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The
imaginary,
as the word itself shows, is related to
images, to those personal and unique
images which were printed in us in the
dual relationship we have with our
mothers, in particular. Those images are
related to emotions. An emotion is
something which affects our physiology.
That is already something which is halfway
between the psyche and the
body.
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The
symbolic
is all that our culture printed in us
as a "third party". It is for example our
language, which we haven't chosen but
which is a link between us and the others,
it is also reasoning (logic) which we have
in common with the other human beings, it
is the world of the signs, codes and laws
which give human groups a
structure.
'Cognitive' is a
word used in a more or less broad sense.
It can refer to computation processes
using logical thinking, as well as to any
process concerning knowledge.
It will here be used
in the narrower sense, meaning a rational
process. The cognitive therefore belongs
to the symbolical.
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Lacan
finally adds the
real --
different from reality -- which is all
that is unbearable, impossible to
represent, which can neither be put into
images nor into symbols, nor expressed
through words, it is a
leftover.
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