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I found “How to Read Lacan” by Zizek a great introduction as someone who has 0 psychology or philosophy background. As another poster mentioned Im still not sur

by omeze 4y ago

I found “How to Read Lacan” by Zizek a great introduction as someone who has 0 psychology or philosophy background. As another poster mentioned Im still not sure how much “there is”, but I found the concept of the Other to be interesting. But I also don’t think it’s too healthy outside of a clinical setting to try and reduce human desire to a formula. People should try to understand each other one-on-one without diagnosing or labeling either party’s behavior. It feels like a lot of interest in Girard and Lacan stem from trying to manipulate or predict people, which may be a useful tool some of the time (doctor <> patient) but is no way to live day-to-day!

mhh__ 4y ago
Maybe I shouldn't just before reading but the way philosophy has to be prefaced by "How to read X" makes me so glad we have mathematics in physics. Physics is concise, but more importantly can be wrong. I don't mind reading a bit of philosophy every now and again but at some point I just have to put it down because it's so long winded. Even ignoring the somewhat revealing tendency to borrow terminology from other subjects, there's no sense of urgency in the writing. Perhaps it's best transmitted orally instead.
- bbatha 4y ago
  The conciseness of math and physics has to do with notation that’s been developed over centuries and taught over the course of over a decade to students in most developed countries. I’m sure if you went to your “Math for x non-stem degree” course at your local university you’d see students equally befuddled by a soup of notation and terms they haven’t encountered.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    The notation exists because it can be applied to the field, because the field can be applied to reality. It's not solely invention. Engineers love ruining physics but at very least they can still be ugly rather than bloated.
    - lmt55 4y ago
      Surely there is no connection between the appropriateness of the notation to the subject and the appropriateness of the subject to reality. Non-Euclidean geometry has applications to reality, but before these applications were known, how did they determine that the notation would appropriately apply to the field?

by omeze 4y ago

mhh__ 4y ago

Maybe I shouldn't just before reading but the way philosophy has to be prefaced by "How to read X" makes me so glad we have mathematics in physics. Physics is concise, but more importantly can be wrong. I don't mind reading a bit of philosophy every now and again but at some point I just have to put it down because it's so long winded. Even ignoring the somewhat revealing tendency to borrow terminology from other subjects, there's no sense of urgency in the writing. Perhaps it's best transmitted orally instead.

bbatha 4y ago
The conciseness of math and physics has to do with notation that’s been developed over centuries and taught over the course of over a decade to students in most developed countries. I’m sure if you went to your “Math for x non-stem degree” course at your local university you’d see students equally befuddled by a soup of notation and terms they haven’t encountered.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  The notation exists because it can be applied to the field, because the field can be applied to reality. It's not solely invention. Engineers love ruining physics but at very least they can still be ugly rather than bloated.
  - lmt55 4y ago
    Surely there is no connection between the appropriateness of the notation to the subject and the appropriateness of the subject to reality. Non-Euclidean geometry has applications to reality, but before these applications were known, how did they determine that the notation would appropriately apply to the field?