24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{Top}}sujet{{Bottom}}
This is a distinctive feature of [[Lacan]]'s work, since the term does not constitute part of [[Freud]]'s theoretical vocabulary, but is more associated with [[philosophical]], [[legal]] and [[linguistic]] [[discourse]]s.
=====Three Kinds=====
In 1945, [[Lacan]] distinguishes between three kinds of [[subject]].
It is always this third sense of the [[subject]], the [[subject]] in his uniqueness, that constitutes the focus of [[Lacan]]'s work.
Whereas the [[ego]] is part of the [[imaginary order]], the [[subject]] is part of the [[symbolic]].
Thus the [[subject]] is not simply equivalent to a [[conscious]] sense of agency, which is a mere illusion produced by the [[ego]], but to the [[unconscious]]; [[Lacan]]'s "[[subject]]" is the [[subject]] of the [[unconscious]].
=====Sigmund Freud=====
[[Lacan]] argues that this distinction can be traced back to [[Freud]]:
Although [[psychoanalytic treatment]] has powerful effects on the [[ego]], it is the [[subject]], and not the [[ego]], on which [[psychoanalysis]] primarily operates.
[[Lacan]] plays on the various meanings of the term "[[subject]]."
In [[linguistics]] and [[logic]], the [[subject]] of a proposition is that about which something is predicated, and is also opposed to the "object."<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan. |Proposition du 9 octobre 1967 sur le psychanalyste de l'École]]," 1967, ''Scilicet'', no. 1 (1968) p.19</ref>
[[Lacan]] plays on the [[philosophical]] nuances of the latter term to emphasise that his concept of the [[subject]] concerns those aspects of the [[human]] [[being]] that cannot (or must not) be objectified (reified, reduced to a thing), nor be studied in an 'objective' way.
<blockquote>"What do we call a subject? Quite precisely, what in the development of objectivation, is outside of the object."<ref>{{S1}} p.194</ref></blockquote> ---
=====Language=====
References to [[language]] come to dominate [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[subject]] from the mid-1950s on.
He distinguishes the [[subject]] of the [[statement]] from the [[subject]] of the [[enunciation]] to show that because the [[subject]] is essentially a [[speaking]] [[being]] (''[[parlêtre]]''), he is inescapably [[divided]], [[castrated]], [[split]].
In the early 1960s [[Lacan]] defines the [[subject]] as that which is represented by a [[signifier]] for another [[signifier]]; in other words, the [[subject]] is an effect of [[language]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.835</ref>. ---
=====Philosophy and Law=====
Besides its place in [[linguistics]] and [[logic]], the term "[[subject]]" also has [[philosophical]] and [[legal]] connotations.
In [[philosophical]] [[discourse]], it denotes an individual [[consciousness|self-[[consciousness]], whereas in [[legal]] [[discourse]], it denotes a person who is under the power of another (e.g. a person who is subject to the sovereign).
The fact that the term possesses both these meanings means that it perfectly illustrates [[Lacan]]'s thesis about the determination of [[consciousness]] by the [[symbolic order]].
<blockquote>"The subject is a subject only by virtue of his subjection to the field of the Other."<ref>{{S2}} p.188</ref></blockquote>
The term also functions in [[legal]] [[discourse]] to designate the support of action; the [[subject]] is one who can be held [[responsibility|responsible]] for his [[act]]s.
The [[philosophical]] connotations of the term are particularly emphasised by [[Lacan]], who links it with [[Descartes]]'s [[philosophy]] of the ''[[cogito]]'':
<blockquote>in the term ''subject'' . . . I am not designating the living substratum needed by this phenomenon of the subject, nor any sort of substance, nor any being possessing knowledge in his pathos . . . nor even some incarnated logos, but the Cartesian subject, who appears at the moment when doubt is recognised as certainty.<ref>{{S11}} p.126</ref></blockquote> --
=====Subject of the Unconscious=====
The fact that the [[symbol]] of the [[subject]], '''S''', is a homophone of the [[Freud]]'s term ''[[Es]]'' ('[[Id]]') illustrates that for [[Lacan]], the true [[subject]] is the [[subject]] of the [[unconscious]].
In 1957 [[Lacan]] strikes through this [[symbol]] to produce the [[symbol]] '''$''', the "[[subject|barred subject]]," thus illustrating the fact that the [[subject]] is essentially [[divided]].
=====See Also====={{See}}* [[Analysand]]
* ''[[Cogito]]''
||
* [[Enunciation]]
* [[Ego]]
||
* [[Language]]
* [[Law]]
||
* [[Linguistics]]
* [[Philosophy]]
||
* [[Split]]
* [[Statement]]
||
* [[Symbol]]
* [[Unconscious]]
{{Also}}
===== References =====
<references/>
