ABSTRACT

In Chapter 1, I raised some questions about the knowability of the unconscious. I argued that the claim that the unconscious is unknown is incoherent given that it seems to be knowable through archetypal images and our experiences. I want now to return to this claim and to re¯ect on it in light of the arguments I have made in this book. In particular, I shall examine the possible connection between Lacan's symbolic/imaginary and Jung's notion of the collective unconscious in relation to Luce Irigaray's call for a feminine-feminine symbolic/imaginary. Andrew Samuels argues, as I noted earlier, that `Lacan's Symbolic and Imaginary may be aligned with Jung's archetypal theory (collective unconscious) and personal unconscious respectively' (Samuels 1985: 40). Symbolically, there is an obvious alignment between the phallus as the principal signi®er in Lacan's symbolic and the Logos as the masculine principle in the collective unconscious. And if Samuels is correct, and this will depend on what is meant by `aligned', then Luce Irigaray, because she insists on a feminine-feminine symbolic/ imaginary, appears to be arguing, in part, for a feminine collective unconscious; and this, it seems to me, is incoherent, if we accept that the collective unconscious is unknown. As an unknown, sex/gender predications (or any predication) cannot be made of the collective unconscious.