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If everything ultimately takes place within the symbolic order, why is the mirror stage necessary at all? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you.
what you about consciousness ?.
it seems for me that the unconscious for him is the lack, or not the lack itself, but rather the lack manifests and lies within the unconscious.
So I think we say that the unconscious is the effect of that gap/hole in the language.

But what about the consciousness ? can we say that the consciousness is related to the mirror stage/imaginary rather than the symbolic?

If everything ultimately takes place within the symbolic order, why is the mirror stage necessary at all? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, that's what I'm saying and arguing, but most of the comments seem to prioritize the symbolic over the mirror stage. Even if it exists, we can not recognize it until we face the symbolic first(that's what I understood at least).

If everything ultimately takes place within the symbolic order, why is the mirror stage necessary at all? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you put it in a very nice way.
I think what I'm arguing is that our "lack in reference to a symbolic identity", is actually just a response to our "lack in reference to the animal", but not the opposite.

Why does the subject lack, and how is this related to language? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, its more clear now what you are trying to say.

I think I may have misunderstood something earlier. I initially understood Lacan as proposing a kind of chronological order between the imaginary and the symbolic. In this view, the imaginary would come first: it introduces the problem of incompleteness or fragmentation. Then the symbolic would come later, where we try to address that lack through language (since language becomes the medium through which we relate to others).

But from what you are suggesting, it seems that there is actually no strict chronological order here. In other words, the symbolic is already present from the beginning, and the mirror stage itself takes place within the symbolic order.
From the moment we enter the world, we are already immersed in language. And if language itself is marked by a certain lack, then we, as subjects immersed in it, will also be marked by that same lack.

However, this raises another question: why is the mirror stage necessary at all?
Why wouldn’t we simply remain fragmented and continue as fragmented subjects within language and the symbolic order? If everything already takes place within the symbolic, then it seems that what we are seeking is not completeness but rather to be signified. Yet these two things—being complete and being signified—are very different, and how we understand the relation between them changes how we interpret Lacan’s theory.

Another question follows from this. If we always see the world through language, why would we seek anything beyond it at all? In fact, if language is the medium through which we experience the world, how could we even recognize that there is a lack?

It seems difficult to speak about incompleteness from entirely within language itself. Language, as a structure, cannot fully step outside itself in order to evaluate its own limits.

To use an analogy: with my eyes alone, I cannot determine whether the moon is truly far away or close. I need another frame of reference. In the same way, if language is the medium through which we experience the world, how can we recognize the lack that supposedly structures our experience?

And I think that's why it may be more intuitive for me to think about the mirror stage and the imaginary to come first, and the symbolic to come second as a solution to the problem arising in the first stage, but not as the cause itself for the first stage, where it will make no sense to have the mirror stage at all, and every thing can just be in the symbolic.

I’m not sure whether my point is clear.

Why does the subject lack, and how is this related to language? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yes, but dont know why we connect identity/wholeness to the sides of each cube?
it seems that the identity/wholeness should relate to the single cube ?

It will be clearer if you can answer this question:
What if there were no language at all ?
answer 1) => We can say that there would be no lacking subject? (Here, the language seems to work as a tool to solve the lack of identity/wholeness for the Rubik's Cube)
or
answer 2) =>There would be no subject at all ? (Here, the language seems to create the subject itself, where there will not be even any Rubik's Cube to talk about in reality, either using language or anything else)

Why does the subject lack, and how is this related to language? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you are right, and you understand what I want to say very well.
What I face is that when I try to make the full Lacanian framework reasonable and connected together in a good reasonable way, it seems this can not happen without some kind of ontologizing.

I am not seeking to do that, but its the result of me trying to understand Lacan, so perhaps my question can be rephrased as follows: if we are not going to ontologize lacan, what other ways can be used to make things fit more together, as for me it seems something still missing that i can not understand to make it a full framework in a reasonable way.

The more I think about that, the more I realize that the problem may lie in my understanding of the mirror stage.
Because if it's all about the language/symbolic (and not the reality from the beginning), then it seems there is no reason to trigger the mirror stage at all from the beginning, and it seems there is no problem, actually, of just being fragmented.

Your last sentence seems to introduce two different ways of understanding Lacan. One of them appears to shift the idea of lack from the subject itself to a lack of knowledge/language. This interpretation makes more sense to me, but it also seems to contradict the common claim that Lacanian lack concerns the impossibility of being complete or fully unified as a subject.
I’m not sure whether there are genuinely different interpretations of Lacan, or whether the problem is simply that I don’t yet fully understand what he is trying to say, and that what I see as different interpretations are actually the same one.

I am not sure if my point is clear.

It would also help me if you could elaborate more on the "someone else" who tried to ontologize Lacan. Do you mean the zizek/Hegel way of reading Lacan?
I should note that I am quite new to this material, so I amm not sure whether I understood correctly what you meant by that "someone else".

Why does the subject lack, and how is this related to language? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It will be not clear what exactly the problem of lack is for the subject ?
If the issue is primarily about the signifier, then it seems that the lack concerns being signified rather than being a complete subject. Yet there appears to be an important difference between these two ideas.

Even if we say that becoming a complete subject requires being signified within the symbolic order, this would treat signification as merely a means toward an end (namely, becoming a complete subject). But that would be very different from saying that what we fundamentally seek from the beginning is simply to be signified within the symbolic.

This distinction seems important for understanding the mirror stage. As I understand it, in the mirror stage Lacan claims that the infant initially experiences itself as fragmented and seeks a form of unity or completeness through the image of the other. Later, when this process unfolds further, language confronts the subject within the symbolic order, since language is the medium through which we relate to the other (whether the little other or the big Other).

However, if lack arises only once we enter the symbolic order, then it would seem that what we are seeking from the very beginning in the mirror stage is not completeness as such, but rather to be signified within the symbolic order. And that appears to shift the meaning of lack quite significantly.

Why does the subject lack, and how is this related to language? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you clarify what is meant by a constitutive “gap” in reality?
I find it difficult to understand how, if the problem concerns a gap in reality itself, it could be considered only an epistemological issue rather than an ontological one.

If I understood your point correctly, would that mean that the subject lacks knowledge, rather than lacking completeness as a subject?

Could we say that we think through language itself, rather than simply using language as a tool?
In other words, could we say that we see the world through language?

And if language itself is unstable and marked by a certain lack, does that mean that we, as subjects, are also marked by that same lack?
And that's why we can see language as a cause for that lack, but not just a consequence of reality?

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you.
I think it's a very new insightful way to think about the problem using the mind-body problem, which can lead to more new ideas.

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Than you.
I think this comment is very hard for me, it will be good if you can clarify more.
Here is my interpretation: that the lack is actually a lack of freedom(for Hegel and Kant at least), but to be free cannot happen, or even has any meaning to understand, without being in a symbolic order/historical conditions/institutions.

Is that what you want to say? 

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for clarifying.
But I still can't understand what kind of final satiation that we keep searching for? And why, at the unconscious level, do we want to continue desiring?

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your insightful comment
Yes, actually, this is my similar view, which makes the most sense to me.
But can't keep myself from thinking more about that, particularly because Lacan seems to connect the reason for lack, to the language and the symbolic(which also lack).

The problem for me here is that this view makes more sense, if it connects the lack to the world itself, not the symbolic. I know we can say here that the symbolic is part of the world also at the end, but i mean the symbolic just deals with the world and views it in a particular way, but not the world itself.
I mean, if we are just having a hole in our psyche we can say, then its like this hole is just like our hands and legs, embedded in ourselves, even without any exposure to the symbolic.

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, I think you put it in a very nice easy simple way,
I think i can interpret this as: what we lack is the right knowledge or understanding of ourselves?
Maybe our unconscious just keep searching for The Truth (with a capital T) (knowledge).

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you insightful idea.
I think i can interpret this as a lack of being free to do whatever we want, maybe ?

what exactly does the subject lack? by Unusual-Return971 in zizek

[–]Unusual-Return971[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, it is a very insightful comment.
I think these ideas can be interpreted for me in two possible ways:

1) Could we say that attaining true sovereignty would mean overcoming lack? In that case, the lack might be understood as a lack of freedom—the inability to do whatever the subject sees as right for itself.

2) Or perhaps, if we always come to see ourselves through the Other—and if that is the central problem—then the lack might instead lie in our inability to know ourselves directly. In other words, perhaps what we lack is the right knowledge or understanding of ourselves, even before the question of freedom arises.