As for reading theology - I was reading GK Chesterton a couple of weeks ago. The guy's quite smart, but his ideas are dire. The matter of your religion is a lifestyle choice dressed up as a discussion about some sort of spiritual reality. I believe this dirty little (self-)deception is at the heart of all theology and that's why it shouldn't be taken seriously. But I have read a bit of theology and I am aware of what transubstantiation is. Is it relevant to Capital beyond following Marx's metaphors? I don't think so.
Zizek: seems like a nob
- Thread starter el-ahrairah
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No, you're an idealist because you reduce social reality to a matter of belief and faith.
Mad4ziz
Member
To which I reply (from http://www.lacan.com/zizwoman.htm, with a bit added in italics):
Here, one should recall the passage from consciousness to self-consciousness in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: what one encounters in the suprasensible Beyond is, as to its positive content, the same as our terrestrial everyday world; this same content is merely transposed to a different modality. Hegel's point, however, is that it would be false to conclude from this identity of content that there is no difference between the terrestrial reality and its Beyond: in its original dimension, Beyond is not some positive content but an empty place, a kind of screen onto which one can project any positive content whatsoever {e.g. for instance, Z's nob} this empty space is the subject. Once we become aware of it, we pass from Substance to Subject, i.e., from consciousness to self-consciousness.
love detective
there's no love too small
So to summarise, from our terrestrial reality & every day world perspective, Zizek is a nob
But in the suprasensible beyond, while he retains his nobishness, albeit transposed to a different a modality, he's primarily an empty place with no positive content?
But in the suprasensible beyond, while he retains his nobishness, albeit transposed to a different a modality, he's primarily an empty place with no positive content?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I think this is slightly careless use of the word consciousness - this is happening on the plant consciousness thread too. Humans become self-consciousness at around age 3-5. This isn't an all-of-a-sudden thing, but a gradual realisation, which happens due to the recognition of others. Does that mean that we are 'substance' before the age of 4, say? Why so? To be conscious but not to be aware that you are conscious is still to be a subject. After all, when we are totally engrossed in an activity, we are not at that moment self-conscious.
Quite smart? Quıte smart? The greatest Englısh poet of the twentıeth century ıs what he ıs:
''Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
DON JOHN OF AUSTRİA İS GOİNG TO THE WAR!''
sunnysidedown
caput mortuum
christ on a bike.
Take more water with it. He's okay, but not the greatest. Far better at fiction.
Quite.
Mad4ziz
Member
I think the self consciousness being referred to is the awareness of the anamorphotic aspect- not the awareness of self, but the perspective from which the activity in question makes sense (due to the fantastic character of what fills the empty space. The subject is the perspectival aspect itself
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Right. Well I would think that most people would call that simple 'consciousness'. In the above formulation, 'self-conscious' is being used to mean what I would call 'conscious', while 'conscious' is being used to mean what I would call 'not conscious'.
It is simply a rather obscure restatement of the problem, rather than any kind of proposed solution. Perhaps that's one of my problems with continental philosophy - it isn't offering the kind of solutions I think it is suggesting that it is offering; it's simply offering ever more opaque and confusing ways of stating the problem.
Mad4ziz
Member
Perhaps a way to look at it is this: the empty space is empty due to being an unconscious blank (void) around which our everyday life (conducted symbolically) circulates; we fill it with conscious "positive content"; when we become (somewhat) aware of the perspectival, anamorphotic aspect of what we consciously posit (what our contribution to the scene is-what Lacan would call objet petit a), we are (to some extent) self conscious.
I fear your "consciousness" tacitly assumes a neutral ground "out there", rather than taking account of the possibility that we find only what we search for
love detective
there's no love too small
lol
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Have you heard of a man called John Mcdonnell?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Hmmm. That sounds like what Dennett would call a deepity. It's either wrong, or it is trivially true. I'm not sure it actually means anything at all, mind. Sounds like a mystic formulation intended to sound deep and meaningful, but really just a fairly random and arbitrary selection of phrases.
love detective
there's no love too small
the zizek of emptiness, the emptiness of zizek
Mad4ziz
Member
Dan Dennett has argued (in "Freedom evolves") and I agree with him that the toss of a coin results in an event without a cause-all the myriad influences that determine the outcome are condensed into a binary result .
Zizek would argue that a subject is the blinding effect of the excess of the real that cannot be assimilated in the symbolic (so that as articul68 puts it the excess results in a void).
Where Zizek would differ from DD is that DD believes that in principle there is a God like perspective "on everything" i.e that determinism means that effectively the universe may be seen as in amber.
Zizek thinks there is no neutral ground ie that the universe isn't deterministic. See my very early posts on this forum.
love detective
there's no love too small
it's just words isn't it, empty empty words
at what stage does realness get too much that there's an excess which starts to blind us?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That makes no real sense to me. At best it sounds like another unnecessarily obscure restatement of the problem under discussion. What does it add?
Mad4ziz
Member
it's just words isn't it, empty empty words
at what stage does realness get too much that there's an excess which starts to blind us?
When things don't run smoothly...perhaps when one needs a therapist? Or a beer?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is (bad) poetry, not philosophy, surely.
TruXta
tired
This mismatched salad of words simply boils down to the fact that we have limited attention spans (temporally and spatially) and as such must partially at least construct the world based on what our social relations allow us. This has been known to anyone who's ever learned a language and discovered words for things he/she never knew about before. And what the cocking fuck does anamorphotic mean?
Mad4ziz
Member
Tritely, but with some seriousness, I'll say "Depends on whether one's perspective is scientistic normative, or continental normative"
Perhaps a continental philo would ask what DD's obscure words (bootstrap; evitability) add?
TruXta
tired
You don't actually believe this has any meaning do you? The excess of the real? Sounds like what happens the day after a big session.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
God I hate that word 'scientistic', as if a scientific viewpoint were merely one position out of many equally valid positions. It's kind of on a par with assertions that evolution is 'just a theory'.
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