Can anyone explain this to me in slightly less arcane terms?
It would surprise me if anyone could in fact. The Thing is of course supposed to describe something which we normally do not describe, this is clear from Lacans description. But just this makes it so tempting to try to grasp it a bit better.
I have previously written a lot about God, and I am tempted to use that concept here again, but that would probably bore the hell out of everyone, and get me nowhere. So, what may be more useful, is the concept of Truth.
The word truth has many different meanings, and these are explored in philosophy ad nauseam, nowhere and never ever leading anywhere closer to a firm grasp of what in the end truth is supposed to be, if we do not simply mean it to be the correct answer to a clearly outlined question, composed of terms everyone who matters in the situation agrees on, or as in knowing the truth, as in knowing what really happened.
There is this other ´level´ of truth, wherein truth is seen as something that is not simply an accurate phrasing of some specific relation or event, i.e. something in all ways inferior to a context, but something which in fact provides the substance to a context. Truth in the sense of ´essence´, that which is beneath, at the basis of all phenomena as they are perceived and interpreted, which enables the very act of interpreting in a given situation, the ground of being on which the conception of a context is built. By ground of being I mean that which sets apart some of existence from the turmoil of meaningless becoming as science understands the universe, into ´something´, i.e. an object, indeed that which originally man must have meant when he said ´soul´. Every thing that stands out from the undifferentiated flux of existence is a thing, object, meaning, soul. These words all mean the same. At least, they refer to the same.
Now, `The´ Thing is not such an object or soul, it is rather that which enables the very conception of a soul, the souls ground. It is Thingness itself, without the thing. In the Platonic world, it would be the spirit of form. That from which the form, which is closely related to what Freud calls Vorsrtellung, derives its authority.
Evidently it is not easy to put a finger on this quality, and as far as I know only the more obscurist philosophers try to do this. Because whenever one attempts to describe something which by its very nature stands away from language, as a sun stands away from its satellites, the language used is bound to revolve in circles just like such a satellite. And this is what we see so clearly in Heidegger, this is why he is so comical and absurd. But, as clear as Nietzsche was about the futility of trying to approach that which defies every conception, about the fickle nature of Truth, the all importance of context of perspective to understanding, attaining and operating power, if we do not hold to such a functionalist perspective as Nietzsche, and approach our mind and its conceptions, i.e. the world, without wanting anything from it, without desiring power, without coupling everything to what it means to our life, then the question Truth comes again to the foreground as the suggestion of a totally inhuman idea. As precisely that which is not caught up in this anthropomorph image we inevitably have of existence if we insist on understanding it directly.
I’ve written too much of nothing here, circumscribing the idea which keeps itself away from me, touching on it only by maintaining an equal distance from it - touching the effect it has on me. I will reflect some more and read some more, and come back to this topic perhaps in terms of the Epoch of Truth, as Heidegger puts it somewhere - or, possibly, to stand corrected by someone who is better informed as to what Freud actually meant. I have access to the complete works fo Freud, but keep away from it and orbit it almost as if it were das Ding itself. As such, unattained but felt, it hold unquestionable value.
From the passage you quoted, I don’t think that’s clear at all. The reference to Freud suggests that it’s the object to which the child attaches itself (object-cathexis)—thus, in the first place, the body of the mother.
That could make sense.
That object being something we indeed rather feel, and revolve around with our consciousness, than cognitively grasp.
As soon as we would understand it, the mothers body has (hopefully) ceased to fully represent that object. Whats left of that attachment would be part of the Oedipus complex…
Okay. Well, I think “the thing” is ultimately the whole cosmos: the child seeks to “swallow in the world”. And those whose supreme will to power is to do so “spiritually” are Nietzsche’s genuine philosophers: Dionysuses whose Ariadne is ultimately the whole cosmos.
Yes: that part of the attachment that is not sublimated, but neurotic.
Awesome. Thanks, that is a big help.
That leaves me with two questions: How does the part that is sublimated manifest? And, now that the mother side is connected the “the thing” and thereby clarified, is there an analogous theoretical object (dont quite know how to phrase that) for the (kill-the-) father-side?
I’m assuming it is not just about getting him out of the way to get to the mother…
Interesting question.
I think it is about getting him out of the way to get to the mother; about taking his place. For the father is viewed as the superior rival, the one who is already in the position to “swallow in the world”.
But the reason for wanting to take his place is the will to become father to oneself. “Fuck the mother”. I am reminded of Nietzsche:
[size=95]Philosophy is [the] tyrannical drive [to create the world in one’s own image], the most spiritual will to power, to the ‘creation of the world,’ to the causa prima.
[BGE 9, trans. Zimmern.][/size]
The will to take the father’s place is essentially the will to become self-sufficient, in the sense of a self-cause.
Hm, I haven’t even answered your questions. How does the part that is sublimated manifest? In Nietzsche’s genuine philosophers, the sublimation is spiritualisation, so the sublimated will to “swallow in the world” is the will to create—in a metaphorical sense—the world in one’s own image.
As for the theoretical object analogous to the father: if the “mother” is the entire cosmos, is not the “father” one’s predecessor in creating the world in one’s own image? I suspect great genuine philosophers must always, be it openly or secretly, be unfaithful to their “fathers”, though they must also be grateful to them.
So the father is then what blocks access to “the thing”. This makes sense, also when looking at myth, how Ouranos stood in the way of Kronos, and he of Zeus - the latter two made , by not so much killing as disempowering their father, claims to all-ness, to rulership and status of prime signifier.
I wonder if not even Christianity, the myth of the crucifixion, is a hidden ‘‘killing the father’’. After all, Jesus represented the Father when he let himself be crucified. He was even crucified because he claimed to represent the father. But this is a neurotic way of going about it, surely - to repress the desire for the kill, so to have it happen passively, with oneself as the victim, so that one does not have to feel guilt about it.
I’m glad you say that.
it is not easy, to be both grateful and unfaithful, is it?
Well, according to the Nietzschean interpretation of the history of philosophy, the goal is always the same; only the strategies are different. So one can be grateful for one’s “father’s” efforts to achieve that goal—the example he gave, openly or secretly—, while at the same time being unfaithful to his particular strategy. One may judge that the strategy was a good one at the time, but has now outlived its usefulness.
But even if one is, so to say, not a Zeus or a Kronos, but an Athena, there’s still a sense in which one is greater than one’s “father”: for one’s “father” has in the meantime become “old”, even if it’s only a little bit. Descartes may have been such an Athena to Bacon, who was then a Zeus. I do not believe every genuine philosopher must “castrate” or “imprison” his “father”.
Compare:
[size=95]The essential characteristic of the Grade [of Magus] is that its possessor utters a Creative Magical Word, which transforms the planet on which he lives by the installation of new officers to preside over its initiation. This can take place only at an “Equinox of the Gods” at the end of an “Aeon”; that is, when the secret formula which expresses the Law of its action becomes outworn and useless to its further development.
(Thus “Suckling” is the formula of an infant: when teeth appear it marks a new “Aeon,” whose “Word” is “Eating.”)
A Magus can therefore only appear as such to the world at intervals of some centuries; accounts of historical Magi, and their Words, are given in Liber Aleph.
This does not mean that only one man can attain this Grade in any one Aeon, so far as the Order is concerned. A man can make personal progress equivalent to that of a “Word of an Aeon”; but he will identify himself with the current word, and exert his will to establish it, lest he conflict with the work of the Magus who uttered the Word of the Aeon in which He is living.
[Crowley, “One Star In Sight”, V.][/size]
Fantastic response. When I have more time I will pose some questions I have concerning your reply.
My response to the OP will be a pretty basic interpretation of how I make sense of the Lacan quote… the definitions I “understand” as making sense, to me. Not sure if they’re exactly what Lacan, and/or Freud, would have “understood” them.
My input will be based on a… “psycholinguistic” view, I guess (maybe that isn’t the best choice of words, but it feels fitting), so I won’t be taking into account, nor using, many (or maybe any) basic psychodynamic perspectives and terms, into account. Won’t be mentioning mothers, sex, whatever, haha.
das ding = the thing
for a thing to be a thing, it must be distinguished from a… “mental backdrop”. ex: one focuses on, and deems, “a bear”–one is “conscious” of the bear, due to the brain “recognizing”/“piecing together” (configurations of, patterns of) sensual “attributes”/features, but these patterns of "bear feature recognition"s also depend on (obtain their “forms”, their “sensual patterns”, from) sensing what is NOT the bear (seeing the bear’s “edges”).
vorstellung = image, idea, formed in the mind
All consciousness (all language, all "mind"ness), stems from “the thing” (the basis of symbolic language)
Athena is indeed a good example, as she is born from the head of Zeus, making her a symbol of the higest aspect of the highest God. Zeus, without his uncivilized instincts, of which he possessed a great deal. Zeus as the fickle one, the all-mighty but hence unpredictable and a-moral raw mass of the Olympian mindset, Athena as a sublime, purely good extract of it. Indeed the surpassing of ancestry by progeny is illustrated well here.
Interesting quote. I have to experiment with the terms a bit to fit it into the context as i see it. Lets for a moment take Crowley literally.
An Aeon iwould be a Heideggerian Epoch of Truth, and it is during such an Epoch that “the thing” remains the same to man. The work of the Magus then, is to speak out the magical word which actually denotes, or is a form of, “the thing” itself - the logos of an age. I am reminded of “The secret name of God”, which, when uttered, destroys the world. The old world, that is, and ushers in the new.
Of course it is far from established that such a Magus would actually have to play a role, that a word would have to be utterted, but it is clearly evocative of the phrase “in the beginning was the Word”. If we see the word in terms of a logos, then it is very possible to see that das Ding, as the spirit of Platonic form I mentioned in the long, second post of this thread, is represented by a logos of an epoch. “the Word” pertaining to “the Thing” then, that makes sense. It is also clear that such a word does indeed change from age to age, from epoch to epoch.
Thanks, I’ll be glad to answer any questions.
That is true, and this not-the thing is aparently, what the dynamic of Vorstellung represents.
This is an interesing way of looking at it, even though the difference between “the” thing and a bear, is that the latter refers to something concrete, clearly outlined, defined, limited, whereas the former doesn’t.
I have to meditate on how the not-bear-ness, and the bears “edges” relate to not-thingness, to the edge of “the thing”, to relate the Vorstelling-pleasure principle-dynamic to the limits of something concrete. Your notion of “edge” here brings to mind the concept “jouissance” which keeps popping up in Lacan.
What exactly do you mean with “the dynamic of Vorstellung represents”?
Good question… I mean the dynamic of consciousness, which consists of “Vorstellung” - imagined idea, mental image. Basically, the dynamic of imagination represents the minds distance to The Thing itself.
Isn’t it weird that on this forum dedicated to psychology, psychoanalysis and its proponents are so poorly represented, hardly at all discussed? I don’t know if this is because of the climate, which dictates that psychoanalysis is intellectual nonsense, or because the subject is too difficult. Probably these two reasons are related.
My attempt here to bring psychoanalysis into the context of philosophy was less than strategic since it involves Heidegger - a thinker possibly even less popular in modernity than Freud - but I couldn’t find another way. Nietzsche, as I mentioned, is too straight-forward, and much of the rest is just hopelessly primitive, or completely practical (the English school). Maybe I should bring in Hegel, but he is the least popular of all -, and probably the most difficult.
Indirect is the motto here - the key opening up the philosophical space beyond Nietzsche, who in this indirect process of attaining essence gradually becomes known as a brilliant adolescent eroticizer of pseudo-independence, of limited selfhood, champion of the unessential, fleeting, evanescent.
The dynamic of imaginings (Vorstellungen) revolving around the the real is the Nietzschean (though not his own) type of willing - and essentially of the immature human type - the willing-to-power-directly, ultimately, the will to power of the criminal. This willing-directly results, if something like power is indeed attained, necessarily in loss of this power, which wasn’t real, or substantial, anyway. It revolves around the instinctual knowledge of the proximity of power - located in The Thing - but seeks it within its own libidinal horizon, as it cannot - does not desire to imagine that it is located anywhere else. Willing-to-power-directly is contained in the refusal, or incapacity to imagine the limitation of the willing subjects experience, relative to real power, to The thing. Paradoxically but quite logically, power, or essential existence, remains behind closed doors as long as it is reached for directly. One simply does not reach for power in such a case, but for a negation of ones actual existence.
Willing to power effectively, the type of employment of the will that results in power, is the employment of the will to a given substance - i.e. in labor, in exerting oneself beyond desire. Of course, this is how Nietzsche attained power - he toiled and toiled, yet he did not write for powers sake, but because his thinking forced him to. His mind, which consists as much of the Other, his pressing surrounding, as of his proper self, was his master, and he, the writer, the person, was the laborer. If Nietzsche had directly willed power, his notion of will to power would not have arisen, nothing would have happened; nothing essential, objective or lasting would have resulted from his life.
So what is The Thing? The Thing is the World itself, the ‘real truth’ which axiomatically appears as impossible to encapsulate in one human, which is not touched on by any language or science. It cannot be known objectively unless one objectifies oneself, becomes part of it, integrates oneself into its dynamics - becomes essential to it. In such a case, the drive of the ego to assert itself to itself as that which it is not, i.e. essential - is relinquished in favor of a more direct drive, which is self-propelling, or rather, propelled by its part in the grand scheme of things, by its partaking in The Thing. The drive becomes the being, the being becomes the drive, the activity - where before, the drive was merely the desire of the being to not be itself.
The Thing must then be seen as something indeed to be attained, but not by willing it, but rather by submitting to the demands made on us by it indirectly (through general pressure) in spite of our seemingly direct attraction to it as it is displaced into an ideal, a symbol - ($) which represents our defiance of this pressure.
This has to do for now - I readily admit that I take extreme liberties in interpreting The Thing, and I must note that I do not mean to suggest that my text here represents the thoughts of any of the renowned thinkers I have mentioned.