L’imaginaire et l’hypostasie de la communication

Abstract

This paper aims to review the definitions and vagueness of the concept of imaginary and symbolic, and to relate its limits and its reach within the research in Communication. The difficulties of the approach in Communication to a notion of course of the sense are addressed. Inherited from the School of Grenoble, this notion underlies the theory of the imaginary. Communication is here considered to be insufficient for the study of the catalysis of imaginaries and the production of symbolic images which are present in communication phenomena. This is due not only to the inadequacy of a process that is described in terms of sendermessage- receiver, but especially to the self-evidence of imaginary and symbolic, as expressed in the language, resulting in a reduction of the imaginary to its social symptoms.