Psychoanalysis is a terribly efficient instrument, and because it is more and more a prestigious instrument, we run the risk of using it with a purpose for which it was not made for, and in this way we may degrade it.
Jacques LacanRead
The real is what resists symbolization absolutely.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that reality cannot be fully captured or represented through symbols or language.
Jacques Lacan's quote highlights the idea that the essence of reality is beyond what we can articulate or symbolize. He argues that our attempts to represent reality, whether through language or symbols, will always fall short, as true reality is something that cannot be completely encapsulated in our words or thoughts. This challenges us to reconsider the limitations of our understanding and the ways we express our experiences.
Themes
RealitySymbolizationRepresentationLanguagePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy lecture discussing the limitations of language.
More from Jacques Lacan
All quotes βBut what Freud showed usβ¦ was that nothing can be grasped, destroyed, or burnt, except in a symbolic way, as one says, in effigie, in absentia.
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If psychoanalysis clarifies some facts of sexuality, it is not by aiming at them in their own reality, not in biological experience.
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I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think. I am not whenever I am the plaything of my thought; I think of what I am where I do not think to think.
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The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom
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Meaning is produced not only by the relationship between the signifier and the signified but also, crucially, by the position of the signifiers in relation to other signifiers.
Jacques LacanRead
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