Freud introduced a new kind of science of human subjectivity into the twentieth century. After tracing the pathways of neurons in the laboratory and then studying the phenomenological experience of the human mind in relation to biological and other symptoms, Freud chose the diagram to condense his unquantifiable findings into the beginning of a logical science.

The first topography revolved around the Conscious, Pre-Conscious, and Unconscious (and Percept and Sign). The Second Topography used a model of Id, Ego, Superego – or rather It, I, and Over-I. These diagrams or maps of the psyche provide an initial orientation to the complexity of human experience in an attempt to the impossible task of objectifying subjectivity. After the the most concrete of sciences quantum physics and modern mathematics demonstrated the impossibility of becoming objective without including the subjectivity of the human scientist and the point of observation, Lacan turned to “topology” in order to continue Freud’s project.

We will examine psychoanalysis and related fields of modernity that have contributed to uniting the arts and sciences at this point of intersection of the act of the subject, including Peirce’s Semiotics and Existential Graphs for the future analyst.