Sexuation
& Ideology: A Formal Analysis
I.
Introduction & Overview
In
Seminar
XX,
Lecture VII, Lacan draws a curious diagram on the board and writes
immediately thereafter: “After what I just put on the board, you
may think you know everything. Don't” (78). In the top half of this
diagram are four propositions arranged into two sets of two—these
are the formulas of sexuation, about which no one knows everything.
These formulas, already presented with the symbols of formal logic,
will in the course of this paper be further formalized. My primary
purpose is to trace the relations between the formulas of sexuation
and propose a model of their interaction.
Straight
away, we must clear up a few things about the scope and aim of my
arguments. First, the universals I am referring to are not typical
universals like “greenness” or “virtue”, but rather apply to
everything or are unbounded. They are not only universal but of
universal scope. Second, I pay great attention to formality, to
mathemes, because as Zupančič said in her talk “Is the Sexual
Political?”, the point is not to positivize sexual difference but
to formalize
it.
Third, there is some question about how fundamental an
ideology
is versus ideology in
general,
and how both of these relate to things consciously present to the
mind such as philosophical positions. For the purpose of this paper,
I will not differentiate too strongly between these three, and I
think all of them fit nicely, with only relatively minor differences.
This is thanks to the abstractness of the formulas.
I
will proceed as follows: first, I will consider the formulas of
sexuation from the viewpoint of formal logic, exploring the
differences between the masculine and feminine sides; second, I will
propose a model of the relation between these formulas and the
ideological formation or logical derivation of universals; third, I
will deal with some common misreadings of the formulas and clarify
some aspects of the phallic function and the fundamental antagonism
of sexual difference; fourth, I will present
a case study of Meillassoux's primary argument in After
Finitude,
namely the proposition that everything is contingent except the
contingency itself, which is absolutely necessary;
finally, I will give a brief conclusion about the antagonism of the
formulas and the possibility of going beyond the Phallus.
II. Formulas of Sexuation:
Formal Considerations
In this section, I give an
overview of Lacan's formulas of sexuation from the standpoint of
formal logic, exploring the various contradictions and translations
or derivations that can occur between the formulas. I also answer why
there are two sides, the masculine and the feminine, and why they are
incommensurable while being seemingly formally equivalent.
The
masculine formula, in its general form, is as follows: everything is
Φ, with
the exception of (at least) one thing. We
can write this first clause formally as ∀xΦx, “for all x, x is
Φ”, where Φ is some function (traditionally the phallic
function); likewise, the exception may be formalized as ∃x~Φx,
“for some x, x is not Φ”. The feminine formula is the following:
not-All is Φ. Formally, this breaks into two propositions: ~∀xΦx,
“not all x is Φ”, or perhaps rather “not-All x is Φ”; and
~∃x~Φx, “there is nothing which is not Φ”, in other words
“there is no exception to Φ”. In what follows, I will present an
abstract, general model of the interrelations of the two formulas and
their constitutive propositions before applying it to the problem of
the formation of universals.
Now, the universal masculine
proposition, ∀xΦx, is in contradiction with the feminine universal
proposition, ~∀xΦx; likewise, the masculine existential
proposition ∃x~Φx is in contradiction with the feminine
existential proposition, ~∃x~Φx. So here we see the
complementary/contradictory nature of the sexes expressed in formal
terms. These are of course logical contradictions, and this is
perhaps to be expected. To avoid triviality, we must therefore deny
the principle of explosion, the principle that from a contradiction
anything can be derived, and we assume for this task a paraconsistent
logic minimally different from classical logic. But this is not far
enough. It is not only that we must acknowledge the contradictions
between the masculine and feminine formulas—we must also realize
the contradictions inherent to each formula.
To
do this, we must use the standard logical rules for quantifier
negation (henceforth QN) and double negation (DN): from ∀xΦx we
can derive ~~∀xΦx by DN, and from there we derive ~∃x~Φx by QN;
similarly, from ~∀xΦx we can directly derive ∃x~Φx by QN. So
the universal side of the masculine formula leads to ~∃x~Φx, which
is the negation of the existential side of the masculine formula,
∃x~Φx, and thus a contradiction. Likewise, one side of the
feminine formula, ~∀xΦx, leads to ∃x~Φx, which is the negation
of the other side, ~∃x~Φx, which is another contradiction. To
summarize, each proposition is in internal contradiction with the
other of its sex and with one other of the opposite gender, namely
the one with the same quantifier. For example, the masculine
universal proposition is in contradiction with the feminine universal
proposition, but not
with
the feminine existential proposition, with which it is formally
equivalent. We must now take a closer look at this seemingly
innocuous non-contradiction, or more precisely, equivalence: What
keeps the two formulas from collapsing into one another, since
formally speaking they are equivalent? In other words, what is the
real difference between them, if it is seemingly
not to be found on the purely formal level?
I
claim that there are actually three
(hidden) formal differences in these formulas. First, there is the
banal point that to show the equivalence of any two propositions
requires the passage from one to the other, so the move from
masculine to feminine in terms of quantifiers is precisely the
opposite of the move from feminine to masculine. Put another way, the
two formulas express the same things but in different ways, and that
difference hinges on a difference in quantifiers used. Second, each
quantifier on the masculine side is positive, having no negations
before it, whereas each feminine quantifier is already negated. For
example, the masculine must add
two negations in
the passage from ∀xΦx to ~∃x~Φx, whereas the feminine must
remove
two negations while
making the opposite move. The feminine existential proposition has
negation spontaneously present, whereas the masculine must posit that
negation. Third,
both QN and DN are needed to derive ~∃x~Φx from ∀xΦx and vice
versa, but only QN is needed to derive ∃x~Φx from ~∀xΦx and
vice versa. The former thus requires two separate steps: the positing
of the equivalence of ∀xΦx and its double negation ~~∀xΦx by
DN, and the application of QN. In
sum, really there are three possible derivational asymmetries: the
quantifier to be derived; the relationship to negation; and the order
of application of DN and QN. These delineate the formal differences
between the two formulas, that which keeps them separate, though
“really” there be no difference between them. Nevertheless, there
is a certain labor, particular to each formula, involved in passing
from one to the other. Now each of these asymmetries must be
interpreted and their existence and relevance justified.
The
first asymmetry is relatively straightforward: both formulas express
the same things in immediately different ways, this difference being
due primarily to the quantifiers used. If we are metaphysical
realists about universals, which both Lacan and Žižek are (Žižek,
For
They Know Not... 105),
then the formulas' immediate differences mean we must maintain some
sort of gap between the universal and existential quantifiers. In
other words, the universal quantifier is not just the empirical
summation of a mass of particular things: “Everything is subject to
the Phallus” is in some sense “more” than the statement “A is
subject to the Phallus, B is subject to the Phallus, C is... (and so
on perhaps ad
infinitum)”.
This difference closely parallels several others: necessity and
contingency, essence and appearance, transcendental and empirical.
However, it would be a mistake to interpret this difference as being
directly any of these oppositions, and even more of a mistake to
assume that its character as a formality is irrelevant. In fact, it
is precisely the formality, the marked inability to express the
difference in any informal categories, that is of the utmost
importance. The crux of the matter is the purely
formal shift which
is constitutive of the application of QN. Because of this, strictly
speaking
∀xΦx and ~∃x~Φx are not exactly equivalent but formally entail
one another. Said another way, they have the same truth conditions,
reference the same things, but yet still there is a gap between them
that is not reducible to these conditions, to these referred-to
things.
The
second asymmetry is the relationship to negation: the masculine
propositions have positive or un-negated quantifiers, and the
feminine propositions both begin with a negated quantifier. Of
course, intuitively this is because the feminine and masculine
positions are the exact opposite of each other. But this is not all,
because negation
itself has a positive content.
It is a formality with decidedly non-formal implications. For
example, affirming a negative statement and denying a positive one
are different, though they may have the same content or
truth-conditions. In other words, there is no way to formally “get
around” the fact that the male propositions are non-negated; they
are affirmative whereas the feminine propositions are negative.
The
third asymmetry is related to the use of DN, which
is required for one move but not for the other. It may seem quite
artificial, if not an awful violence, to resort to such a degree of
formality. Is DN really relevant to the discussion? Isn't it just a
totally empty formality, used only in logical proofs? Doesn't ~∃x~Φx
directly entail ∀xΦx and vice versa in one single mental act,
without the need for DN, which is not simply a formality but an
outright technicality,
something
superfluous introduced from the outside, a contingency of a
particular logical system? Actually,
it is important that the move between ∀xΦx and ~∃x~Φx has a
difference of two negations (this is what DN does, add or remove
negations), whereas the passage between ~∀xΦx and ∃x~Φx simply
moves a negation without either adding or removing any (this is what
QN does). This means that in the passage between the universal and
the negation of the exception, there is a labor of the negative that
is far greater than that between the other two propositions, which
have no difference in number of negations. Since negation has
positive content, and along with the model proposed in the next
section, the earlier claim that the universal has something over and
above is corroborated—now we see it is, at least to some degree,
the forced expulsion of negations.
III. Ideology & The
Formation of Universals
We now turn to the relation
between the formulas of sexuation and ideology, namely to the
formation of universals. Reality only takes on its particular
contours through the imposition of, to use Kantian terminology, the
categories. However, it is not only Kant's categories that intervene
in and structure reality—there are also at least some of Žižek's
master-signifiers, in particular the Phallus or Phallic function.
Whatever the particular differences between these may be, they are
all universals, in the sense not that they are abstract, but, as
above, that they apply to everything. But are these universals which
structure reality always there, or are they produced according to
certain mechanisms, (a)temporal or retroactive though those
mechanisms may be? I claim that the formation of these universals
follows a definite process that can be outlined with the help of the
above formal analysis. In particular, this process has to do with the
derivation of the masculine formulas—the universal and its
constitutive exception are at the heart of the structure of reality,
though perhaps not directly identical thereto.
I
will now attempt to address the problem of the formation of
universals by establishing three things:
the primacy of the feminine formula, the meanings
of the various particular propositions, and the ordering of the two
derivations.
The
feminine non-All might be thought of as primary, prior to the
masculine formula, since a universal must be created from the
non-All. Universals are never pre-given but must be abstracted,
posited, constituted from the feminine proposition ~∃x~Φx. The
universal's intervention into reality must be just that—an
intervention. This action, however, need
not happen “in time”,
and in fact it follows a Hegelian logical temporality.
It
is not necessarily as if the feminine not-All exists “out there”
and then the masculine principle, some moments later, intrudes and
structures it. Rather, as in Žižek's discussion of the tautology A
= A, the temporality here is a “minimal temporality” or “minimal
delay” (For
They Know Not...
36).
In
some sense, then, we might say that
~∃x~Φx is the universal's worldly counterpart, in that its truth
conditions involve an impossibly-long process of investigation, where
each element is tested to see if Φ applies.
Its counterpart, ∀xΦx, is the same thing said with that extra
something the universal brings. Similarly, any particular exception,
∃x~Φx, relies on the not-All's multiplicity; the feminine
proposition ~∀xΦx is the transcendental precondition for the
masculine ∃x~Φx. The feminine as an unordered or inconsistent
multiplicity, as a not-All, is the prerequisite for the concrete
existence of any single exception to Φ. We might say that ~∀xΦx
is the transcendental formula of difference, something along the
lines of “the One is not”. In short, the universal and its
constitutive exception are never given to us but must be produced (by
the revolutionary subject, the mind, the master-signifier, or
whatever).
From
these considerations, I propose a model for the formation of
universals containing two steps:
(1) ~∀xΦx → ∃x~Φx
(2) ~∃x~Φx → ∀xΦx
In explicating this, I will need
to address several concerns: why the derivations are ordered as they
are, what each move's specific mechanisms are (for there are several
different mechanisms), and what the results and implications of such
a model might be.
The
proposed logical (not temporal) ordering of the derivations is based
primarily on the fact that what is posited
in the forming of a consistent totality is the exception. To form the
totality, the exception must first be posited:
This,
then, is the basic paradox of the Lacanian logic of “non-all”
[pas-tout]:
in order to transform a collection of particular elements into a
consistent totality, one has to add (or to subtract, which amounts
to the same thing: to posit as an exception) a paradoxical element
which, in its very particularity, embodies the universality of the
genus in the form of its opposite. (Žižek, For
They Know Not...
44)
The
action is here clearly on the side of the exception. The second move,
the formation of the universal, must follow this positing.
The
first mechanism is thus positing an exception, which we will now
examine in more detail. This is done simply and completely in
order to found a universal,
a teleological operation. As Žižek describes the process above,
positing the exception is always done “in order to.” For many
things, this takes the form of the effect effacing its own cause or
of retroactive positing. In any case, this extra effort, we might say
the startup cost, of the first derivation explains why there are far
less universals than there are conceivable non-Alls, ideologically or
as philosophical positions.
The
second mechanism, which founds the universal, follows a purely
logical development. After positing the exception, ∃x~Φx, we are
left with two formulas: that exception and
its
negation, ~∃x~Φx. These formulas are in immediate
contradiction,
of the form P and ~P. And as the Hegelian wisdom goes, thought cannot
stop to rest on a contradiction, or at least an immediate one: “some
logical moves (precisely the right ones) can be made only after other
(erroneous) moves have been done” (Žižek, Less
Than Nothing
629). This immediate contradiction, I claim, is what forces the move
from ~∃x~Φx to ∀xΦx. Once that occurs, we have not an immediate
contradiction but an ideological
contradiction
between our two formulas, the universal and its constitutive
exception. Ideological contradiction is not immediately obvious and
often manifests as a kind of disavowal: “Everything is subject to
the Phallus, except women”. This sentence could be fleshed out:
“Everything is subject to the Phallus without exception, and yet
there is one exception—woman”. They are still contradictory, of
course, but now the contradiction is subsumed in some regard, hidden
and not immediately present. We could dub this logical restructuring
the labor of the negative, as discussed above with regard to the
“more” of the universal.
IV. Sexual Difference
We
must now turn to some aspects of the model that might be
misunderstood. Because much has been written about the formulas as
they relate to sex (and not as they relate to the intervention of
ideological universals), I will address these concerns with a greater
focus on sex than in the previous sections. First, I will provide
arguments against the anticipated charge that I fall prey to one or
both of the misreadings explicated by Žižek in his paper “Woman
is One of the Names-of-the-Father, or How Not to Misread Lacan's
Formulas of Sexuation.” Second, I will investigate the Phallic
function, and show that it is not masculine but neuter.
Unfortunately, I will not have space to address formally the bottom
half of Lacan's famous diagram from Seminar
XX,
Lecture VII, though I will touch the content of those mathemes
tangentially.
The
first misreading is collapsing both formulas into the masculine
position, such that the feminine formulas are the exception to the
masculine universal. It might seem that the derivations of my model
are doing just that, constructing a masculine reality wherein the
feminine is somehow “left out” or even a leftover. This is not
the case because the two feminine formulas are not done away with but
are rather transformed—the not-all does not become an ontological
leftover because it is, as above, the transcendental formula of
difference; the negation of the exception may always follow from the
masculine universal, because with regard to whatever function one is
working with it is the universal which is “more” than the
collection of non-totalized particulars. Those particulars are, of
course, “more” than the universal, but not
insofar as the function applies to them.
Further, the meaning of the formulas is not to propose a mythical
pre-symbolic mother not subject to castration. The feminine in my
model is thus not akin to a pre-existing Ur-mother but something that
exists along
with
the masculine—they are mutual preconditions, and the feminine is
not “outside” reality as structured by the masculine, and neither
is it simply “inside” as the masculine's exception.:
However,
if we are to assume fully the true paradox of Lacan's formulas of
sexuation, one has to read them far more literally: woman undermines
the universality of the phallic function by the very fact that there
is no exception in her, nothing that resists it. (Žižek, “Woman
is One...”)
What
this means is that Woman is not the exception to the masculine, but
the lack of the exception. Instead, the opposition between the two
sets of propositions has the status of a fundamental ontological
rift.
The
second misreading is introducing a distinction between the different
uses of the quantifiers and the different scopes attributed to the
'x's to which the function is applied. For example, one might say
that the masculine universal “everything is subject to the Phallus”
refers to every singular object, and that the feminine not-all “not
everything is subject to the Phallus” refers to there being a part
of things that is not subject to the phallic function (the feminine
part), such that there is something
inside
woman that resists the phallic function, though woman and everything
else be subjected to it. On the contrary, no such distinction between
'x's can be made—it is fundamental and ubiquitous. This problem has
been avoided in the present essay by studying the propositions
formally—this is perhaps the best way to avoid the subtle semantic
distinctions leading to the second misreading, because I make no
semantic distinctions but treat the propositions primarily
syntactically.
But
what is the significance of the phallic function, as opposed to the
other sorts of universals, e.g. Communism (the communist worldview)
as ideological universal, or a category like space? The phallic
function is unique in that it is the pure universal, whose content
exactly coincides with its formal aspects as analyzed above:
In
other words, the paradox of the phallic function resides in a kind of
short-circuit between the function and its meta-function: the
phallic function coincides with its own self-limitation, with the
setting up of a non-phallic exception. (Žižek, “Woman is one of
the Names-of-the-Father”)
The
phallic function has precedence because it is directly the emptiness
of its own form-and-content. The phallic function posits its own
exception and thus founds itself as universal, and is in itself
nothing but this positing, nothing but the set of propositions
described by that positing, their empty forms.
But
we might ask what the statuses of the different sets of formulas
are—is the phallus then on the side of the masculine? On the
contrary, the feminine is described in terms of that function as
well. I conclude from this that the phallic function is neither
masculine nor feminine, and the two sets of propositions are both
directly
the definition of the phallic function. I would propose that it is
not the simple positing of the exception or the formulas themselves
but also the matrix
of relations between the masculine and feminine. Thus the phallic
function manifests immediately as many contradictory things, and the
masculine logic of the exception is only one of those.
IV. Meillassoux's Masculine
Logic
I
will now apply my model of universal formation to Quentin
Meillassoux's argument for the necessity of contingency as
found in After
Finitude.
First, I will present the derivation of the necessity of contingency.
Then, I will show how it fits into my model of universal formation
but also differs from it in an important aspect. Then, I will examine
Žižek's
critique of Meillassoux as found in the Less
Than Nothing, Interlude
5, titled “Correlationism and Its Discontents.” I aim to show
that this critique is in many ways correct, but that it raises some
important questions that must be further developed.
In
order to establish his “speculative realist” (henceforth SR)
position, Meillassoux begins from the standpoint of “strong
correlationism” (henceforth SC). SC is marked by a philosophical
agnosticism, such that every positive statement about objective
reality as it exists “in-itself” or independent of a subject or
observer, in his terminology independent of the correlate, is subject
to the rebuttal “That might be the case, but it could also be
different.” For example, when presented with the proposition that
there is life after death, SC responds with “There might be life
after death, but there might not be as well.”
SR
undoes this agnosticism from within in the following manner: in
maintaining absolute agnosticism while avoiding dogmatism, SC must
claim that one cannot know what is outside the correlate but that
there might be something outside the correlate all the same. SR
replies by stating that this “there might be” is actually not an
epistemological limit but a positive ontological one—it is not that
“we don't know” whether there is a world outside the correlate,
but that world is facticity itself, the “there might be.”
Facticity is thus not a veil hiding the in-itself but is
directly the
in-itself. Note that this conversion is precisely logically
warranted: to avoid absolute idealism, SC must posit the real
possibility of
things outside the correlate—that possibility cannot itself be
inscribed within thought without falling into absolute idealism. If
one at the position of SC admits that there might be this real
possibility, then
one actually moves to the position of SR.
Now
we can rephrase this argument in terms of necessity and contingency.
SC can be summarized as the position “Everything is factual.” SR
then adds “except for facticity itself, which cannot be factual.”
This is because, if facticity is factual, then it ceases to be
absolutized, it ceases to apply to everything, and this is the aim of
both SC and SR. If facticity were factual, it
would not be able to apply to everything.
Thus, Meillassoux (through the mediation of Ray Brassier's
translation) proposes the term “factiality,” the principle that
only facticity cannot itself be factual (80). From here it is a short
step to translate the “intra-correlate” principle of facticity
into contingency, which does not heed the limits of the correlate
(see the bit about “real possibility” above): “For if
contingency consists in knowing that worldly things could be
otherwise, facticity just consists in not knowing why the
correlational structure has to be thus” (Meillassoux 39). So the
crux of the argument turns out to be the proposition that everything
is contingent, except contingency (which is necessary).
It
should be relatively clear how this relates to the formulas of
sexuation, in particular the masculine propositions. To be truly
universal, an exception to contingency must be posited—this
exception is contingency itself. If contingency were not necessary
but contingent, it could not apply to everything because it could be
different—contingently contingent things are not absolutely
contingent, only contingently so. The “it could be different” of
contingency must be absolute
and therefore necessary.
So contingency is a universal with a constitutive exception, pure and
simple.
Žižek's
analysis of Meillassoux in Less
Than Nothing
is long and has many different sub-arguments, but I will focus on
(and quote at some length) his argument that “...when Meillassoux
asserts contingency as the only necessity, his mistake is to conceive
this assertion according to the masculine side of Lacan's formulae of
sexuation...” (636). What is left out, then, is the feminine side,
the not-all and the negation of the exception:
[B]ut
what about the non-All of contingency: there is nothing which is not
contingent, which is why not-All is contingent? Simultaneously,
there is the non-All of necessity: there is nothing which is not
necessary, which is why not-All is necessary. (Žižek, Less
Than Nothing
636)
And
finally, the real clincher: “How do these two non-Alls relate?
Since reality is contingent, we should begin with the non-All of
contingency: it is out of contingencies that, contingently,
necessities arise” (Žižek, Less
Than Nothing 636).
Unfortunately,
Žižek does not go on to elaborate these points. However, we have
all the tools necessary to explicate them. I will proceed with
several claims:
first, that Meillassoux does indeed omit the feminine non-All;
second, that Meillassoux would reject the need to worry about the
non-All of necessity; third, that Žižek's position is feminine and
includes an explicit rejection of Meillassoux's masculine
propositions; and finally, that this feminine position is actually
much more complicated than it at first appears, implying a sort of
higher-order masculinity even as it provides avenues for escape.
First,
Žižek claims that actually Meillassoux should deal not just with
the masculine formulas of contingency, but also with the non-All of
contingency. We might say that Žižek claims Meillassoux forgets
about the feminine proposition(s) and goes straight to the masculine
propositions. But here we must keep in mind Meillassoux's starting
point, SC. What is the claim of SC, expressed formally? It is
hermaphroditic: ~∃x~Γx and ∀xΓx, where “Γ” is the
predicate for contingency. These statements are equivalent, but the
latter cannot express a true universal along with the explicit denial
of its exception. This is important because it distinguishes the
philosophical position of SC from operations such as the phallic
function or ideological intervention. Here, for symmetry's sake, we
should also look to the inverse of SC, the hermaphroditic position
holding the formulas ~∀xΓx and ∃x~Γx. This position, as is to
be expected, is what Meillassoux calls metaphysics.
In
this context, we can translate ~∀xΓx as “not everything is
contingent” and ∃x~Γx as “there is a necessary thing (for
example God).” Alternative derivations beginning with the
metaphysical position are also be possible, but this must for our
purposes remain only a vague proposal. In any case, what neither SC
nor metaphysics can allow is the constitution of the masculine or
feminine.
What
Meillassoux does is deny the negation of the exception and thus posit
that exception, repudiating the sterile hermaphroditic SC for a
vigorous masculine position. Interestingly, since Meillassoux begins
not with the non-All but with SC, he begins already with the
universal and then posits the exception, rather than positing the
exception and thereby deriving the universal. Perhaps more
importantly, there is not a legitimate logical relation between the
exception and its negation—so where does Meillassoux get the
material to derive the exception? One could make the move from ~∀xΓx
to ∃x~Γx, but does Meillassoux do this? It is in order to
constitute the universal that Meillassoux posits the exception, but
this is formally suspect without the not-All. I believe this is
Žižek's point, somewhat refined.
Second,
Žižek proposes that Meillassoux busy himself not just with the
non-All of contingency, but also with the non-All of necessity. But
why should Meillassoux care about the non-All of necessity? There are
perhaps an infinite number of non-Alls one could propose, but why any
particular one of them is relevant would be uncertain. Here, aside
from proposing a rather strange logical relation (concluding ~∀xΓx
from ~∃x~Γx and likewise for necessity), Žižek does not give us
much with which to work. In any case, Meillassoux would likely not
accept that “there is nothing which is not necessary” (Zizek,
Less
Than Nothing 636).
In other words, he might say that not all non-Alls are true, and
certainly not the universals one would form with regard to them. In
fact, if Meillassoux constructed a universal from the non-All of
necessity, he would produce statements immediately contradictory to
his main thesis. There are rational or external considerations which
determine the acceptance or rejection of various functions, and Žižek
does not here explicitly provide us with any of these. However, there
is an implicit reason for Žižek's proposal, which I will outline in
the conclusion.
Third,
while Meillassoux obviously subscribes to a masculine logic, it seems
rather unclear what Žižek's stance is. For starters, he proposes
that Meillassoux begin not with SC but with the robust feminine
position, namely the non-All of contingency. Immediately, this
corroborates my model which gives (logical) primacy to the non-All—it
is the thing with which one begins. But does this proposal indicate
Žižek's rejection of Meillassoux's masculine propositions? Or is it
more along the lines of “Meillassoux is not directly incorrect but
he left out something (the non-All)”? Or is there a tricky
retroactivity at work here?
Žižek's
subsequent argumentation leads me to believe that he is outright
rejecting conceiving contingency from the masculine perspective. He
calls the masculine perspective “[Meillassoux's] mistake” and
then proposes the two non-Alls, asking not
how they relate to Meillassoux's masculine propositions but how they
relate to
each
other
(Less
Than Nothing
636). If Žižek were proposing some sort of “neutral” position
that would finally take both the masculine and feminine propositions
with regard to contingency into account, his criticism of
Meillassoux's ignorance of the non-All would likely focus on the
derivation between the non-All and the exception (and Meillassoux's
lack thereof).
Having
established that Žižek's
position is that of the feminine non-All as against Meillassoux's
masculine totality, where does that leave us? Žižek here provides
us with one explicit argument: “Since reality is contingent, we
should begin with the non-All of contingency: it is out of
contingencies that, contingently, necessities arise” (Žižek, Less
Than Nothing 636).
Does this statement apply also to the necessity of contingency? Is
there a primordial contingency that could give rise to its own
necessity, which giving-rise would thus be retroactively determined?
In another context Žižek writes, “...the pre-symbolic 'eternally
Feminine' is a retroactive patriarchal fantasy—that is, the
exception which grounds the reign of the Phallus” (The
Žižek Reader 140).
Here we see something rather strange: Žižek, in proposing the
primacy of the non-All of contingency and its ability to give rise to
necessities, has taken part in just such a “retroactive patriarchal
fantasy.” Here, the exception is on a higher level, no longer the
simple ∃x~Γx but now the feminine itself. This is precisely the
first misreading discussed in the previous section. In taking the
feminine position Žižek has shown himself more masculine even than
Meillassoux!
VI. Conclusion
What
are we to conclude from this bizarre state of affairs? Žižek's
critique of Meillassoux provides us with some generally relevant
conclusions. Importantly, it shows that one cannot read the formulas
in a neutral way—Žižek provides us with some ways “not to
misread” Lacan's formulas, but how can one read them correctly?
Since “Woman does not exist,” there does not seem to be a way to
occupy a feminine position that is not also
masculine—but this is just what we would expect, since She is a
mask or screen, coincident with the patriarchal order though with a
formal shift from the for-other to the in-itself; in-Herself She is
for-other. Another way to conceive this shift would be the difference
between the masculine and feminine formulas—they 'say the same
thing,' but are formally different in the ways outlined in Section II
of this paper.
As
Žižek writes, the two sexes “...involve a different modality of
the very antagonist relationship between these [stereotypical
male-vs-female] opposites” (“Otto Weininger...”
144).
So Žižek's modality differs from Meillassoux's, but how are we to
decide between them, to pronounce a judgment? Žižek, though
involved in a patriarchal fantasy, is at least able to speak the
antagonism, even if from
the side of the masculine.
It is by taking the side of the feminine that he is absolutely
masculine, and yet this partiality allows him to address the
ontological rift of sexual difference. This precisely parallels
Žižek's later point that “the very epistemological failure (to
reach reality) is an indication and effect of our being part of
reality, of our inclusion within it” (Less
Than Nothing
636). Thus, it is as partial that we can relate to or interact with
reality, because that reality itself is partial, subject to sexual
antagonism.
Finally,
there remains the question of the exclusively feminine possibility of
going “beyond the Phallus.” In the context of sex this means
having non-phallic enjoyment, but what does it mean for our model? I
believe the answer is to be found in Žižek's proposal of the
non-All of necessity—going beyond contingency here means an
agnosticism of sorts. Žižek occupies the feminine (and therefore
also masculine, as shown above) position insofar as he decides on the
non-All of contingency, but he goes “beyond” insofar
as he considers other non-Alls.
And further, this agnosticism is due
to
the feminine: it is because of the inconsistent nature of the non-All
that alternatives are possible. From within the masculine,
Meillassoux cannot do this. Truly holding a feminine position, then,
may involve any number of non-Alls, but these are precluded by an
exclusively masculine position.
Sexual
difference, then, is definitively shown to be fundamentally present.
The model could, with minor tweaks, be utilized for everything from
ideology and Kantian categories to philosophical positions and of
course sexual relations, wherever there are universals. This formal
work, though incomplete, is important precisely because sexual
difference itself is “the failure a symbolization”, itself formal
(Žižek, “Otto Weininger...”
145).
Works Cited
Lacan,
Jacques. The
Seminar
of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: On Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love
and Knowledge, 1972-1973.
Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc, 1999. Print.
Meillassoux,
Quentin. After
Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency.
Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009. Print.
Žižek,
Slavoj. Less
than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism.
New York: Verso, 2013. Print.
Žižek,
Slavoj. “Otto Weininger, or 'Woman doesn't Exist.'” The
Žižek
Reader.
Eds.
Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright. Malden: Blackwell Publishing,
1999. Print.
Žižek,
Slavoj. “Woman is One of the Names-of-the-Father, or How Not to
Misread Lacan's Formulas of Sexuation.” lacanian
ink
10 (1995): n. pag. Web. 5 December 2014.
