Paranoiac knowledge
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
According to Jacques Lacan, Paranoiac Knowledge is all comprehension by humans, imbued with a sense of the "I" or the ego. While Paranoia is a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion, paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat. In the original Greek, παράνοια (paranoia) simply means madness (para = outside; nous = mind) and, historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state. However, paranoia, often in reference to conspiracy, recalls a person's mirror stage, where a person first identifies himself or herself. In accordance with Jacques Lacan's epistemological beliefs, knowledge incorporates three classifications, the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. In French, the differentiation of symbolic knowledge and imaginary knowledge adheres to the words connaissance and savoir, where connaissance represents imaginary knowledge (all knowledge of the ego) and savoir represents symbolic knowledge (all knowledge of taxonomy and classification). Little text covers knowledge of the real.
Development of Paranoia
Paranoiac knowledge develops from our imaginary relation to the Other as a primordial misidentification or illusory self-recognition of autonomy, control, and mastery, thus leading to persecutory anxiety and self-alienation. While desire by others threatens to invade and destroy our uniquely subjective inner experiences, the structure of language processes the differentiation between unwanted and wanted desire. And thus, the processes of knowing are in themselves paranoiac because they confront the real and, in it, the unknown.
References
- Lacan, Jacques (2007). Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. W. W. Norton Publishing. p. 740. ISBN 0393329259. Unknown parameter
|origdate=ignored (|orig-year=suggested) (help) - The Seminars of Jacques Lacan
- An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis - Dylan Evans
- Paranoia Knowledge by Jon Mills, Psy.D., PhD.