Scriptures of the Real Público
Ramachandran, Shalini Deepika (2011)
Abstract
This thought experiment-thesis raises two fundamental questions:
Do seemingly disparate
knowledge systems aspire toward similar goals? By juxtaposing the
pursuits of different
disciplines, can we find new forms of communication that enable a
richer production of public
knowledge and transform disciplinary boundaries into a generative
space?
To address these questions, I compare the creative pursuits of
Albert Einstein, father
of modern physics, and James Joyce, father of modern literature, in
conversation with Jacques
Lacan, Sigmund Freud's protégé as the
"Name-of-the-Father" of modern psychoanalysis. All of
these thinkers struggled with the inability of language to express
lived experience fully. Lacan
called this occluded, ineffable realm "the Real"; Einstein called
it "wonder"; and Joyce called it
"drama." While this thesis focuses primarily on Einstein's and
Joyce's struggles against the
conventions of their fields, Lacanian psychoanalysis proposes clues
as to how these thinkers'
troubled relationships with women impacted their choices to
traverse revolutionary intellectual
paths.
All three thinkers find that Real knowledge, as opposed to
knowledge of reality, is only
accessible experientially, gained by exploring the lacks within
conventions and language. But as
prolific writers, Joyce and Einstein do not eschew language
completely; rather, their use of word-
play, image-play, and thought experiments empowers language by
giving it an experiential
component, thereby creating public knowledge that can be
"re-played" by readers again and
again.
Yet disciplinary differences problematize free reign of this
"wonder." Science relies on
agreement upon evidence to propagate concepts and can thus obscure
the need for
epistemological inquiry of conventions (until a heretic Einstein
comes along). Literature does
allow itself to resonate with infinite, Real human truths-"personal
woe," as Joyce wrote. But
literary criticism therefore remains unable to publicly demonstrate
an objective value for
investigating literary "play" as science can for its findings,
through falsifiable experiments.
Joyce's and Einstein's most creative works amount to powerful calls
against creating
expansive, "complete" theories of reality. Diving into the
fundamental lack in their disciplines,
the two instead discover ab-sens (playing on the French word
sens, as in the senses or a "sense of
reality"): the experiential knowledge of silence, the Real.
Table of Contents
Movements Prelude: What is Realism?...................................................................................................1
First Movement: Fathers Without Motherlands......................................................................18
Second Movement: The Quanta of History............................................................................41
Third Movement: The Cracks in the ‘Ramparts'.....................................................................65
Fourth Movement: Thinkers at Play………………........................................................................91
Coda: Reality vs. reality: Big Truth or little truths? ..............................................................135
Works Cited....................................................................................................................146
About this Master's Thesis
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