From Lack to Void

Abstract

Human subjectivity is marked by a constitutive negativity which is directly correlative to the emptiness within the structure of language itself.The void inherent to language is why both ordinary human consciousness and human social organization are characterized by the structure of a failed totalization.This structure is defined by an illusory unity or consistency which functions as a defense against the void at the heart of language.For example, this structure manifests itself in the imaginary ego's pursuit of objects with which to fill in its constitutive lack, or in a social body which maintains its imaginary unity through a constitutive exception.Based mainly on the Western philosophical tradition of dialectical reasoning and the practice and theory of Lacanian psychoanalysis, this paper will develop a conceptual framework through which to explore the void within language and human subjectivity.The central, practical question which drives this investigation is whether and how a fundamental shift in one's subjective relation to and experience of negativity can illuminate a way beyond the structural logic of failed totalization.This shift involves the move from the experience of negativity as something intolerable, a problem to be solved through the pursuit of illusory unity at the level of the ego, to a subjectivization of the void within language which requires the cultivation of a sustained level of awareness beyond the ego-intellect, as well as the incorporation of the dimension of human experience beyond rational articulation which enriches the practice of reason, in which emptiness is experienced in its positive dimension, as generative and creative.