Wittgenstein and Lacan at the Limit (eBook)

Meaning and Astonishment

Maria Balaska (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2019 | 1st ed. 2019
XVII, 171 Seiten
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-030-16939-8 (ISBN)

Infos

This book brings together the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Lacan around their treatments of 'astonishment,' an experience of being struck by something that appears to be extraordinarily significant. Both thinkers have a central interest in the dissatisfaction with meaning that these experiences generate when we attempt to articulate them, to bring language to bear on them. Maria Balaska argues that this frustration and difficulty with meaning reveals a more fundamental characteristic of our sense-making capacities -namely, their groundlessness. Instead of disappointment with language's sense-making capacities, Balaska argues that Wittgenstein and Lacan can help us find in this revelation of meaning's groundlessness an opportunity to acknowledge our own involvement in meaning, to creatively participate in it and thereby to enrich our forms of life with language.

Maria Balaska is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

Inhalt

Dedication 6
Preface 7
Contents 10
About the Author 13
Chapter 1: Introduction 14
1.1 The Experience of Astonishment 14
1.2 A Fine Summer Day: Wittgenstein’s Description 18
1.3 A Stormy, Tiring Day: Lacan’s Description 22
References 26
Chapter 2: The Expression of Astonishment 28
2.1 A Difficulty with Meaning 28
2.2 The Groundlessness of Meaning 31
2.3 Deflection: An Avoidance of the Groundlessness of Meaning 37
2.4 The Recourse to Transcendence: Grounding Meaning in Metaphysics 38
2.5 The Recourse to Facts: Astonishment as a Grammatical Illusion 40
References 44
Chapter 3: Groundlessness in the Tractatus 45
3.1 The Tractatus: A Story About Groundlessness 45
3.2 The World Is All That Is the Case: A Moment of Astonishment 46
3.3 The Nature of Signification: The Symbol 49
3.4 Grounding Meaning in the a priori: The Lure of an Autonomous Logical Syntax 51
3.5 Why Logical Syntax Presupposes Meaningfulness 56
3.6 Grounding Meaning in the a priori: The Lure of Grounding Meaning in Objects 60
3.7 Anti-apriorism in the Tractarian Objects 64
3.8 Leaving Grounding to the Application of Logic 68
3.9 Summing Up and Moving On 72
References 76
Chapter 4: The Groundlessness of Meaning in Lacan’s Work 78
4.1 The Enthralling Phenomenon of Meaning: Introducing Lacan’s Theory of the Signifier 78
4.2 The Real: Ground and Groundlessness 84
4.3 Meaning as a Discursive Construction: The Temptation of a Recourse to Facts 86
4.4 The Real Qua Substratum: The Temptation of Metaphysics 90
4.5 Beyond the Two Temptations: The Real as Ab-sens 94
References 102
Chapter 5: From Deflection to Reflection: A Creative Involvement with Language 105
5.1 Introduction 105
5.2 The Miraculousness of a Stove in Wittgenstein and Heraclitus 107
5.3 Significance Qua Bedeutung: The Recovery of Logical Space 111
5.4 Wittgenstein’s Own Temptation to Deflect 115
5.5 An Example of Reflection 118
References 127
Chapter 6: From Groundlessness to Creativity: The Merits of Astonishment for Wittgenstein 130
6.1 This Running Up Against the Limits of Language Is Ethics 130
6.2 My Involvement with Meaning: A Critique of the Thinking Subject 134
6.3 My Involvement with Meaning: Willing as Acting 138
6.4 Uniqueness, Creativity, and the Ethical 141
References 148
Chapter 7: From Groundlessness to Creativity: The Merits of Astonishment for Lacan 150
7.1 The Ethics of the Real 150
7.2 Where It Was, I Shall Come into Being 152
7.3 What Kind of Subject? 156
7.4 Returning to the Meaning of One’s Actions: Desire and Responsibility 159
7.5 A Creative Involvement with Meaning 162
References 168
Chapter 8: Conclusion 171
References 174
Index 175

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.6.2019
• Zusatzinfo: XVII, 171 p. 1 illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
• Schlagworte: Lacanian theory • language • Logic • Philosophy of Emotions • psychoanalytic theory • Theology • Wittgenstein’s philosophy
• ISBN-10: 3-030-16939-1 / 3030169391
• ISBN-13: 978-3-030-16939-8 / 9783030169398