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==Introduction==
The conception of the mirror-phase which I introduced at our last congress, thirteen years ago, has since become more or less established in the practice of the French group; I think it nevertheless worthwhile to bring it again to your attention, especially today, for the light that it sheds on the formation of the I as we experience it in psychoanalysis.<ref>''Translator's note'': '<i>I</i>' is used here and throughout to translate Lacan's '<i>je</i>', in 'le <i>je</i>', 'la fonction du <i>je</i>', etc. '<i>Ego</i>' translates 'le <i>moi</i>' and is used in the normal sense of psychoanalytic literature. On '<i>je</i>', see Note 2 below.</ref> It is an experience which leads us to oppose any philosophy directly issuing from the ''Cogito''.
Some of you may perhaps remember our starting point in a feature of human behaviour illuminated by a fact of comparative psychology. The human offspring, at an age when he is for a time, however short, outdone by the chimpanzee in instrumental intelligence, can nevertheless already recognize as such his own image in a mirror. This recognition manifests itself in the illuminatory mimicry of the ''AhaErlebnis'', which Köhler sees as the expression of situational apperception, an essential moment of the act of intelligence.