At 11:18 PM -0400 4/19/98, Petra Hanakova wrote: >Well, JOSHI's definition is much more a Freudian account of castration >threat than Lacanian. >I will try to simplify it as much as posible (but to simplify Lacan and >not to twist the message is virtually impossible). > >For Lacan, the subjectivity is formed in the infant >on the basis of imaginary identification with his image in the mirror, >which gives the "body-in-pieces" (infants without full control of his >body) an illusion of completeness and control. This moment ("mirror >stage") doesn't yet mark the entry of the infant in the Symbolic order >(the realm of language and the Law). But the mirror stage marks the first >of the subject forming "lacks" - subjectivity, for Lacan, is a >"meccoinassance" of an imaginary control - a basic misunderstanding and >misperception. ==== I assume there must be an obvious answer to the following question since the question itself seems so obvious to me, so I apologize in advance if I'm being obtuse. Since mirrors were not a part of human experience for most of the course of human evolution, and since even today most infants in the world do not have a chance to see themselves much or at all in mirrors, what is the basis for hypothesizing a "mirror stage" in infants? --Richard J. Leskosky Richard J. Leskosky Office phone: (217) 244-2704 Assistant Director FAX: (217) 244-2223 Unit for Cinema Studies <http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/cinema> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2117 Foreign Languages Building 707 S. Mathews Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61801 ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]