World Spectators

by Kaja Silverman

Combining phenomenology and psychoanalysis in highly innovative ways, this book seeks to undo the binary opposition between appearance and Being that has been in place since Plato’s parable of the cave. It is, essentially, an essay on what could be called “world love,” the possibility and necessity for psychic survival of a profound and vital erotic investment by a human being in the cosmic surround. Here, the author takes her cue from Freud’s assertion that the “loss of reality” associated with psychosis is a function of a disturbance not in the capacity to reason or perceive, but rather in the capacity for world love, the libidinal and semiotic circuity by means of which such love actualizes itself. In an implicit challenge to poststructuralist thought, the author claims that this love is always in response to a call issued by the world—that the world has, as it were, a vocation: its beauty ought to be seen. We must think of our own being-in-the world as a response to a primordial calling out to respond to this beauty. We are, the author suggests, at the very core of our being, summoned to what she terms world spectatorship. Drawing on Heidegger’s phenomenological elaboration of care as the being distinctive of human being and the primarily Lacanian conceptualization of the language of desire specific to each human subject, this metapsychology of love attempts to integrate issues in the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy, visual culture, art history, and literary and film studies.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Psychology, Psychoanalysis

191 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

Reviews

[Nat Baldino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the first few chapters and her rereading of Plato using phenomenological phil-lang, but the end was like the rupi Kaur of theory

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eccentric, and for that reason lovable, book. I should have liked to give it five stars after the first two chapters, although I found the next ones a little less enjoyable.

Combining phenomenology and psychoanalysis—strange bedfellows—she begins in the first two chapters by pitting Heidegger and Lacan against Platonism, championing concrete appearance over abstract Being. From there, she focuses more on Freud and Lacan, and it's only until the end that she brings in Merleau-Ponty. I've always been rather suspicious and critical of Lacan for his density and obscurity, but Silverman does a good job making him not only digestible but palatable (for the most part).

Her main thesis is that the world wants to be looked at it, to be seen, and it is we who must answer that call. I like perspectives that re-enchant the world or breathe new life into it, which is what really drew me to the book in the first place. The idea that the world should have agency of its own, that it has a voice with which to call us, that it enjoys our beholding it—it is a fascinating and, to many perhaps, a fantastical theory. Nonetheless, I think I shall try my best to see the world with new, attentive eyes.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really enjoying this book! She seems to be doing everything that I'd like to do, as far as bringing Critical Theory, Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis together into a fairly positive and constructive philosophy of human be-ing. Right now am enjoying her synthesis of Heidegger and Lacan, two thinkers I am particularly interested in.