The status of the missing signifier is transcendental. Its absence serves only to shape the signifying structure in the same way that Kant conceives the regulative ideas of reason shaping the structure of our understanding. 274<\/p>\n
The key to responding to the absence of the<\/strong> binary signifier<\/span> lies in recognizing its presence within the signifying structure,<\/span><\/strong> or, to put it in Derrida\u2019s terms, in recognizing the immanence of what resists thought within thought itself.<\/p>\n This signifier [binary signifier<\/span>]… does not exist, even as a trace, which is what Lacan is getting at when he insists that \u201cthe Woman does not exist\u201d or \u201cthe Other does not exist.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Recognizing the nonexistence of this signifier changes the way we relate to the signifying structure and has clear political consequences.<\/p>\n Rather than respecting the gap in signification as the placeholder for the missing signifier, we should recognize that nothing<\/span> exists in the gap and that<\/strong> nothing<\/span><\/strong> really is, for us,<\/strong> something<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n The gap marks the point at which senselessness itself is included in the world of signification. Nothing or senselessness is not a specter that haunts the system but the very basis of the symbolic system.<\/p>\n The absence of the<\/strong> binary signifier<\/span> constitutes the social as such<\/strong>, which means that this missing signifier is not simply absent but present as an absence. The missing signifier is already here, already within the signifying structure, constantly making its effects felt on this structure.<\/p>\n When we recognize the transcendental status of the missing signifier we can give up the impossible pursuit of it that dominates the contemporary popular intellectual landscape. … Hermeneutics embarks on an endless quest for the impossible signifier that it can never find \u2013 it is an unending process of seeking \u2013 but psychoanalytic interpretation finds without seeking. … I do not seek I find<\/em> <\/strong>To find, in the sense that Lacan uses the term here, signifies recognizing the missing signifier as a structuring presence<\/span>. 275<\/p>\n The endless seeking of the hermeneutic position functions as a barrier to genuine political engagement<\/strong>; it allows the subject to avoid the political act of identifying itself with the missing signifier.<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n This identification is the result of the finding that Lacan mentions. The psychoanalytic position fully takes up the advocacy of the missing signifier, and it can do so because this signifier is not external to the signifying structure but ensconced within it as that which gives the structure its form, so that there is no risk that the identification will transform it into a full presence within the structure.<\/p>\n The missing signifier does not reside elsewhere, on a separate plane, but rather operates within the signifying structure. Even the most banal moments of everyday life center around the missing signifier, which animates them with whatever vitality they possess. Every aspect of the signifying structure takes the missing signifier as its point of departure because this gap marks the point at which the structure opens itself to the new and different.<\/p>\n We affirm the missing signifier not just when we politicize ourselves through fidelity to the exceptional event that occurs in the space of the missing signifier or void but through all the variegations of our everyday lives.<\/p>\n Every aspect of the signifying structure is already informed by the gap.<\/strong> We can identify with the missing signifier in its absence, and this is the gesture that a genuine politics demands. 276<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The status of the missing signifier is transcendental. Its absence serves only to shape the signifying structure in the same way that Kant conceives the regulative ideas of reason shaping the structure of our understanding. 274 The key to responding to the absence of the binary signifier lies in recognizing its presence within the signifying … Continue reading “mcgowan missing binary signifier”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,40,72,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jouissance","category-lack","category-objet-a","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11782,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781\/revisions\/11782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}