Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 33 No. 2, 2013.
Review article
Lacan’s Reasoning of the Subject
Martina Žeželj
; J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek. Faculty of Philosophy, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
The main purpose of the paper is to point to the particularity of Lacan’s reasoning of the subject. At the time of the structuralist reduction of the subject to the mere effect of structure, Lacan tends to preserve the concept of the subject. Despite that fact, Lacan does not directly follow up on the modern thought of the subject. It is the Cartesian cogito that is for him the foundation and object of criticism. With regards to the Cartesian cogito, Lacan finds disputable the selffounding of “I” in the act of its thinking. He claims that, even if we allow for the possibility of self-certitude arising from the consciousness itself, the question of how “I” can be conceived in this act remains unanswered. The part of the Cartesian subject that Lacan does adopt is the formation of the subject in the act of doubting. When considered in this context, Freud’s procedure is Cartesian for Lacan, since Freud places special emphasis on doubting in the speech of the analysed in order to be able to conceive his unconscious. For Lacan, the subject is a split subject – a subject that is split by its Symbolic constitution into the imaginary ego and the subject of the unconscious. The discourse of the Symbolic has the constitution of a signifying chain, so the subject in the Symbolic is also reduced to the signifier. The meaning of the subject of the signifier does not encompass the subject of the unconscious, so the subject is alienated from its subject of the unconscious. The splitting that occurred within the subject by its subjection to the signifying constitution of the Other has repercussion on the subject’s perception as well. In the act of perception the subject is split, since the objects are perceived by the ego, the subject of the signifier, and desired by the subject of the unconscious.
Keywords
subject; cogito; split; subject of the unconscious; subject of the signifier; Jacques Lacan
Hrčak ID:
111201
URI
Publication date:
24.9.2013.
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