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{"id":18748,"date":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=471"},"modified":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","slug":"indirect-subject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/03\/indirect-subject\/","title":{"rendered":"Indirect Subject"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

S<\/span>lavoj Zizek (Mythology, Madness, and Laughter<\/em><\/a>) explains Hegel\u2019s sublation of Kantian transcendentalism by noting that Hegel accepts Kant\u2019s root insight, the \u201cthe subjective constitution of reality, the split that separates the subject from the in-itself.\u201d Yet Hegel doesn\u2019t stop with this acceptance: \u201cthis very split is transposed back into reality as its kenotic self-emptying (to use the Christian theological term, as Hegel does). Appearance is not reduced to reality, the very process of appearance is conceived from the standpoint of reality, so that the question is not \u2018How, if at all, can we pass from appearance to reality?\u2019 but \u2018How can something like appearance arise in the midst of reality? What are the conditions for reality to appear to itself?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Zizek illustrates this with a practical illustration: \u201cHow do we proceed when we are challenged to explain the meaning of a term X to someone who, while more or less fluent in our language, doesn\u2019t know this specific term? We engage in proposing a vast series of synonyms, paraphrases, descriptions of situations where this term would fit . . . In this way, through the very failure of our endeavor, we circumscribe an empty place, the place of the right word, precisely the word we are trying to explain. So at some point, after our paraphrases fail, all we can do is to conclude skeptically: \u2018In short, it is X!\u2019 Far from functioning as a simple recognition of failure, this turn can generate an effect of insight: that is, if through our failed paraphrase we have successfully circumscribed the place of the term to be explained. At this point, as Lacan would have put it, \u2018signifier falls into the signified,\u2019 the term becomes part of its own definition\u201d (127).<\/p>\n

A love letter works on the same principle: \u201cthe very failure of the writer to formulate his declaration in a clear and efficient way, his oscillations, the letter\u2019s fragmentation, etc., can in themselves be the proof (perhaps the necessary and the only reliable proof) that the professed love is authentic\u2014here, the very failure to deliver the message properly is the sign of its authenticity. If the message is delivered in a smooth way, it arouses suspicions that it is part of a well-planned approach, or that the writer loves himself, the beauty of his writing, more than his love-object, i.e., that the object is effectively reduced to a pretext for engaging in the narcissistically satisfying activity of writing\u201d (128-9).<\/span><\/p>\n

Polonius may have been wiser than we think: By indirection we discover the direction to look for the subject.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"