Lacan's "Real" is what in some other discourse would be call imaginary
and his "Symbolic" is material and social reality as it would be in
critical theory for example. When Deleuze uses Real with capital R it is
much closer to what Kristeva dubbed semiotic versus symbolic (i think we
did discuss this), that is not limited to what Lacan termed Real.
inna
Tue, 18 Jul 2000, B. Metcalf wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> >Deleuze clearly
> >equates the symbolic with sense, not with the
> >signifier...
>
> Deleuze does not equate sense with the signifier. However, for D&G,
> neither is sense symbolic (but molecular-real). Deleuze, in HRS, is saying
> that Lacan's structuralism equates sense with the symbolic. Therefore, D&G
> do not see Lacan's sense as reaching the level of the molecular-real. AO
> p. 311, "[The molecular unconscious of schizoanalysis] is not structural,
> nor is it symbolic, for its reality is that of the Real in its very
> production, in its very inorganization..."
>
> >Remember, Lacan is
> >always interested in seeing how the imaginary,
> >symbolic, and real are knotted together. To criticize
> >something for being imaginary is not to criticize it
> >for being structural, nor is it to claim that it
> >doesn't exist
>
> That's right. D&G praise Lacan for overturning Oedipus and for showing
> Oedipus to be imaginary-myth, not a production of the real. They see Lacan
> as bringing Oedipus to this autocritique. That is, in spite of Lacan's
> limitations, D&G see him as bringing Oedipus (along with the imaginary,
> symbolic, and real which are all knotted together) to the point of
> self-criticism. This autocritique points to the "reverse side" of
> structure, the "real inorganization of the molecular elements."
>
> >With Lacan, we
> >> come to the point of autocritique which leads us to
> >> deny that Oedipus,
> >> castration, or the signifier has anything to do with
> >> unconscious material
> >> or production.
>
> >Quite the contrary... The Lacanian unconscious is
> >structured like a language and castration has an
> >essential relation to this structure. Castration
> >serves the special symbolic or structural purpose of
> >quilting together the heterogeneity of language, of
> >halting it in its movement.
>
> Yes, the Lacanian unconscious is structured like a language and castration
> has an essential relation to structure. However, that castrating
> production is exactly where D&G disagree with Lacan. They do, however,
> give Lacan credit for bringing Oedipus to its autocritique; for bringing us
> to the point of realizing that Oedipus, castration, and the despotic
> signifier can have nothing to do with the molecular-real of unconscious
> production. AO p. 310, "in Lacan, the hypothesis of an
> unconscious-as-language does not closet the unconscious in a linguistic
> structure, but leads linguistics to the point of its autocritique, by
> showing how the structural organization of signifiers still depends on a
> despotic Great Signifier..." In contrast to the unconscious of Lacan which
> is structured like a language, the unconscious of schizoanalysis is (AO p.
> 109-10), "...real rather than symbolic, machinic rather than
> structural---an unconscious, finally, that is molecular...rather than
> molar..."
>
> >>This autocrtitque leads us to see
> >> that castration is not
> >> real.
>
> >Lacan claims again and again that castration is the
> >real...
>
> Lacan may claim that castration is real. However, that comes under the
> autocritique. AO p. 83-4, "Was it possible to denounce Oedipus-as-myth,
> and nevertheless maintain that the castration complex itself was not a myth
> but in fact something real?" The autocritique shows that castration cannot
> be real. Rather, it is symbolic.
>
> >It leads to an 'unconscious' that is the
> >> "reverse side" of
> >> structure---that is molecular-machinic rather than
> >> molar-structural.
>
> >You seem to associate "structure" with the
> >signifier... Yet people have talked about the
> >arbitrariness of the signifier nearly as long as
> >they've talked about language, but haven't talked
> >about structure. What seems crucial to the notion of
> >structure is not the signifier, but the idea of
> >relation, of something being defined purely in terms
> >of its relations. Call it molecular, an assemblage,
> >or whatever, it doesn't seem to significantly change
> >the relational approach.
>
> D&G's molecular machinic assemblages are not in the structural-relational
> space of semiotically formed matter. Lacan's structural space is not D&G's
> "Real in its very production, in its very inorganization..." Also, D&G see
> the Lacanian structural organization of signifiers as keeping the
> unconscious under the weight of castrating apparatus of the despotic
> Signifier (AO p. 217).
>
> >> In Chaosmosis, since the question is no longer about
> >> bringing Oedipus to
> >> the point of autocritique as it was in AO, Guattari
> >> is more critical of
> >> Lacanian structuralism. In the chapter about
> >> Machinic Heterogenesis,
> >> Guattari says the Lacanian signifier lacks
> >> ontological heterogenesis, and
> >> that it always has a linear discursivity.
> >
> >I'm not sure I understand this... Could you explain
> >more? What does it mean to lack "ontological
> >heterogenesis"? Why should I be concerned about it?
>
> In Chaosmosis, Guattari makes the distinction between signifying semiology,
> like Lacan's structuralism, where p. 49, "the semiological linearlity of
> the structural signifier...imposes itself despotically over all the other
> modes of semiotisation..."; and, a-signifying semiotics where the signifier
> loses its despotism. With D&G's a-signifying semiotics, the abstract
> machine can establish a transversality which includes, not only linguistic
> elements, but also non-semiotically-formed matter. It includes linguistic
> and all heterogeneous incorporeal dimensions. Chaosmosis p. 24, "It would
> involve shattering the concept of substance in a pluralistic manner, and
> would promote the category of substance of Expression not only in semiology
> and semiotics, but in domains that are extra-linguistic, non-human,
> geological, techological, aesthetic, etc. The problem of the ennunciative
> asemblage would no longer be specific to the semiotic register but would
> traverse an ensemble of heterogeneous expressive materials." This is not
> the ontological homogeneity of structuralism which never escapes the level
> of molar, despotic signification. Lacan's castration always has a linear
> discursivity. Chaosmosis p. 48, "The structuralist signifier is always
> synonymous with linear discursivity. From one symbol to another, the
> subjective effect happens without any other ontological guarantee. As
> opposed to this, heterogeneous machines, as envisaged from our
> schizoanalytical perspective, do not produce a standard being at the mercy
> of universal temporalisation."
>
> >> Therefore, D&G's abstract
> >> machine eludes the structural space described in
> >> 'How Do we Recognize
> >> Structuralism'.
> >
> >"Structural space" is arbitrary like any other
> >signifier, so I'm more than happy to talk about
> >abstract machines or assemblages in their place...
> >They all strike me as containing relations,
> >singularities, series, and mobile empty squares (the
> >anamolous in the becoming-animal series).
>
> Chaosmosis p. 37-8, "Structuralists have been content to erect the
> Signifier as a category unifying all expressive economies: langage, the
> icon, gesture, urganism or the cinema, etc. They have postulated a general
> signifying translatability for all forms of discursivity. But in so doing,
> have they not misunderstood the essential dimension of machinic
> autopoiesis?...This autopoietic node in the machine is what separates and
> differentiates it from structure and gives it value. Structure implies
> feedback loops, it puts into play a concept of totalisation that it itself
> masters. It is occupied by inputs and outputs whose purpose is to make the
> structure function according to a principle of eternal return. It is
> haunted by a desire for eternity. The machine, on the contrary, is shaped
> by a desire for abolition...It posseses a supplement: a dimension of
> alterity which it develops in different forms. This alterity
> differentiates it from structure, which is based on a principle of
> homeomorphism....This ontological reconversion dismisses the totalising
> scope of the concept of the Signifier. Because the signifying entites
> which operate the diverse mutuations of the ontological referent...are not
> the same...Machinic propositions elude the ordinary games of discursivity
> and the structural coordinates of energy, time and space."
>
> >There are also all the
> >topologies discussed in the Plateau on the smooth and
> >the striaghted. The question is not whether a certain
> >space is structural or defines an assemblage, but
> >rather what sort of space does it defined? Is it a
> >smooth space or a striated space, a nomad space or a
> >state space? Both sorts of space are composed of
> >series, relations, singularities, and an anomolous or
> >non-self-identical object circulating between them...
>
> In Lacan's structuralism, space is always striated because it is (AO p.
> 307) "furrowed by the line of castration" in the molar aggregate.
> Structuralism is always enclosed within signifying semiology. It is always
> the homogeneous space of static relation (form/matter) of State science.
> It never reaches the level of an a-signifying semiotics where
> non-semiotically formed matter is included in an abstract machine of
> heterogeneity. It never reaches the level of a nomad space where there is
> the dynamic relation of material-forces.
>
> Beth
>
and his "Symbolic" is material and social reality as it would be in
critical theory for example. When Deleuze uses Real with capital R it is
much closer to what Kristeva dubbed semiotic versus symbolic (i think we
did discuss this), that is not limited to what Lacan termed Real.
inna
Tue, 18 Jul 2000, B. Metcalf wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> >Deleuze clearly
> >equates the symbolic with sense, not with the
> >signifier...
>
> Deleuze does not equate sense with the signifier. However, for D&G,
> neither is sense symbolic (but molecular-real). Deleuze, in HRS, is saying
> that Lacan's structuralism equates sense with the symbolic. Therefore, D&G
> do not see Lacan's sense as reaching the level of the molecular-real. AO
> p. 311, "[The molecular unconscious of schizoanalysis] is not structural,
> nor is it symbolic, for its reality is that of the Real in its very
> production, in its very inorganization..."
>
> >Remember, Lacan is
> >always interested in seeing how the imaginary,
> >symbolic, and real are knotted together. To criticize
> >something for being imaginary is not to criticize it
> >for being structural, nor is it to claim that it
> >doesn't exist
>
> That's right. D&G praise Lacan for overturning Oedipus and for showing
> Oedipus to be imaginary-myth, not a production of the real. They see Lacan
> as bringing Oedipus to this autocritique. That is, in spite of Lacan's
> limitations, D&G see him as bringing Oedipus (along with the imaginary,
> symbolic, and real which are all knotted together) to the point of
> self-criticism. This autocritique points to the "reverse side" of
> structure, the "real inorganization of the molecular elements."
>
> >With Lacan, we
> >> come to the point of autocritique which leads us to
> >> deny that Oedipus,
> >> castration, or the signifier has anything to do with
> >> unconscious material
> >> or production.
>
> >Quite the contrary... The Lacanian unconscious is
> >structured like a language and castration has an
> >essential relation to this structure. Castration
> >serves the special symbolic or structural purpose of
> >quilting together the heterogeneity of language, of
> >halting it in its movement.
>
> Yes, the Lacanian unconscious is structured like a language and castration
> has an essential relation to structure. However, that castrating
> production is exactly where D&G disagree with Lacan. They do, however,
> give Lacan credit for bringing Oedipus to its autocritique; for bringing us
> to the point of realizing that Oedipus, castration, and the despotic
> signifier can have nothing to do with the molecular-real of unconscious
> production. AO p. 310, "in Lacan, the hypothesis of an
> unconscious-as-language does not closet the unconscious in a linguistic
> structure, but leads linguistics to the point of its autocritique, by
> showing how the structural organization of signifiers still depends on a
> despotic Great Signifier..." In contrast to the unconscious of Lacan which
> is structured like a language, the unconscious of schizoanalysis is (AO p.
> 109-10), "...real rather than symbolic, machinic rather than
> structural---an unconscious, finally, that is molecular...rather than
> molar..."
>
> >>This autocrtitque leads us to see
> >> that castration is not
> >> real.
>
> >Lacan claims again and again that castration is the
> >real...
>
> Lacan may claim that castration is real. However, that comes under the
> autocritique. AO p. 83-4, "Was it possible to denounce Oedipus-as-myth,
> and nevertheless maintain that the castration complex itself was not a myth
> but in fact something real?" The autocritique shows that castration cannot
> be real. Rather, it is symbolic.
>
> >It leads to an 'unconscious' that is the
> >> "reverse side" of
> >> structure---that is molecular-machinic rather than
> >> molar-structural.
>
> >You seem to associate "structure" with the
> >signifier... Yet people have talked about the
> >arbitrariness of the signifier nearly as long as
> >they've talked about language, but haven't talked
> >about structure. What seems crucial to the notion of
> >structure is not the signifier, but the idea of
> >relation, of something being defined purely in terms
> >of its relations. Call it molecular, an assemblage,
> >or whatever, it doesn't seem to significantly change
> >the relational approach.
>
> D&G's molecular machinic assemblages are not in the structural-relational
> space of semiotically formed matter. Lacan's structural space is not D&G's
> "Real in its very production, in its very inorganization..." Also, D&G see
> the Lacanian structural organization of signifiers as keeping the
> unconscious under the weight of castrating apparatus of the despotic
> Signifier (AO p. 217).
>
> >> In Chaosmosis, since the question is no longer about
> >> bringing Oedipus to
> >> the point of autocritique as it was in AO, Guattari
> >> is more critical of
> >> Lacanian structuralism. In the chapter about
> >> Machinic Heterogenesis,
> >> Guattari says the Lacanian signifier lacks
> >> ontological heterogenesis, and
> >> that it always has a linear discursivity.
> >
> >I'm not sure I understand this... Could you explain
> >more? What does it mean to lack "ontological
> >heterogenesis"? Why should I be concerned about it?
>
> In Chaosmosis, Guattari makes the distinction between signifying semiology,
> like Lacan's structuralism, where p. 49, "the semiological linearlity of
> the structural signifier...imposes itself despotically over all the other
> modes of semiotisation..."; and, a-signifying semiotics where the signifier
> loses its despotism. With D&G's a-signifying semiotics, the abstract
> machine can establish a transversality which includes, not only linguistic
> elements, but also non-semiotically-formed matter. It includes linguistic
> and all heterogeneous incorporeal dimensions. Chaosmosis p. 24, "It would
> involve shattering the concept of substance in a pluralistic manner, and
> would promote the category of substance of Expression not only in semiology
> and semiotics, but in domains that are extra-linguistic, non-human,
> geological, techological, aesthetic, etc. The problem of the ennunciative
> asemblage would no longer be specific to the semiotic register but would
> traverse an ensemble of heterogeneous expressive materials." This is not
> the ontological homogeneity of structuralism which never escapes the level
> of molar, despotic signification. Lacan's castration always has a linear
> discursivity. Chaosmosis p. 48, "The structuralist signifier is always
> synonymous with linear discursivity. From one symbol to another, the
> subjective effect happens without any other ontological guarantee. As
> opposed to this, heterogeneous machines, as envisaged from our
> schizoanalytical perspective, do not produce a standard being at the mercy
> of universal temporalisation."
>
> >> Therefore, D&G's abstract
> >> machine eludes the structural space described in
> >> 'How Do we Recognize
> >> Structuralism'.
> >
> >"Structural space" is arbitrary like any other
> >signifier, so I'm more than happy to talk about
> >abstract machines or assemblages in their place...
> >They all strike me as containing relations,
> >singularities, series, and mobile empty squares (the
> >anamolous in the becoming-animal series).
>
> Chaosmosis p. 37-8, "Structuralists have been content to erect the
> Signifier as a category unifying all expressive economies: langage, the
> icon, gesture, urganism or the cinema, etc. They have postulated a general
> signifying translatability for all forms of discursivity. But in so doing,
> have they not misunderstood the essential dimension of machinic
> autopoiesis?...This autopoietic node in the machine is what separates and
> differentiates it from structure and gives it value. Structure implies
> feedback loops, it puts into play a concept of totalisation that it itself
> masters. It is occupied by inputs and outputs whose purpose is to make the
> structure function according to a principle of eternal return. It is
> haunted by a desire for eternity. The machine, on the contrary, is shaped
> by a desire for abolition...It posseses a supplement: a dimension of
> alterity which it develops in different forms. This alterity
> differentiates it from structure, which is based on a principle of
> homeomorphism....This ontological reconversion dismisses the totalising
> scope of the concept of the Signifier. Because the signifying entites
> which operate the diverse mutuations of the ontological referent...are not
> the same...Machinic propositions elude the ordinary games of discursivity
> and the structural coordinates of energy, time and space."
>
> >There are also all the
> >topologies discussed in the Plateau on the smooth and
> >the striaghted. The question is not whether a certain
> >space is structural or defines an assemblage, but
> >rather what sort of space does it defined? Is it a
> >smooth space or a striated space, a nomad space or a
> >state space? Both sorts of space are composed of
> >series, relations, singularities, and an anomolous or
> >non-self-identical object circulating between them...
>
> In Lacan's structuralism, space is always striated because it is (AO p.
> 307) "furrowed by the line of castration" in the molar aggregate.
> Structuralism is always enclosed within signifying semiology. It is always
> the homogeneous space of static relation (form/matter) of State science.
> It never reaches the level of an a-signifying semiotics where
> non-semiotically formed matter is included in an abstract machine of
> heterogeneity. It never reaches the level of a nomad space where there is
> the dynamic relation of material-forces.
>
> Beth
>