무의식의 언어에 관하여

Abstract

This paper aims at reexamining the notion of the unconscious and of repression and clarifying the nature of the language of the unconscious. The unconscious is not a phenomenon of a forgotten memory, which by definition can be remembered by conscious efforts. It is rather a mode of representation, impossible to become conscious but unforgettable. It might be comparable to, and implied by, the Greek notion of Aletheia (truth) [etymologically privative a- + lethe (=forgetting)]. Repression is not pushing down representations combined with the affect but denotes the process by which representations incompatible with the conscious ego are separated from the affect and are turned away and kept at a distance from the conscious. In doing so, the confined representations come to constitute the unconscious like a malfunctioned filament. Conversely, the unconscious is constituted by the repressed representations. This can lead to explaining Lacan’s famous and much-abused formula of “the unconscious is structured like a language” in that representations are nothing but a kind of language. On the other hand, according to Freud, the unconscious representations are made up of the ‘thing representation(presentation),’ which works like things, and the ‘word representation(presentation),’ which works only as the material dimension of language. Accordingly, the Freudian term of the unconscious representation amounts to the modern psychoanalytic term of the signifier. Now, it’s fair to say that Lacan develops the Freudian concept of the unconscious into the Other, the locus of signifiers.