How are we self-conscious? (Fichte, Lacan and Zizek)

One of the questions that is asked most in philosophy, or in general for that matter, is: "How are we self-conscious?". This is exactly the question that Fichte and Lacan answer.
Kant started with his critique of pure reason where he gave us the process of synthesis and the categories of the understanding. However, Kant never gave us the derevation of the categories. Fichte started where Kant ended, and he aimed to make a science out of philosophy. In this video we will go through the theory of Fichte and compare it to the theory of Lacan.

---Contents of this video --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0:00 - Intro
4:08 - Part I: What is consciousness
5:45 - Part II: Theoretical part
16:38 - Part III: Practical part
24:44 - Summary

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[user_-qgyd]

I’ve watched all your videos, and I love your channel. Never stop posting !!

[joelp]

Phenomenal. Thank you kindly, specifically for this video, but also the whole series!

[noobzie]

Keep up with the amazing videos!! We missed you a lot!

[maxr.k.pravus]

omg you're back!!!! we're so back!!!

[JMoore-voii]

I couldn't help but think of the quote from art critic John Berger:
"Perspective makes the eye the center of the visible world"*

I am only halfway through Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' (highly recommended), but I feel that the questions being addressed in this video are addressed in Berger, as well as the later Wittgenstein (Phil. Investigations). Except, insofar as I understand Fichte, Lacan, Berger, and Wittgenstein (probably not, if at all), rather than asking "How are we self-conscious", can one instead ask "Are we self-conscious?"

Quoting your reply in the comments:
"When you see an other person, you can never really see who they are... You never really 'know' the other... Fichte goes one step further, where he explains that self-consciousness is just the ability to judge that the I is different from everything that is Other"**

At the very least, Berger seems to critique or expand on this representation/judgement view from Kant/Fichte. Berger claims that before the camera, perspective was understood like the aforementioned quote* (p. 16). As I understand it, this is embodied in Fichte's three principles.

The contradiction, though, is that for perspective of this kind (e.g. truth is in the eye of the beholder), 'eye/I' is contingent to specific time and place, and the perspective becomes meaningless when isolated into a vacuum. The omniscient subject that was presupposed in this view, does not and never existed.

With the camera, "the notion of time passing [became] inseparable from the experience of the visual" (p. 18). Because a camera can show captured images outside of OUR particular time and space, we are able to see things in places our eyes have never traveled to (Levine, 2020). Perspective changes from Fichte's 'judgement'** to the camera's 'setting'. In other words, the camera redefines our understanding of perspective/subject from false omniscience to mutual non-existence.

If one sees that there is no absolute I, or other, then it would follow that there is nothing to synthesize. By acknowledging their own mutual non-existence, the 'self' and the 'other' disappear.

"If we can remove the appearance of conflicting perceptions, the sense of there being a question or difference disappears"
- Cora Diamond on Wittgenstein's Phil. Investigations

tldr: there is no 'I'/'eye', just seeing

(apologies for such a long-winded comment, but I found this video fascinating. "I" appreciate all the work "you" do, thanks for all the effort ;)

[admburns]

I got confused when he mentioned ‘trends in dental philosophy’

[dusty_artichoke]

Glad to see new video on this channel!

[lucassiccardi]

Very interesting topic! There's so little about Fichte, thanks for this.
What about a video on Novalis? His philosophy is relevant in this very context and it's even less analysed than Fichte's.
Keep up the good work, cheers!

[ThangNeihsial]

I am bit confused on the tautological statement between language = consciousness.

Thank you. Truly appreciated.

[jhngrg]

So let me get this straight. The I asserts it's existence unconditionally and infinitely until it reaches an obstacle which reflects this act of the I back to itself. So the I, in order to rationalize this, poses this obstacle as a not I within itself but it also posits itself as opposed to this not I, that means that it poses an objectified version of itself within itself. The I and the not I that are posited within the I do not cancel each other out but only limit each other up to a point. So the posited I is finite, it's the common consciousness and it is determined by the not I. Or more accurate the I posits itself as finite. But how does the I produces the representation? Is it by the imaginative faculty? I don't really get it. Pls someone explain and correct me if I'm wrong.

[hohlikco]

thank you! thank you for everything you huys have done. Ans gor a shelter for my mind in any tie of the day. thanks

[kadaganchivinod]

Does Moral action control our thought in every which way?

[MacSmithVideo]

I'm inclined to agree with schoppenhauer that the German idealists totally missed what Kant was about, and got lost in the conceptual.

[doctorinternet]

Could someone explain this in a more simple way to me? I'm not a native speaker and am having trouble understanding the reasoning presented in the video.

[pomtubes]

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>ur pansexual
>no you no i no i no u

[jesternotclown]

The question of “How are we conscious?” is interesting. My question is, “Why do we assume consciousness isnt universay?

[clumsydad]

very limited type of self-awareness, more instinctual than anything else, i'm influenced recently by Sapolsky's views about free well ... we come into the world as entities feeling and reacting, primarily responsive and automatic, as the other species are. peace