The Lacanian Unconscious (2 of 4) : Logical time

Lacan’s essay on logical time enables us to draw a series of schematic distinctions between the subjective, the inter-subjective and the trans-subjective (or, respectively, in Lacan’s own formulation: ’the instance of the glance’, ’the time of understanding’ and ’the moment of concluding’). One can argue - as does Slavoj Zizek - that it is only when the third of these dimensions of subjectivity is in play (’the trans-subjective’) that the big Other becomes operative, that society as such (as opposed to an aggregated collection of individuals) exists. The big Other means that certain forms of social consensus and “social objectivity“ become possible. This trans-subjective dimension of the unconscious leads to paradoxes at the level of the unconscious, and, indeed, to paradoxes at the level of social belief. There can, for example, be movie-stars and super-models that no one, at a subjective level, really likes, just so long as everyone presumes that the big O