#philmond

"The Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika [...] argues that the sensory object exists as a real entity. The Sautrāntika theory of perception, however, is rather different. It rests on the Sautrāntika radical view of momentariness, according to which there is no real duration but only a succession of infinitesimal moments, and on its view of causation, according to which causes cease to exist when their effects come into existence. The application of these principles to sensory perception makes it difficult to explain how perception directly apprehends sense objects, for it implies that objects have ceased when their apprehending consciousness arises. The Sautrāntika reply is that consciousness does not have direct access to its sense objects. By contrast to phenomenalist realism, the Sautrāntika view of perceptual consciousness may be characterized as representationalism: it sees perception as apprehending its objects indirectly, through the mediation of aspects (ākāra) representative of their objects."

It struck me that Hussie’s unity of sex and death ran contrary to the ongoing Freudian schtick -- Freud’s death drive exists in opposition to his concept of libido, which is a life principle. The next big name in psychoanalysis is Lacan, so I looked for his thoughts on the subject, and it turns out he too unified! It’s a short thread, but they’re speaking in a framework I’m unfamiliar with, so everything is confusing. Here’s the best summary I found (still confusing):

buckykatt31:

As far as Lacan/Zizek is concerned there isn't really an opposition between the death drive and eros, simply "the drive," which had similar aspects of how Freud described the death drive, except on a symbolic level as opposed to a biological level. Because of the symbolic distinction, this concept resists concrete examples.

But still, I don't know if this is a great example, but one of Freud's original inspirations for the death drive was from watching his young grandson repeat the trauma of losing his father in the war by ordering his toys to the front, the "fort da" game. Trauma is typically repeated, which echoes back to your quote from Zizek at the top:

“..[death drive] is the very opposite of dying – a name for the 'undead' eternal life itself, for the horrible fate of being caught in the endless repetitive cycle of wandering around in guilt and pain.”

Drive will always insist on it's own death, but its death is a conclusion that will never be satisfied,it never ends. Therefore, a subject gets caught in a repetition, which for Lacan occured in language. I hope this was accurate/helpful.

So Lacan insists that Drive (paradoxically both death drive and life drive) is not necessarily even a desire for physical death or life, but is entirely symbolic -- which I think is stating that since our mind contains ideas/symbols of things rather than the thing itself, every desire is symbolic? Because your brain as a process interacts with symbols of the world instead of the world itself? Idk