all [[knowledge]] (''[[connaissance]]''), in both [[neurosis]] and [[psychosis]], as "[[knowledge|paranoiac knowledge]]."

''[[Méconnaissance]]'' is to be distinguished from [[knowledge|ignorance]], which is one of the [[three ]] [[affect|passions]]. Whereas [[knowledge|ignorance]] is a [[affect|passion]] for the [[absence]] of [[knowledge]], ''[[méconnaissance]]'' is an [[imaginary]] [[misrecognition]] of a [[symbolic]] [[knowledge]] (''[[savoir]]'') that the [[subject]] does possess somewhere.

<blockquote>Misrecognition is not [[ignorance]]. Misrecognition represents a certain organization of affirmations and negations, to which the subject is attached. Hence it cannot be conceived without correlate knowledge... There must surely be, behind his misrecognition, a kind of knowledge of what there is to misrecognize.<ref>{{S1}} p.167</ref></blockquote>

Again, this applies both in the ordinary [[construction ]] of the [[ego]] and in [[paranoia]]. In the former [[case]], the [[ego]] is basically a [[Méconnaissance|misrecognition]] of the [[symbolic]] determinants of [[subjectivity]] (the [[discourse]] of the [[Other]], the [[unconscious]]). In the latter case, [[paranoiac]] [[delusions]] always imply a [[Méconnaissance|recognition]] (''[[Méconnaissance|reconnaissance]]''), as is evident in [[Méconnaissance|systematic misunderstanding]] (''méconnaissance systématique''), where it must clearly be admitted that that which is denied is in some way [[Méconnaissance|recognized]] (''reconnu'').<ref>{{Ec}} p.165</ref>