Cogito and the Unconscious

Description

The Cartesian cogito—the principle articulated by Descartes that "I think, therefore I am"—is often hailed as the precursor of modern science. At the same time, the cogito's agent, the ego, is sometimes feared as the agency of manipulative domination responsible for all present woes, from patriarchal oppression to ecological catastrophes. Without psychoanalyzing philosophy, Cogito and the Unconscious explores the vicissitudes of the cogito and shows that psychoanalyses can render visible a constitutive madness within modern philosophy, the point at which "I think, therefore I am" becomes obsessional neurosis characterized by "If I stop thinking, I will cease to exist."

First Sentence

In the opening paragraph of one of the earliest pieces in his Ecrits, the famous paper entitled "The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience" (1949, presented in Zurich at the International Congress of Psychoanalysis), Lacan situates his notion of the mirror stage in the following way: "The conception of the mirror stage that I introduced at our last congress, thirteen years ago [that was the congress in Marienbad in 1936, the last one where Freud was present as well], has since become more or less established in the practice of the French group.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Cogito and the Unconscious: Sic 2Duke University Press1998-01-01
• Cogito and the UnconsciousPaperbackDuke University Press1998-12-01
• Cogito and the UnconsciousDuke University Press1998-01-01