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Although the term "[[unconscious]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[inconscient]]'') had been used by writers prior to [[Freud]], it acquires a completely original meaning in his work, in which it constitutes the single most important concept.
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[[Freud]] distinguished between two uses of the term "[[unconscious]]."<ref>1915e</ref>
As an adjective, it simply refers to mental processes that are not the subject of [[conscious]] attention at a given moment.
As a noun (the [[unconscious]]; [[Ger]]. ''[[das Unbewußte]]''), it designates one of the psychical systems which [[Freud]] described in his first theory of [[psyche|mental]] [[structure]] (the "[[unconscious|topographical model]]").
According to this theory, the [[psyche|mind]] is divided into three systems or "psychical localities," the [[conscious]] ('''Cs'''), the [[preconscious]] ('''Pcs''') and the [[unconscious]] ('''Ucs''').
The [[unconscious]] system is not merely that which is outside the field of [[consciousness]] at a given time, but that which has been radically separated from [[consciousness]] by [[repression]] and thus cannot enter the [[conscious]]-[[preconscious]] system without distortion.
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In [[Freud]]'s second theory of [[mental]] [[structure]] (the "[[structural theory]]"), the [[mind]] is divided into the three "agencies" of [[ego]], [[superego]] and [[id]].
In this model, no one agency is identical to the [[unconscious]], since even the [[ego]] and the [[superego]] have [[unconscious]] parts.
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[[Lacan]], before 1950, uses the term "[[unconscious]]" principally in its adjectival form, making his early work seem particularly strange to those who are more familiar with [[Freud]]'s writings.
In the 1950s, however, as [[Lacan]] begins his "[[return to Freud]]," the term appears more frequently as a noun, and [[Lacan]] increasingly emphasizes the originality of [[Freud]]'s concept of the [[unconscious]], stressing that it is not merely the opposite of [[consciousness]].
<blockquote>"A large number of psychical effects that are quite legitimately designated as unconscious, in the sense of excluding the characteristics of consciousness, are nonetheless without any relation whatever to the unconscious in the Freudian sense."<ref>{{E}} p.163</ref></blockquote>
He also insists that the [[unconscious]] cannot simply be equated with "that which is repressed."
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[[Lacan]] argues that the concept of the [[unconscious]] was badly misunderstood by most of [[Freud]]'s followers, who reduced it to being "merely the seat of the instincts."<ref>{{E}} p.147</ref>
Against this [[biology|biologistic]] mode of thought, [[Lacan]] argues that "the unconscious is neither primordial nor instinctual;"<ref>{{E}} p.170</ref> it is primarily [[linguistic]].
This is summed up in [[Lacan]]'s famous formula, "the unconscious is structured like a language."<ref>{{S3}} p.167</ref>
[[Lacan]]'s analysis of the [[unconscious]] in terms of [[synchronic]] [[structure]] is supplemented by his idea of the [[unconscious]] opening and closing in a temporal pulsation.<ref>{{S11}} p.143, 204</ref>
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Some [[psychoanalyst]]s have objected to [[Lacan]]'s [[linguistic]] approach to the [[unconscious]] on the grounds that it is overly restrictive, and on the grounds that [[Freud]] himself excluded ''word-presentations'' from the [[unconscious]].<ref>{{S7}} p.44</ref>
[[Lacan]] himself qualifies his [[linguistic]] approach by arguing that the reason why the [[unconscious]] is [[structure]]d like a [[language]] is that "we only grasp the unconscious finally when it is explicated, in that part of it which is articulated by passing into words."<ref>{{S7}} p.32</ref>
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[[Lacan]] also describes the [[unconscious]] as a [[discourse]]: "The unconscious is the discourse of the Other."<ref>{{Ec}} p.16</ref>
This enigmatic formula, which has become one of [[Lacan]]'s most famous dictums, can be understood in many ways.
Perhaps the most important meaning is that "one should see in the unconscious the effects of speech on the subject."<ref>{{S11}} p.126</ref>
More precisely, the [[unconscious]] is the effects of the [[signifier]] on the [[subject]], in that the [[signifier]] is what is [[repressed]] and what returns in the [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]] ([[symptom]]s, [[jokes]], [[parapraxes]], [[dream]]s, etc.).
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All the references to [[language]], [[speech]], [[discourse]] and [[signifier]]s clearly locate the [[unconscious]] in the order of the [[symbolic]].
Indeed, "the unconscious is structured as a function of the symbolic."<ref>{{S7}} p.12</ref>
The [[unconscious]] is the determination of the [[subject]] by the [[symbolic order]].
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The [[unconscious]] is not interior: on the contrary, since [[speech]] and [[language]] are [[intersubjective]] phenomena, the [[unconscious]] is "transindividual."<ref>{{E}} p.49</ref>
The [[unconscious]] is, so to speak, "outside."
<blockquote>"This exteriority of the symbolic in relation to man is the very notion of the unconscious."<ref>{{Ec}} p.469</ref></blockquote>
If the [[unconscious]] seems interior, this is an effect of the [[imaginary]], which blocks the relationship between the [[subject]] and the [[Other]] and which [[invert]]s the [[message]] of the [[Other]].
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Although the [[unconscious]] is especially visible in the [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]], "the unconscious leaves none of our actions outside its field."<ref>{{E}} p.163</ref>
The [[law]]s of the [[unconscious]], which are those of [[repetition]] and [[desire]], are as ubiquitous as [[structure]] itself.
The [[unconscious]] is irreducible, so the aim of [[analysis]] cannot be to make [[conscious]] the [[unconscious]].
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In addition to the various [[linguistic]] [[metaphor]]s which [[Lacan]] draws on to conceptualize the [[unconscious]] ([[discourse]], [[language]], [[speech]]), he also conceives of the [[unconscious]] in other terms.
===Memory===
The [[unconscious]] is also a kind of [[memory]], in the sense of a [[symbolic]] [[history]] of the [[signifier]]s that have determined the [[subject]] in the course of his life.
<blockquote>"What we teach the subject to recognize as his unconscious is his history."<ref>{{E}} p.52</ref></blockquote>
===Knowledge===
Since it is an articulation of [[signifier]]s in a [[signifying chain]], the [[unconscious]] is a kind of [[knowledge]] ([[symbolic]] [[knowledge]], or ''[[savoir]]'').
More precisely, it is an "unknown knowledge."
==See Also==
* [[Memory]]
* [[Knowledge]]
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Symbolic]]
==def==
