Sunday, June 26, 2005

Theory, what is it??

'Theory involves the power to abstract away from one’s starting point in order to reconstruct it subsequently on the basis of its presuppositions, its transcendental ‘conditions of possibility’'(Zizek)

The commentator Glob adds the following gloss (henceforth, Glob gloss:)

To remove oneself from the starting point in order to be able to see it, to see what has enabled it, to see what it presupposes. What enables the starting point and what is presupposed by the starting point are not themselves present in the starting point. The starting point only becomes present as something known once we have 'abstracted away from it'. Except that once it becomes an object for us it can hardly be termed a starting point - we have simultaneously made it present and undermined it.

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