QU'EN EST-IL DE L'INCONSCIENT CHEZ FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE

This paper is a philological and epistemological study of the concept of the unconscious envisaged in Saussure. The study investigates whether the unconscious in Saussure can be put to question. Most Saussurian specialists have not as of yet raised any questions on this subject. The researches were simply limited to various comparisons between Saussurian concepts with those of Freud. The paper reconstructs the very concept of the unconscious in the Course in General Linguistics, using Lacan as a mediator between Saussure and Freud. Special attention is given to the linguistic subject who is unconscious about the law of langue, which contrasts it to the conscious of other social subjects and can be observed in the semiotic change of a social system. While not suggesting a hasty comparison between Saussure and Freud the paper draws an epistemological point of convergence. In other words, the paper tries to prove that the descriptive unconsciousness operates and intervene in the paradigmatic function of langue and that the topical unconsciousness operates to the syntagmatic function.