7/28/2019 zizekkant

1/2

This thing an sich is not simply a transcendental entity beyond our grasp, but

something that is discernible only via the irrducibly antonomic character of our

experience of reality.

Let us take Kants confrontations with the epistemological antinomy whichcharacterized his epoch: empiricism versus rationalism. Kants solution is neither

to choose one of these term s nor to enact a kind of higher synthesis wich would

sublate the two as nilateral, as partial moments of a global truth (neither, of

course, does he withdraw into pure skepticism); the stake of his transcendental

turn is precisely to avoid the need to formulate ones own positive solution. What

kant does is to change the very terms of the debate; his solution the

transcendental turn is unique in that it, first, rejects the ontological closure: it

recognizes a certain fundmental and irreducible limitation (finitude) of the

human condidition, which is why the two poles, rational and sensual, active and

passive, can never be fully mediated-reconlciled the synthesis of the two

dimensions (the fact that our Reason seems to fit the structure of external reality

that affects us) always relies on a certain salto mortale, or leap of faith. Far

from designating a synthesis of the two dimensiosn, the Kantian

transcendentalstands rather for their irreducible gap as such: the

transcendentalpoints to something in this gam , a new dimension which cannot

be reduced to either of the two positive terms between which the gap is gaping.

Perhaps the best way to describe the Kantian break toward this new dimension is

with regard tot the changed status of the notion of the inhuman. Kant

introduced a key distinction between negative and indefinite judgement: the

positive judgement the soul is mortal can be negated in two ways: when a

predicate is denied tot the subject (the soul is not mortal), and when a non-

predicate is affirmed (the soul is non-mortal). The indefinite judgment opens up

a third domain shich undermines the underlying distinction: the undead are

neither alive nor dead, they are precisely the monstrous living dead. Human,

not human, inhuman. Rational, not rational, irrational.

What then is this new dimension that emerges in the gap itself? It is that of the

transcendental I itself, of its spontaneity: the ultimate parallax, the third space

between phenomena and the noumenon itself, is the subjects

freedom/spontaneity, which although, of course, is not the property of a

phenomenal entity, so that it cannot be dismissed as a false appearance whichconceals the noumenal fact that we are totally caught in an inaccessible

7/28/2019 zizekkant

2/2

necessity is also not simply noumenal. In a mysterious subchapter of his

Crititue of Practical Reason entitled of the wise adaptation of mans cognitive

faculties to his practical vocation, Kant endeavors to answer the question of

what would happen to us if we were to gain acces tot the noumanl domain, tot

the Ding an Sich.