symptom

nationality

French

university professor

University of Pennsylvania

innovator in the field of

comparative literature

is, in the psychoanalytic sense, aiming at meaning and to be treated with linguistic ambiguity.

We have to be clear about what distinguishes a sign from a symptom. While a sign is made up of the two sides we have already encountered, a symptom is not just a sign of something (Dora's persistent cough is not a sign of her having a bad cold, but a symptom that aims at making some sense by embodying her identification both with her father and her father's mistress, through what she imagines as their purely oral love making). Lacan always insisted that a psychoanalytic symptom could be treated by linguistic ambiguity precisely what Freud failed to do with Dora, to whom he was too eager to announce his 'truth' (rabate 'lacan')

is not a sign of something. Coughing is not a sign of having a cold. It is its embodiment and manifestation.

is that which aims at making some sense by embodying.

A SIGN IS MADE UP OF THE TWO SIDES WE HAVE ALREADY ENCOUNTERED:A SYMPTOM AIMS AT MAKING SOME SENSE BY EMBODYING We have to be clear about what distinguishes a sign from a symptom. While a sign is made up of the two sides we have already encountered, a symptom is not just a sign of something (Dora's persistent cough is not a sign of her having a bad cold, but a symptom that aims at making some sense by embodying her identification both with her father and her father's mistress, through what she imagines as their purely oral love making).

Jean Michel Rabate

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Jean Michel Rabate