Cogito as the Subject of the Unconscious

1998 ◽  
pp. 11-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mladen Dolar
Keyword(s):  
2013 ◽  
pp. 140-149
Author(s):  
Mariya Yarkina

In the process of studying the transformation and inversion of symbols, it becomes clear that the analytic context of socio-cultural axiology, which permits the identification of mechanisms for the formation of values ​​with the help of symbols, is of particular importance for the understanding of the symbol. Since the symbol is the sphere of the functioning of the unconscious, suggestive-emotional influence on a person, he is able to embody those values ​​and achievements that have not yet become the subject of logical and rational knowledge. From the standpoint of history, the swastika is the most ancient and widespread of all graphic symbols. Traditionally, the swastika has a "light" semantic load. The use of this symbol by the Nazis made it the most recognizable element of the twentieth century. with a reputation directly opposite to its ancient meaning. "The Big Soviet Encyclopedia" directly says about the inversion of the symbol: "Hitler and the German fascists made a swastikas with their emblem. Since then, it has become a symbol


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-163
Author(s):  
David P. Fourie

AbstractThere seems to be wide acceptance by both professionals and lay people that hypnotic and especially hypnotherapeutic responding is based on the long-standing but still hypothetical dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious minds. In this simplistic view, hypnotic suggestions are considered to bypass consciousness to reach the unconscious mind, there to have the intended effect. This article reports on a single-case experiment investigating the involvement of the unconscious in hypnotherapeutic responding. In this case the subject responded positively to suggestions that could not have reached the unconscious, indicating that the unconscious was not involved in such responding. An alternative view is proposed, namely that hypnotherapeutic responding involves a cognitive process in which a socially constructed new understanding of the problem behaviour and of hypnosis, based on the client's existing attribution of meaning, is followed by action considered appropriate to the new understanding and which then confirms this understanding, leading to behaviour change.


Author(s):  
Wes Furlotte

This chapter critically reads finite subjectivity in terms of its natural, instinctual dimension. The chapter’s objective is to further substantiate the significant problem Hegel’s conception of nature poses to his project of radical freedom. Developing a sense of subjectivity’s potential for “regression”, the chapter seeks to outline how, as in the case of acute psychopathology, subjectivity’s ordering of its instinctual dimension might be undermined. Hegelian regression, therefore, is a haywire inversion where the logical superiority of spirit’s freedom is subordinated to the ontologically prior register of instinct. Extrapolating from this analysis, the chapter contends that the unconscious-instinctual depth of the subject is never entirely abandoned; this abyss (Schacht) of indeterminacy lingers within the matrices of finite spirit and has the perpetual possibility of breaking-loose to the detriment of subjectivity’s free self-actualizing activity. Consequently, a reconstruction of Hegel’s account of mental illness forcefully demonstrates how nature remains a perpetual source of trauma for finite subjectivity and, therefore, the life of spirit.


Author(s):  
Atilla Hallsby

Within communication studies, critical and cultural scholars will likely encounter psychoanalytic methods by way of rhetoric scholarship, which has made plentiful and recurring use of Freudian and Lacanian concepts. A survey of psychoanalytic methods “before” and “after” the linguistic turn is offered—juxtaposing key concepts with rhetorical scholarship that employs psychoanalytic terms of art. Psychoanalytic theory is foundationally the study of the unconscious. Before the linguistic turn, the Freudian theory of the unconscious informed Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification developed in A Rhetoric of Motives and numerous Jungian analyses of cinematic texts. In the linguistic turn’s aftermath, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan contributed understandings of speech, identification, and rhetoric that transformed Freud’s original formulations and productively supplemented Burke’s. These contributions, captured in Lacan’s four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, registers of the unconscious, and The “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter,’” illustrate a variety of ways that critical and cultural scholars have enlisted psychoanalysis to describe instances of public address, social movements, political and legal discourse, and cinema/film. The unique feature of Lacan’s approach is that the unconscious is structured like a language, which means that the unconscious is received as a speech act. Moreover, contrary to the view that the subject uses the signifier, Lacan maintains that the signifier exercises an organizing role over the subject and its desire. Conceived within the history, theory, and practice of rhetoric, psychoanalytic theory offers conceptually rich insights tethered to the concepts of the unconscious, the signifier, and the drive (among others) that are enabling to the aims of critical and cultural studies.


Author(s):  
Barbara Cassin

“The psychoanalyst is a sign of the presence of the sophist in our time, but with a different status.” The surprising confluence of Lacanian psychoanalysis and the texts of the Ancient Greek sophists in Jacques the Sophist: Lacan, Logos, and Psychoanalysis becomes a springboard for Barbara Cassin’s highly original re-reading of the writings and seminars of Jacques Lacan. Sophistry, since Plato and Aristotle, has been represented as philosophy’s negative alter ego, its bad other, and this allows her to draw out the “sophistic” elements of Lacan’s own language or how, as she puts it, Lacan “philosophistises”. What both sophists and Lacan have in common is that they radically challenge the very foundations of scientific rationality, and of the relationship of meaning to language, which is shown to operate performatively, at the level of the signifier, and to distance itself from the primacy of truth in philosophy. Our time is said to be the time of the subject of the unconscious, bound to the sexual relationship which does not exist, by contrast with the Greek political animal. As Cassin demonstrates, in a remarkable tour de force, this can be expressed variously in terms of discourse as a social link that has to be negotiated between medicine and politics, between sense and non-sense, between mastery and jouissance. Published originally in French in 2012, Cassin’s book is translated into English for the first time by Michael Syrotinski and includes his translator’s notes, commentary, and index.


1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 465-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Taylor

Although James and Freud are generally not considered scientific by experimental psychologists, both wrote about their view of what a scientific psychology should look like. Their radically different philosophical epistemologies and historical origins are reviewed, to provide an understanding of their respective visions for psychology. James took his stand on a new metaphysical foundation for the way experiments should be conducted with his formulation of radical empiricism. Freud attempted a neurological explanation of the unconscious in his “Project for a Scientific Psychology.” Remarkably, their definitions of psychology as a science had a similar ring. Likely, this is because both took a phenomenological position with regard to how they defined science, which is also probably the primary reason their ideas on the subject have always been rejected by experimentalists. The humanistic implications of the neuroscience revolution, however, have caused a reassessment of their respective positions, as philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness have brought both Freud and James back into vogue, but in new and unexpected ways.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Irina S. Karabulatova

The mysterious Russian soul is always looking for non-trivial aspects of a problem. The modern coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has become the subject of ridicule in the everyday laughing practices of Russian people. In this case, the laughing discourse acts as a form of psychological defense and struggle against the inevitable evil. The importance of the research is due to the lack of knowledge of the communicative and cognitive aspects of laughter discourse and the need to study the modern anecdote on the topic "coronavirus pandemic" in the aspect of forming the stability of the human psyche in the conditions of pandemics and isolation. The relevance of this work is also determined by the fact that it expands the empirical base of discourse linguistics, LSP theory and practice, motivology and emotive linguistics, whose interests include consideration of the problem of the influence of emotions on language. The relevance of the work also lies in the fact that special attention is paid to the little-studied phenomenon of "black humor", which is vividly represented in the laughing discourse about coronavirus. Unfortunately, today Russia occupies the leading positions in terms of the number of people infected with virus COVID-19. Archetypal fear of unknown Evil, of invisible death evoke chthonic experiences of the unconscious from the depths of the subconscious, actualizing the laughable techniques of devaluing danger as one of the effective methods of psychological protection. The world stereotype defines Russian people as frowning and unsmiling, extremely hostile to the world around them. The article reveals the specifics of modern Russian anecdotes about COVID-19. This allows the reader to understand what the stress resistance and resilience of the Russian person in a situation of degenerate press of negative information in various media is. This situation is complicated by fake news stories about the pandemic. What are Russian people laughing at during the pandemic? What helps them survive and stay mentally healthy in this situation? What is the specifics of Russian jokes about the pandemic? How do these anecdotes structure a person's inner space in a new way? What Parallels can we find in a laughing culture that plays up the stigmatized situations of tragedies, wars, and epidemics? This article is intended as an attempt to answer these and other questions.


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