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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]].
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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}} 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]]."
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''[[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]]'') tha tthe [[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 misrecognition of the [[symbolic]] determinants of [[subjectivity]] (the [[discourse]] of the [[Other]], the [[unconscious]]).
In the latter case, [[paranoiac]] [[delusions]] always imply a recognition (''reconnaissance''), as is evident in systematic misunderstanding (méconnaissance systématique), where it must clearly be admitted that that which is denied is in some way recognized (''reconnu'').<ref>{{Ec}} p.165</ref>
