… the strange attraction of the old Hollywood films from 30s and 40s in which actors are so obviously acting in front of a projected background?<\/p>\n
Recall the systematic use of this device in Hitchcock: Ingrid Bergman skiing down a mountain slope in front of a ridiculously discrepant snowy background in Spellbound<\/em> … the dining car table conversation between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, with a Hudson Bay background in which we pass three times the same barn in North by North-west<\/em>…<\/p>\n Although it is easy to project a conscious strategy into what may have been Hitchcock\u2019s simple sloppiness, it is difficult to deny the psychological resonance of these shots, as if the very discord between figure and background renders a key message about the depicted person\u2019s subjectivity. It was above all Orson Welles who perfected the expressive use of this technique: one of his standard shots is the American shot of the hero too close to the camera, with the blurred background which, even if it is a \u201ctrue\u201d background, nonetheless generates the effect of something artificial, acquiring a spectral dimension, as if the hero is not moving in a real world, but in a phantasmagoric virtual universe.<\/p>\n And does the same not go for modern subjectivity? Perhaps it is a crucial fact that Mona Lisa was painted at the dawn of modernity: this irreducible gap between the subject and its \u201cbackground,\u201d the fact that a subject never fully fits its environs, is never fully embedded in it, defines subjectivity<\/span>.<\/p>\n The Kantian Ding an sich<\/span> (the Thing-in-itself, beyond phenomena) is not simply a transcendental entity beyond our grasp, but something discernible only via the irreducibly antinomic character of our experience of reality. (And, as Ren\u00e9 Girard pointed out, is not the first full assertion of the ethical parallax the Book of Job, in which the two perspectives \u2014 the divine order of the world and Job\u2019s complaint \u2014 are confronted, and neither is the \u201ctruthful\u201d one?\u00a0 The truth resides in their very gap, in the shift of perspective<\/span>.)<\/p>\n Let us take Kant\u2019s confrontation with the epistemological antinomy that characterized his epoch: empiricism versus rationalism.<\/p>\n Kant\u2019s solution is neither to choose one of the terms, nor to enact a kind of higher \u201csynthesis\u201d which would \u201csublate<\/span>\u201d the two as unilateral, as partial moments of a global truth (nor, of course, does he withdraw to pure skepticism);<\/p>\n the stake of his \u201ctranscendental turn\u201d is precisely to avoid the need to formulate one\u2019s own \u201cpositive\u201d solution. What Kant does is to change the very terms of the debate;<\/p>\n his solution\u2014the transcendental turn\u2014is unique in that it, first, rejects any ontological closure: it recognizes a certain fundamental and irreducible limitation (\u201cfinitude\u201d) of the human condition, which is why the two poles, rational and sensual, active and passive, cannot ever be fully mediated \u2014 reconciled<\/span>.<\/p>\n The \u201csynthesis\u201d of the two dimensions \u2014 that is, the fact that our Reason seems to fit the structure of external reality that affects us \u2014 always relies on a certain salto mortale or \u201cleap of faith.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Far from designating a \u201csynthesis\u201d of the two dimensions, the Kantian \u201ctranscendental\u201d rather stands for their irreducible gap \u201cas such\u201d: the \u201ctranscendental\u201d points at something in this gap<\/span>, a new dimension<\/span> which cannot be reduced to any of the two positive terms between which the gap is gaping<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And Kant does the same with regard to the antinomy between the Cartesian cogito as res cogitans<\/span>, the \u201cthinking substance,\u201d a self-identical positive entity, and Hume\u2019s dissolution of the subject in the multitude of fleeting impressions: against both positions, he asserts the subject of transcendental apperception<\/span> which, while displaying a self-reflective unity irreducible to the empirical multitude, nonetheless lacks any substantial positive being, such that it is in no way a res cogitans<\/span>.<\/p>\n Perhaps, the best way to describe the Kantian break towards this new dimension is with regard to the changed status of the notion of the \u201cin-human.\u201d Kant introduced a key distinction between negative and indefinite judgment: the positive judgment \u201cthe soul is mortal\u201d can be negated in two ways, when a predicate is denied to the subject (\u201cthe soul is not mortal\u201d), and when a non-predicate is affirmed (\u201cthe soul is non-mortal\u201d).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n not dead\/undead and not human\/inhuman<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The difference is exactly the same as the one, known to every reader of Stephen King, between \u201che is not dead\u201d and \u201che is un-dead<\/strong>.\u201d The indefinite judgment opens up a third domain, which undermines the underlying distinction: the \u201cundead\u201d are neither alive nor dead, they are precisely the monstrous \u201cliving dead.\u201d<\/p>\n And the same goes for \u201cinhuman\u201d: \u201che is not human\u201d is not the same as \u201che is inhuman\u201d \u2014 \u201che is not human\u201d means simply that he is external to humanity, animal or divine; while \u201che is inhuman\u201d means something thoroughly different, namely that he is neither human nor inhuman, but marked by a terrifying excess which, although it negates what we understand as \u201chumanity,\u201d is inherent to being human<\/span>.<\/p>\n And, perhaps, one should risk the hypothesis that this is what changes with the Kantian revolution: in the pre-Kantian universe, humans were simply humans, beings of reason, fighting the excesses of animal lusts and divine madness,<\/p>\n while only with Kant and German Idealism is the excess to be fought absolutely immanent, the very core of subjectivity itself<\/span> (which is why, with German Idealism, the metaphor for the core of subjectivity is Night, “Night of the World”<\/span> in contrast to the Enlightenment notion of the Light of Reason fighting the darkness around).<\/p>\n So when, in the pre-Kantian universe, a hero goes mad, it means he is deprived of his humanity, that is, the animal passions or divine madness took over;<\/p>\n while with Kant, madness signals the unconstrained explosion of the very core of a human being.<\/span><\/p>\n Which, then, is this new dimension that emerges in the gap itself?<\/p>\n It is that of the transcendental I itself, of its \u201cspontaneity\u201d: the ultimate parallax, the third space between phenomena and noumenon itself, is the subject\u2019s freedom\/spontaneity, which \u2014 although, of course, it is not the property of a phenomenal entity, so that it cannot be dismissed as a false appearance which conceals the noumenal fact that we are totally caught in an inaccessible necessity \u2014 is also not simply noumenal.<\/p>\n And Johnston\u2019s book is a detailed perspicuous elaboration of the consequences for psychoanalytic theory of this most radical dimension of the Kantian breakthrough.\u00a0 He takes literally Lacan\u2019s claim that Kant\u2019s philosophy was the initial moment in the line of thought which led to Freud\u2019s discovery \u2014 Lacan\u2019s own \u201creturn to Freud\u201d could be read precisely as an elevation of Freud to the dignity of a philosopher, as the reading of Freud\u2019s meta-psychology as a \u201ccritique of pure desire.\u201d And, as in the case of Kant him-self, the ethical consequences of this \u201creturn\u201d are shattering.<\/p>\n Traditionally, psychoanalysis was expected to allow the patient to overcome the obstacles which prevented him\/her access to \u201cnormal\u201d sexual enjoyment.\u00a0 Today, however, when we are bombarded from all sides by the different versions of the superego injunction \u201cEnjoy!\u201d \u2014 from direct enjoyment in sexual performance to enjoyment in professional achievement or in spiritual awakening \u2014 one should move to a more radical level: psychoanalysis is today the only discourse in which you are allowed NOT to enjoy (as opposed to \u201cnot allowed to enjoy\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … the strange attraction of the old Hollywood films from 30s and 40s in which actors are so obviously acting in front of a projected background? Recall the systematic use of this device in Hitchcock: Ingrid Bergman skiing down a mountain slope in front of a ridiculously discrepant snowy background in Spellbound … the dining … Continue reading “Kant antinomy”<\/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":[125,16,76,15,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drive","category-ontology","category-sub-destitute","category-subjectivity","category-the-real","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390","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=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9393,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions\/9393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}