Provocation as Communication in the Light of Psychoanalysis

The standard theory of communication relies on the technological definition of communication, that is, on the technological notion of ratonality. But in the 20th century some major epistemological and philosophical changes affecting this notion occurred. Among them, one of the important developments was connected with psychoanalysis, both as a theory and practice. This essay tries to look into the concept of communication in the light of psychoanalytic discovery of the unconscious, both in Sigmund Freud’s and Jacuqes Lacan’s challenges to the modern concept of communication as only a rational activity.