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Das Ding: Enigmatic Presence and Lack
- Das Ding derives from Freud's concept of an unknown part of the maternal other that the infant cannot recognize.
- Lacan adapts this as a zone of enigmatic unknowing that straddles both lack and overwhelming presence.
Das Ding's Displacement by Objet Petit a
- Lacan introduces das Ding in Seminar 7 but then largely replaces it with the concept of objet petit a.
- This shift may aim to avoid a bipolar subject-other relation and embrace a more complex triangulation.
Ethics as Relation to Das Ding
- The ethics of desire relates to comporting oneself relative to das Ding without being overwhelmed or distancing oneself from it.
- Antigone exemplifies this ethical posture as being 'between two deaths' confronting the enigma of das Ding.