{"id":1184,"date":"2008-11-10T17:08:46","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T21:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2013-06-06T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T22:22:10","slug":"ontologically-incomplete-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2008\/11\/10\/ontologically-incomplete-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"ontologically incomplete structures"},"content":{"rendered":"

So instead of prioritizing totalised and determining social structures on the one hand, or fully constituted subjects on the other, we begin by accepting that social agents always find themselves\u00a0\u2019thrown\u2019 into a system of meaningful practices. an immersion that both shapes their identity and structures their practices.\u00a0 However, we also add the critical rider that these structures are ontologically incomplete.\u00a0 Indeed, it is in the \u2019space\u2019 or \u2018gap\u2019 of social structures, as they are rendered visible in moments of crisis and dislocation, that a political subject can emerge through particular \u2018acts of identification\u2019.\u00a0 Moreover, as these identifications are understood to take place across a range of possible ideologies or\u00a0discourses \u2013\u00a0some of which are excluded or repressed\u00a0\u2013 and as these are always incomplete, then any <\/em><\/strong>form of identification is doomed to fall short of its promise <\/span><\/p>\n

In sum, social structures and forms of life are not only composed of relations of hierarchy and domination; even more pertinently, they are marked by gaps and fissures, and forged by political exclusions.\u00a0 And the making visible of these gaps in the structures through dislocatory experiences makes it possible for subjects to identify anew, and thus to act differently <\/span>(79). <\/span><\/p>\n

free decisions and actions are likened to miracles, which are characterized as an ability ‘to begin something new’, that is, to set in motion events and practices that cannot be controlled and whose consequences cannot be foretold. Indeed, echoing her once-mentor Heidegger, freedom involves the ‘abyss <\/em>of nothingness that opens up before any deed than cannot be accounted for by a reliable chain of cause and effect and is inexplicable in Aristotelian categories of potentiality and actuality’ (Arendt cited in Zizek 2001:113) (79).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short, following Heidegger, subjects are \u2018thrown\u2019 into a world not of their choosing, but have the capacity under certain conditions to act differently.\u00a0 But more than this we need also to be able to explain the constitution and reproduction of the social relations into which they have been thrown, and we need also to account for the way in which subjects are gripped by certain discourses and ideologies. Our poststructuralist approach strives to unfold a social ontology adequate to these tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So instead of prioritizing totalised and determining social structures on the one hand, or fully constituted subjects on the other, we begin by accepting that social agents always find themselves\u00a0\u2019thrown\u2019 into a system of meaningful practices. an immersion that both shapes their identity and structures their practices.\u00a0 However, we also add the critical rider that … Continue reading “ontologically incomplete structures”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,40,57,16,15,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dislocation","category-lack","category-ontical","category-ontology","category-subjectivity","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","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=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11182,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/11182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}