[excerpt]
translated by Scott Savaiano
Jacques Lacan's Anxiety (II)
J - A
MILLER
The Names-of-the-Father
J - A
MILLER
The Formulas of
L'Étourdit
ALAIN BADIOU
On Giorgio Agamben's
Profanations
MEHDI BELHAJ
KACEM
The Fundamental Perversion
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
[...]
What, in Lacan's eyes, is the true nature of how philosophy operates? What does Lacan identify as "philosophical," in order for his anti-philosophy to assume its full meaning? Philosophy operates, in Lacan's eyes, by affirming that there is such a thing as a meaning or sense of truth (sens de la vérité). But why would philosophy maintain this? Because its objective, the consolation it offers us, and which goes by the name "wisdom," is to be able to assert that there is a truth of the Real. This is its implicit or explicit axiom: there is a sense to truth because there is a truth of the Real. However, in l'Étourdit Lacan argued, contrary to what he judges to be the way philosophy operates, and against even what he himself at times maintained prior to it...
[...]
Because there is no knowing (connaissance) or truth of the Real - because, on the contrary, the condition for there to be truth is that it be inextricably enchained to the Real in the guise of a knowledge function, there has to be a pure encounter with this Real. Let us therefore call "act" this point of encountering the Real.
[...]
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