Note on the notion of the unconscious in Lacan

Abstract

The exteriority of the symbolic in relation to the human being is the very notion of the unconscious. The symbolic order is not a creation of conscience but a constituent of the subject, which from the moment of his birth becomes a
part of the significant chain in which it must be structurated. There is a simultaneity between the access to language and the formation of the unconscious: from the moment the subject speaks he becomes deterrnined by a speech that is not at bis diposal so long a he himself is constituted as an effect of that speech. The subject is splitted the moment he remains excluded of the significant field which determines him, the unconscious constitutes as the primal repression. Because of language there is splitting,
because of splitting there is castration an wish: imposibility of joining with the lost object. This questions the theory of personality: the subject of the unconscious cannot be defined as a psychological one but as a subject out of center with respect to himself and determined by the symbolic. The unconscious is the speech of the Other, that means a speech external to the subject which alludes to an impersonal instance which trascends the individual and his relational level. Other place or another scene to which men
must direct themselves in search of his wishes and his recognition.