Building the notion symptom: connections between pragmatics and psychoanalysis

Abstract

This study aims to identify confluences between psychoanalysis and studies on language presented in Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work. In order to do so, one starts from the construction of the notion of symptom, its definition in the medical and psychiatric fields, to its demarcation in the psychoanalytical field, where the symptom is only defined by its relationship with the discursive practices of the subject. When introducing the concept of language-game, Wittgenstein emphasizes the pragmatic aspect of language: the rules of use established in a particular context give meaning to a linguistic expression. If, for psychoanalysis, the symptom implies a symbolic articulation, it is in the relationship between signifiers, proper to the language game, that the possibilities of signification of the subject himself are established.