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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that one's thoughts can lead to a disconnect from reality and self-awareness.
In this quote, Jacques Lacan explores the relationship between thought and existence. He proposes that our consciousness and self-perception are shaped by our thoughts, and when we become overwhelmed or controlled by our thoughts, we may lose sight of our true self. The idea that 'I think where I am not' highlights the complexity of the mind, indicating that our thoughts can take us away from present reality and into a realm of distractions and uncertainties about our identity.
Themes
ThoughtSelf-AwarenessExistenceConsciousnessMind
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical debate about the nature of reality and thought.
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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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.
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