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=Freudian Dictionary=
<blockquote>The oldest and best meaning of the word "unconscious" is the descriptive one; we call "unconscious" any mental process the existence of which we are obliged to assume-because, for instance, we infer it in some way from its effects-but of which we are not directly aware .... If we want to be more accurate, we should modify the statement by saying that we call a process "unconscious" when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time, although at that time we knew nothing about it.<ref>{{NILP}} Ch. 3</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>Certainly, large portions of the ego and super-ego can remain unconscious, are, in fact, normally unconscious. That means to say that the individual knows nothing of their contents and that it requires an expenditure of effort to make him conscious of them. It is true, then, that ego and conscious, repressed and unconscious do not coincide.<ref>{{NILP}} Ch. 3</ref></blockquote>
===Unconscious and Preconscious===
<blockquote>There are ''two kinds of unconscious'', which have not as yet been distinguished by psychologists. Both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but in our sense the first, which we call ''Ucs''., is likewise ''incapable of consciousness''; whereas the second we call ''Pcs''. because its excitations, after the observance of certain rules, are capable of reaching consciousness; perhaps not before they have again undergone censorship, but nevertheless regardless of the ''Ucs''. ''system''. The fact that in order to attain consciousness the excitations must pass through an unalterable series, a succession of instances, as is betrayed by the changes produced in them by the censorship, has enabled us to describe them by analogy in spatial terms. We described the relations of the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying that the system ''Pcs''. is like a screen between the system ''Ucs''. and consciousness. The system ''Pcs''. not only bars access to consciousness, but also controls the access to voluntary motility, and has control of the emission of a mobile cathectic energy, a portion of which is familiar to us as attention.<ref>{{IoD}} Ch. 7</ref></blockquote>
===UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL PROCESSES, TIMELESSNESS OF===
<blockquote>We have found by experience that unconscious mental processes are in themselves "timeless." That is to say to begin with: they are not arranged chronologically, time alters nothing in them, nor can the idea of time be applied to them. <ref>{{BPP}} Ch. 4</ref></blockquote>
{{Freudian Dictionary}}
=Below=
==Sigmund Freud==
Although the term "[[unconscious]]" had been used by writers prior to [[Freud]], it acquires a completely original meaning in his [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]], in which it constitutes the single most important concept.
===Definition===
[[Freud]] distinguished between two uses of the term "[[unconscious]]."<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|The Unconscious]]." 1915e. [[SE]] XIV, 161</ref>
=====Adjective=====
The adjective it is very widely used to refer to any element of mental or psychic activity that is not present within the field of [[consciousness]]; as an ''adjective'', it simply refers to mental or psychic processes that are not the subject of, that occur in the absence of, [[consciousness|conscious awareness, thought, attention, perception or control]].
=====Noun=====
[[Image:Freudpsyche.gif|thumb|300px|right|[[Unconscious|Freud's Model of the Unconscious]]]]
As a ''noun'', the ''noun-form'' designates one of the ''psychical systems'' described by [[Freud]] in his [[topology|topographical model]] of the [[psyche]], his first theory of [[psyche|mental]] [[structure]].
==="Topological Model"===
The "'''[[topographical model]]'''" divides the [[mind]] or [[psyche]] into three separate component parts -- or "[[scene|psychical localities]]":
* the '''[[conscious]]''' ('''[[conscious|Cs]]'''),
* the '''[[preconscious]]''' ('''[[preconscious|Pcs]]''') and
* the [[unconscious]] ('''[[unconscious|Ucs]]''')
The [[unconscious|unconscious system]] is not merely that which is ''outside'' the field of [[consciousness]] at a given time, but that which has been radically [[separation|separated]] from [[consciousness]] by [[repression]] and thus cannot enter the [[conscious|conscious-preconscious system]] without [[distortion]].
==="Structural Model"===
[[Freud]]'s second model of the [[mind]] or [[psyche]] -- the "'''[[Structural theory]]'''" -- consisted of three "'''agencies'''":
* the '''[[id]]''',
* the '''[[ego]]''', and
* the '''[[superego]]'''
In this model, no one '''agency''' is identical to the [[unconscious]], since even the [[ego]] and the [[superego]] have [[unconscious]] parts.
==Jacques Lacan==
===Early Work===
[[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 [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|writings]].
===Later Work===
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 "[[unconscious|that which is repressed]]."
===Biological Reductionism===
[[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]].
===Language===
This is summed up in [[Lacan]]'s famous formula, "[[unconscious|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 [[time|temporal pulsation]].<ref>{{S11}} p. 143, 204</ref>
===Criticism===
[[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>
===Discourse===
[[Lacan]] also describes the [[unconscious]] as a [[discourse]]: "[[unconscious|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.).
===Symbolic===
All the references to [[language]], [[speech]], [[discourse]] and [[signifier]]s clearly locate the [[unconscious]] in the order of the [[symbolic]].
<blockquote>Indeed, "the unconscious is structured as a function of the symbolic."<ref>{{S7}} p. 12</ref></blockquote>
The [[unconscious]] is the determination of the [[subject]] by the [[symbolic order]].
===Exteriority===
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]].
===Formations===
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]].
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 "[[unconscious|unknown knowledge]]."
===See Also===
{{See}}
* [[Biology]]
* [[Consciousness]]
* [[Discourse]]
||
* [[Desire]]
* [[Drive]]
* [[Instinct]]
||
* [[Knowledge]]
* [[Language]]
* [[Linguistics]]
||
* [[Memory]]
* [[Repetition]]
* [[Signifier]]
||
* [[Speech]]
* [[Structure]]
* [[Symbolic]]
{{Also}}
===References===
<references/>
[[Category:Dictionary]]
__NOTOC__
-----
Drawing on the [[linguistics]] of [[Saussure]] and [[Jakobson]]'s work on 'aphasia', [[Lacan]] argues that [[symptom]]s and [[unconscious]] [[formation]]s such as the [[dream-work]] display the same formal properties as the rhetorical devices of [[metaphor]]/[[metonymy]], which he likens to the mechanisms of [[condensation]] and [[displacement]].
=Quotes=
<blockquote>The division of mental life into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise on which psycho-analysis is based; and this division alone makes it possible for it to understand pathological mental processes, which are as common as they are important, and to co-ordinate them scientifically. Stated once more in a different way: psycho-analysis cannot accept the view that consciousness is the essence of mental life, but is obliged to regard consciousness as one property of mental life, which may co-exist along with its other properties or may be absent.<ref>{{F}} "[[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|Consciousness and the Unconscious]]." pp. 9-10</blockquote>
Consciousness
<blockquote>The term 'conscious' is, to start with, a purely descriptive one, resting on a perception of the most direct and certain character. Experience shows, next, that a mental element (for instance, an idea) is not as a rule permanently conscious. On the contrary, a state of consciousness is characteristically very transitory; an idea that is conscious now is no longer so a moment later, although it can become so again under certain conditions that are easily brought about.<ref>{{F}} "[[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|Consciousness and the Unconscious]]." p. 10</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>We obtain our concept of the unconscious, therefore, from the theory of repression. The repressed serves us as a prototype of the unconscious. We see, however, that we have two kinds of unconscious-that which is latent but capable of becoming conscious, and that which is repressed and not capable of becoming conscious in the ordinary way. This piece of insight into mental dynamics cannot fail to affect terminology and description. That which is latent, and only unconscious in the descriptive and not in the dynamic sense, we call preconscious; the term unconscious we reserve for the dynamically unconscious repressed, so that we now have three terms, conscious (Cs), preconscious (Pcs), and unconscious (Ucs), which are no longer purely descriptive in sense. The Pcs is presumably a great deal closer
</blockquote>
=Unsorted=
While the notion of a non-conscious part of the mind or psyche has a long history in both philosophy and the psychological sciences, Sigmund Freud is often credited with the discovery of the unconscious.
The "[[unconscious]]",
The concept of the [[unconscious]] lies at the center of [[psychoanalysis]].
[[Freud]] is credited with the discovery of the "[[unconscious]]", the concept of which lies at the center of [[psychoanalysis]].
---
Freud recognized that the term ‘unconscious’ was better used as a descriptive adjective rather than as a topographical noun.
=References=
unconscious 12-13, 19-36, 39-41, 43, 45-8, 56, 56-60, 68, 72, 76, 79, 82-3, 100, 102, * 104, 119, 125-31, 133-50, 152-5, 156-7, 161-2, 174, 176, 181, 187-8, 197, 199-200, 203, * 207-8, 217, 221, 224, 231-2, 235, 242, 247, 249-52, 257, 260, 263, 267, 274 [[Seminar XI]]
=Links=
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind
{{Encore}}
: [[Unconsciously|Unconscious]], 4, 14, 21-22, 34, 99, 104-5, 115, 131, 135, 137, 139, 141, 144-45
:: as [[language]], 15, 48, 56, 67, 96, 100, 135, 139, 142
:: [[language]] of, 51,110
:: [[meaning]] and, 88
:: [[signifying chain]] and, 135
:: [[subject]] and, 21, 37, 81, 87-88
