Symbolic Time

Abstract

In this chapter, Chenyang Wang argues that a temporal dimension is also essential to Lacan’s theorisation of the symbolic order. Freud’s argument that the unconscious is timeless already implies the existence of another time different from the inner time consciousness. Lacan’s articulation of Symbolic time is made possible by the theory of cybernetics, which introduces the notion of the machine as an impersonal agent that sets the symbolic order in motion. This means that the symbolic order not only determines one’s subject position at a given moment but also structures one’s life trajectory through a flow of signifiers. In Freud’s analysis of the Wolf Man case and Lacan’s reading of Hamlet, Symbolic time is experienced as the time of the Other that does not fall into the subject’s grasp but conditions his unconscious desire.