ABSTRACT

Symbolism and symbolisation would then become central concepts of the human sciences which would transform the representation and understanding of human beings, societies and their cultures. In L'homme total, Karsenti observed that, as it came down to Durkheim and Durkheimians, the term "symbol" is laden with connotations inherited from the history of religions and the history of law. Moreover, symbolism became a primordial object which forced itself upon psychologists at the beginning of the 1920s. A fundamental place was accorded to symbolism and to the multiple forms of symbolisation, something which would be taken up again by Sigmund Freud in the special section added to the fourth edition of The Interpretation of Dreams. The theories of realities–symbols conceive of symbols as powerful images giving the presence of the real. The shorter the distance between the image and the thing, the more powerful the symbol is through the impact of the real.