‘What is a Symptom?’ by Slavoj Žižek

Рет қаралды 27,000

2 жыл бұрын

A short clip from ‘Alien, Marx & Co. - Slavoj Žižek, Ein Porträt’, a German 2010 cultural documentary by Susan Chales de Beaulieu and Jean-Baptiste Farkas.
Slavoj Žižek is a Philosopher and Psychoanalytic social theorist. He is Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana; Professor at the School of Law and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London; Distinguished Scholar at the Kyung Hee University, Seoul; and Visiting Professor at the German Department, New York University. His field of work comprises Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, dialectical-materialist metaphysical interpretations of German Idealism and Marxian critique of ideology. His more than sixty books in English have been widely translated. His latest publications include 'Pandemic!' & 'Pandemic! 2', 'Hegel in a Wired Brain', 'Sex and the Failed Absolute', 'Like A Thief In Broad Daylight', 'Reading Marx', 'Incontinence of the Void', 'The Day After the Revolution', 'Heaven in Disorder' and 'Reading Hegel'.

Пікірлер: 47

@battragon Жыл бұрын

Back in the days the Dutch word for handsome was the same as the word for intelligent.

@nielsdeleeuw2477 8 ай бұрын

Really "knap"

@dAvrilthebear 2 жыл бұрын

The syptom of the universe The love that never dies

@liammcooper 10 ай бұрын

fascinating

@benjaminmikkelsen7755 2 жыл бұрын

vis a vis. per say. such as life.

@thee-wastegamer4044 2 жыл бұрын

From the academically vigorous site Wikipedia: "The term "sinthome" (French: [sɛ̃tom]) was introduced by Jacques Lacan in his seminar Le sinthome (1975-76). According to Lacan, sinthome is the Latin way (1495 Rabelais, IV,63[1]) of spelling the Greek origin of the French word symptôme, meaning symptom. The seminar is a continuing elaboration of his topology, extending the previous seminar's focus (RSI) on the Borromean Knot and an exploration of the writings of James Joyce. Lacan redefines the psychoanalytic symptom in terms of his topology of the subject. In "Psychoanalysis and its Teachings" (Écrits) Lacan views the symptom as inscribed in a writing process, not as ciphered message which was the traditional notion. In his seminar "L'angoisse" (1962-63) he states that the symptom does not call for interpretation: in itself it is not a call to the Other but a pure jouissance addressed to no one. This is a shift from the linguistic definition of the symptom - as a signifier - to his assertion that "the symptom can only be defined as the way in which each subject enjoys (jouit) the unconscious in so far as the unconscious determines the subject." He goes from conceiving the symptom as a message which can be deciphered by reference to the unconscious structured like a language to seeing it as the trace of the particular modality of the subject's jouissance. This shift from linguistics to topology constitutes the status of the sinthome as unanalyzable. The seminar extends the theory of the Borromean knot, which in RSI (Real, Symbolic, Imaginary) had been proposed as the structure of the subject, by adding the sinthome as the fourth ring to the triad already mentioned, tying together a knot which constantly threatens to come undone. Since meaning (sens) is already figured within the knot, at the intersection of the Symbolic and the Imaginary, it follows that the function of the sinthome - knotting together the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic - is beyond meaning." I actually hate Lacan, to a degree. The "Symptom" is basically the closing of the Lacanian tautological circle in increasing increments of DeleuzoGuattarian pressure, at least starting with Lacan's Seminars 19 & 20.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

Žižek wrote a Lacanian book Love Thy Symptom as Thyself (along with many other Lacanian one's in the 90's/early 00's). It used to be available on my blog, but I recently had to shut my website down when the war in Ukraine started (the same day as Russia attacked there was a 75.000% spike in traffic), so I can't give you a download link right now. In psychoanalytic literature, symptom is considered a Freudian category, while sinthome is a Lacanian one. It's important to keep these distinctions, since there were many different psychoanalysts working in the previous century.

@thee-wastegamer4044 2 жыл бұрын

@@SimonGros Yes certainly, I just wanted to share for confused commenters as I personally saw the tail end of this interview hinting towards the moment of jouissance rather than the Freudian moment of repression. Commenters on here are thinking of the clinical usage of the word symptom, hence where here Zizek explains the topological inquiry of symptom. I have strong disagreements with both thinkers (Zizek stays afloat due to the Heideggerian ghost that haunts his 21st century work) so I was just respectfully sharing my 2¢.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

You meant plus-de-jouir? I don't know what jouissance is.

@thee-wastegamer4044 2 жыл бұрын

@@SimonGros Yes! It is precisely that moment of surplus enjoyment, at least as it is commonly read in English. I do know that English readers of continental work can be frustrating to deal with, apologies if I seem unclear.

@Sebastian_Melmoth 2 жыл бұрын

Do you have a recommendation for specific book on this topic, aimed for someone not educated in philosophy? I am quite interested, but I only read one lighter Žižek's book and it took me a lot of effort to penetrate it.

@kaithecactus3714 51 минут бұрын

sooo uhh what's a symptom? i know it's a lacanian concept and in familiar with lacan but i don't get what zizek is saying

@mikelamatria3610 2 жыл бұрын

He is about "symptom" from a lacanian ("orthodox" Freudian psychoanalysis) point of view.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

You mean the entire st. Thomas thing? That's a bit simplistic.

@tristanreynolds5748 4 ай бұрын

What did you expect?? Also, I wouldn't call lacan Iranian Orthodox freudianism, even though lacan had certain pretensions

@yogeshcharan7905 2 жыл бұрын

A philosopher is a person that torchers himself all his life, and torments others after his death. Using the words that's gibberish for significant part of society.

@dontreadmyprofilepicture.5418 2 жыл бұрын

True.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

I don't think so, it's rather the other way around: a philosopher is someone for the sake of whom entire authors, words, discourses and languages are invented for the purpose of causing his/her death, yet miracolously that guy always seems to survive nonetheless.

@yogeshcharan7905 2 жыл бұрын

@@SimonGros so languages are invented for the philosophers? And politicians decide the discourse not the philosophers. A philosopher spends most of his time in library...reading that books that no one has Heard before, and then flaunts his knowledge in public to prove that he is better than all of them. At best philosopher is a magician....at worst a intellectual terrorist.

@iforget6940 Жыл бұрын

@@yogeshcharan7905😂 Whether we consider them intellectual terrorists or not, philosophers do engage with the structure of reality. The accuracy of their perceptions and interpretations of reality can certainly be debated. Nevertheless, philosophers are valuable because they challenge established systems and question the ethical foundations of human structures. Imagine a world without religious or philosophical inquiry, where we accept everything without questioning. How would we understand one another? How would we improve our societies? Each philosopher may have their flaws, but they also offer insights that have enduring value. We continue to benefit from their ideas, sometimes even unknowingly. In fact, is it not true that you yourself my question your worldview and those around you. In that sense, aren't you a philosopher? By questioning and seeking understanding, i refuse to be a mere zombie, and instead i will forge my own path, building upon the ideas of the thinkers who came before me.

@psychologicalsuccess3476 3 ай бұрын

Literally he's one of the few people on this planet using language the way god intended, fucking thought, there's no thinkers in this world, just doers who cause problems and escapers who run away from problems.

@tristanreynolds5748 4 ай бұрын

where did all these weirdos come from in the comments

@A_Simple_Neurose 2 жыл бұрын

His reasoning as to why even Hitchcock thought Topaz was his worst movie is fucking hillarious and absolutely illogical. I really hope that was a joke

@dontreadmyprofilepicture.5418 2 жыл бұрын

This guy is from my country (Slovenia), and he has problems.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

You mean he writes Problemi? problemi.si

@burnedbread4691 2 жыл бұрын

How so?

@nickb3164 2 жыл бұрын

its a half joke. hitchcock probably did not intend it but nonetheless it can be interpreted that way. zizek makes jokes all the time so who knows.

@Ahmadbeik99 2 жыл бұрын

@@dontreadmyprofilepicture.5418 No problem with him he is a great mind you should be proud

@balarka3885 2 жыл бұрын

This reminds me of a famous saying that while science is the art of saying complex things in simple words, philosophy is the scam in which you say simple things in ever more complex words.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

Sure, but on the other hand philosophy is simply an archaic term for science itself. An example would be Hegel's work, where you go from the need of ascention from philosophy towards science already at the preface to PhS and then to the infamous work of the Science of Logic. It could simply be said that something called Philosophy ended already in the 16th century, yet on the other hand, what is popularly percieved as science is usually ideological nonsense (as seen on television and the internet).

@balarka3885 2 жыл бұрын

@@SimonGros In theory this sounds great. But in practice, as a math grad student, I find most works in philosophy impenetrable; maybe I have been looking at the wrong stuff. It seems to me that the core principles are totally different from that of math (only discipline of science I can legitimately speak of), wherein one has clear propositions and a piecemeal strategy towards the goal of understanding its validity (a "proof"). Most math papers are written in simple sentences whereas philosophy deliberately convolutes with language, which is fine as literature but very primitive as a mode of "analysis of things". So saying philosophy is just science might be a consistent position but when you have Kierkegaardian "Man is that which relates itself unto itself in the process of relating itself with others" obscurantism multiplied tenfold and kept alive by philosophy departments, that's definitely not how scientists (mathematicians, say) communicate.

@SimonGros 2 жыл бұрын

@@balarka3885 Mathematics is one way of perverting science, the other being poetry.

@balarka3885 2 жыл бұрын

@@SimonGros Would you like to elaborate on that?

@hank993 2 жыл бұрын

@@balarka3885 it's not quite fair to take this stance. as a grad student in physics myself, whilst the reasoning in a maths paper is clear to the mathematician, it is generally impenetrable to the layperson (how would you understand weak formulations of PDEs without a dense understanding of calculus and linear algebra?). Zizek is well-known to be densely referential. Additionally, I don't think you'd make the same comments about Russell, Whitehead, or Wittgenstein (yes, *that* Russell and Whitehead -- they participated in philosophy as well). To dismiss an entire field without accounting for the major tradition dominant in anglophone philosophy departments, and take only the continental tradition as the basis for your dismissal, is to be uncharitable.