Full transcript
0:01okay so i've um
0:03looked around i'd to uh
0:06try to find some some videos of these uh
0:09philosophies um theories
0:11um online
0:14uh and there's not any good ones that i
0:16can find
0:17um
0:18and
0:21so i thought about um how to kind of
0:24create the
0:26um
0:27the best way to a video to best
0:32kind of deliver this information to you
0:34and honestly this is
0:36the the best i could come up with um
0:39powerpoint or all that's just not going
0:41to uh it's going to be a lot of really
0:44time consuming and kind of unnecessarily
0:47so
0:48so i'm going to record a a handful of uh
0:51videos to kind of go over some important
0:54theories that will help you to
0:56understand um
0:59kind of different ways to approach
1:01literature uh all these there's there
1:04are forms of literary criticism
1:06based on all of these and um
1:10it's kind of a lens by how you can
1:12interpret uh some literature and can
1:14help you in your reading and in your
1:16writing so the first one i want to talk
1:19about is
1:21um
1:22well
1:23really the most difficult
1:25um person to
1:29of all of these um jacques lacall
1:32um he's a
1:34important french psychologist
1:36he
1:37some of the most
1:38complicated um
1:41psychological theories uh or any theory
1:44that that you could read and i'm not
1:46going to
1:48uh to bore you guys with getting into uh
1:51to the weeds with lacon um
1:55but i'm gonna show you some um
1:58uh some of his most famous kind of works
2:01and kind of condense that uh his famous
2:03thought
2:04probably
2:05the
2:07most famous
2:10psychological theory he has
2:12are his his concept of the three orders
2:16uh sometimes called three stages right
2:19or registers sometimes
2:23and here they are so we start with
2:27the real
2:30um and the real according to the con
2:32this is the world in its
2:34reality um
2:37that
2:38we don't experience as adults because
2:41this is the world con before perception
2:44before we develop an idea of self and
2:47perception once we have that we can only
2:50experience things
2:52through perception
2:54and the real is reality with without
2:57perception um i could go give example
3:00after example about how we know that um
3:05because of perception how we process
3:06information we are
3:08uh only aware of
3:10just a minute um
3:13part of our environment for instance if
3:16you kind of extend your your uh arm out
3:19and look at your thumbnail
3:21uh the size of your thumbnail when your
3:23arms extended is
3:25all the visual information that we can
3:27process at a given time
3:29so we get the idea that we're seeing
3:32uh big pictures and we see a lot of
3:35things but
3:36uh really we're taking snapshots of
3:38thumbnail prints and the rest of it is
3:40your brain lying to you fooling
3:43and these are with the senses that we do
3:46have right
3:47but there are realities out there that
3:49we
3:51we don't have senses um
3:53to perceive
3:55and and um so we're limited by the
3:57senses we have i mean for instance there
3:59are birds who can actually visually
4:02process can see gravitational waves we
4:05can't do that so that's an entire
4:07reality around us that we're not aware
4:09of and
4:11so the real is the world in reality that
4:14we're we're separate from but it affects
4:16us according to um lacan the the
4:19ultimate real
4:21is uh death this is
4:24what he calls the ultimate real because
4:26this is an experience that
4:28none of us has had um
4:31we don't really know what what that
4:32experience is like
4:34we're
4:35we don't understand it we're not uh
4:38we can't experience that of course but
4:40unconsciously it affects every day of
4:42our life um
4:44at some point in the
4:46each day we will likely make a decision
4:50uh based on the un kind of an
4:52unconscious
4:54uh a decision based on the unconscious
4:58knowledge that we're going to die it
5:00affects um
5:02our lives but and so it's the ultimate
5:04real uh
5:07so i want you guys to know um
5:11this this um
5:13when a a child is born up to
5:17three months old he according to lacan
5:20lives in this reel what uh freud would
5:23call the oceanic state it was before any
5:25kind of notion itself has
5:28um
5:29uh developed so all the experiences with
5:32this baby
5:34um the
5:35is
5:36the baby processes as an extension of
5:40um
5:42himself um
5:44so the you know the
5:45baby's wrapped in a blanket the the
5:48the filling of the blanket and the
5:49warmth from the
5:51is blank
5:51as an extension of the baby itself
5:53there's no separation but
5:55between the baby
5:57and the blanket right
5:59well uh
6:00so that's the oceanic state according to
6:03freud uh lacan calls it liam in
6:04liamelette
6:06so this is like means the messy omelet i
6:09just think it's funnier um
6:12but that's at a certain point usually
6:14three to six months old um
6:17the baby will
6:19notice himself
6:21in
6:22the mirror
6:27and that's an important
6:29that's an important moment
6:31that that is the mirror stage
6:34in that
6:38that begins
6:41um transitioning into this new order uh
6:45the order of the imaginary it's it's
6:47important to understand imaginary is not
6:49a world of fantasy but uh
6:53it's not connected with fantasy but more
6:56images
6:57so this is where if the first notion of
7:00self occurs uh this is where uh
7:03baby starts
7:06processing um
7:08the world around according to images so
7:10that it starts with recognizing himself
7:12in the
7:14mirror that thing in the mirror that
7:16object that thing that i see that image
7:18is me
7:20and then from that like then we see
7:24the baby understands a separation
7:26between himself and and
7:29other things based on the pictures right
7:31there's no there's not a full
7:34uh fully deformed deformed um
7:37i'm sorry to fully um in
7:40informed or developed uh
7:43since itself yet but the beginning uh
7:45the first notions itself occurred the
7:47mirror stage and with everything with
7:49lacan there's a
7:51there's a give and a take there's a
7:55so on on one
7:56hand we do start to understand that
8:00uh the notion of self and and
8:04um
8:05and
8:06and there's a
8:08kind of a love of this
8:11thing in the mirror right because that's
8:13me and i love it on the other hand
8:16now for the first time we have limits so
8:19this thing in the mirror is all that i
8:22am um
8:23and this carries on psychologically
8:26throughout our lives that we have this
8:28mirror image and our
8:30mind
8:31um in it
8:33we're frustrated by it because we feel
8:36inside to be this large
8:39complicated multi-faceted
8:41uh kind of universe inside of our head
8:44but we're reminded because of that image
8:46that we're not we're
8:48we're very limited and i don't know if
8:50you guys have had that experience of
8:52looking yourself in a mirror or um or a
8:56picture of you
8:57and
8:58then think
8:59well this is not how i see myself at all
9:01this is not me at all
9:03and so we have this kind of
9:06love-hate relationship uh with that idea
9:09of the thing in the the mirror uh being
9:12us and we're we kind of um
9:15compete with it in a way right
9:18um
9:19so eventually
9:22we move into
9:24the
9:26symbolic order
9:29and that happens when we
9:31acquire
9:34language
9:36so
9:37when
9:39that part of the uh
9:42the brain that kicks in we start kind of
9:44understanding language
9:46uh we move into the symbolic
9:49and again there's a give and take with
9:51everything else so
9:53we are then able to communicate with
9:54other people we're able to share our
9:57thoughts and ideas and
10:00along with this uh notions of
10:03right or wrong and justice and fairness
10:05these big concepts those can only
10:09can only happen
10:10in the symbolic stage
10:14but once we enter this symbolic we can
10:17no longer experience anything outside of
10:20the symbolic
10:21um
10:23we are forever
10:25trapped in the symbolic we can only
10:27understand things
10:29that are structured in a way
10:31like language they don't have to be
10:33words but there's a similar kind of
10:35structure and again there's evidence to
10:37support that there's studies that show
10:39that people who
10:41look at abstract art they don't see
10:43anything in the art that makes sense to
10:45them until they're able to kind of
10:47structure what they're seeing
10:49in something like a syntax something
10:52like a linguistic structure when they're
10:54able to do that they start to see things
10:57right
10:58um and that seems to be how um how
11:00consciousness works in general that we
11:02have to
11:03uh
11:05we have to understand um
11:07state we have to put it in the system
11:09like language not exactly language but
11:11it's like language before there's any
11:13kind of reality to us to it
11:16um
11:17so that's it
11:18on the first exam i will probably
11:21ask you to be able to list the three
11:23orders
11:25so you would write down the real the
11:27imaginary and the symbolic and then i
11:30would give you these words
11:33mirror stage
11:35and maybe language
11:38and would want you to be able to put
11:40them under the right order so you would
11:42list these three and then write these
11:44where they go
11:45um
11:48so
11:49that's um
11:50that's a little bit of lecon's
11:52philosophy just a really quick
11:54run through of that
11:57i particularly want you to think about
11:59this
12:00how do we apply this
12:02to uh the yellow wallpaper that is a
12:05story that we can look at
12:07lacan's
12:08theories and
12:11we we can kind of apply it i'll give you
12:13a hint to get started
12:16usually when when students
12:18recognize and
12:20how this might be portrayed
12:23in the story
12:24they can start piecing together we don't
12:27actually see the real in here
12:30uh but we might be headed this way but
12:33start with thinking about the mirror
12:34stage and then
12:36um thinking about the condition that the
12:40protagonist is in
12:42how can we start then to interpret this
12:44from kind of a lacanian perspective a
12:46psychological perspective what's
12:48happening here