...revolves solely around the issue of Being. Derrida attempts to specify the truth of Being or what it is, while Lacan attempts to specify how to conceive this truth of being, how to comport oneself to what it is such that one can then (if one wants) specify what it is.
Thus, this difference is also the difference between "deconstruction" or post-metaphysical philosophy, and psychoanalysis: philosophy specifies the truth of Being, while psycohanalysis makes beings ready to live towards Being.
Heidegger in his Letter on Humanism distinguishes both paths quite clearly: the destructuring or deconstruction of metaphysics as thinking the truth of Being focuses on the event, das Ereignis, of the specification of Being suddenly giving itself from Being itself, while comporting oneself towards Being means, essentially, acting ethically or culling from the truth of being laws that will allow oneself to live towards it. Both of these approaches Heidegger specifies as thinking Being somehow. Furthermore, he specifically specifies that these modes of thinking Being in its truth merely focus on two aspects of how Being is what it is: they thus both make up, if they are combined (how this is to be done is up for grabs), the most primordial way of thinking Being. These two aspects are unconcealment and concealment. Being as unconcealment is specified by Derrida, while comporting oneself to Being as concealment makes up the task of psychoanalysis. Each in turn opens itself up to the other: Derrida's specification of unconcealed Being opens itself up to the realm of Being in its concealment, while Lacan's psychoanalysis that orients someone towards concealed Being effectively orients her or him towards the truth of Being or unconcealment. Thus the fundamental concepts that both employ, différance and the Real, each constitute this "opening up" of their work to the other side of Being: différance rightly specifies the truth of Being as the difference between unconcealment and concealment, or presence and non-presence (this primordial difference, which, because it specifies the truth of Being, is before any difference we commonly know as a difference, is différance), while Lacan determines the Real as what for a being, if she or he lived it in its unconcealment, would break them, and yet as what essentially constitutes them and always constitutes as beings (indeed, the Real could be said to be lived différance). What this all comes down to is this: anyone who opposes a "modern doctrine of the subject" that both these thinkers paved the way towards to Heidegger's conception of a being (in relation to Being) is full of shit and doesn't know what she or he is saying. Until we have experienced how both Derrida and Lacan culled their respective thought from the thought of Heidegger (who indeed could not have developed it enough, and enough in each of these directions), until we do this like the French indeed did within their academies, we cannot legitimately get away with this opposition. This is because if we were to make this opposition, we would have to be saying that beings are something essentially different than what Heidegger said they are. And merely renaming them "subjects" as horrible pseudophilosophers within the American academy have done, could never actually bring this new being about--all they are doing is trying to find a shortcut to what in France resulted from this experience (the subject). Fortunately, the best thinkers here do experience this, and experience it rigorously. An example of a pseudophilosopher can be found here (see "Lacan's Marxism, Marxism's Lacan").
5 comments:
Your writing style reminds me of my brother's: erudite and impossible to follow. I envy your (and his) ability to obfuscate your meanings in labyrinthine prose.
You have potential as a philosopher.
;p
You quite daringly propose that "the Real could be said to be lived différance"... what possible connotations could that have to "therapy" might I ask?
Yeah--I don't know if I think that sentence can actually mean anything anymore... I think the rest of the post is somewhat in the right direction: I was really just trying to situate Derrida and Lacan in Heidegger. A sort of post-existential therapy does, I think, become possible here, but only I think on the Lacanian side. I don't know really how Derrida could be integrated into any therapeutic technique--simply because he would already always be a part of any therapeutic technique. Go figure.
Well there have been certain noteworthy attempts to integrate/use Derrida and his works for "therapy", namely "Narrative Therapy" (with the daring & somewhat paradoxical attempt at using Deconstruction) and also a certain falava of therapy which Lois Shawver calls (Postmodern Therapy). Talking of which, am trying to get a copy of the two books: -
"Conversation, Language, And Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach To Therapy" by Harlene Anderson.
And
"Nostalgic Postmodernism: Postmodern Therapy" by Lois Shawver.
You read any of 'em?
And well, i think i kind of relate to yur liking for Lacan on these things, but have you considered using Wittgenstein's Language approach to Lacan's Unconscious coupled with Girard's theory of Mimetic Desire to Lacan's Desire-of-the-Other and Girard's interpretation of Freud's "Totem and Taboo" (with his theory of the Scapegoat) to Lacan's heory of the dead-primordial-father?
[lol! Am aware of the seemingly immense analogies (/extrapolations) that I had drawn above among such diverse(?) thinkers... for kind of tried to do such a reading connecting the three thinkers in that way]
I cant understand you Anonymous. What did you meant to say? Can you say it more simply?
Post a Comment