Description

The Real is not only opposed to the imaginary, the Real is also exterior to the Symbolic. Whereas the Symbolic opposition “presence/absence” implies the possibility that something may be missing, the Real is always in its place. If the Symbolic is a set of differentiated elements (signifiers), the Real in itself is undifferentiated—it bears no fissure. The Symbolic introduces “a cut in the real” in the process of signification: it is the world of words that creates the world of things—things originally confused in the ‘here and now’ of the all in the process of coming into being. (on Jaques Lacan)