|
The
imaginary, as the word itself
shows, is related to images, to those
personal and unique images which were
printed in us in the dual relationship we
have with our mothers, in particular.
Those images are related to emotions. An
emotion is something which affects our
physiology. That is already something
which is halfway between the psyche and
the body.
|
The
symbolic is all that our
culture printed in us as a "third party".
It is for example our language, which we
haven't chosen but which is a link between
us and the others, it is also reasoning
(logic) which we have in common with the
other human beings, it is the world of the
signs, codes and laws which give human
groups a structure.
'Cognitive' is a word used in a more or
less broad sense. It can refer to
computation processes using logical
thinking, as well as to any process
concerning knowledge.
It will here be used in the narrower
sense, meaning a rational process. The
cognitive therefore belongs to the
symbolical.
|
Lacan finally adds
the real
-- different from
reality -- which is all that is
unbearable, impossible to represent, which
can neither be put into images nor into
symbols, nor expressed through words, it
is a leftover.
|