Lacanian theory did not concern itself with ontological statuses - as he would have argued, every approach towards a psychodynamic ontology bridges dangerously into a ontic reductionism. Take the utmost extreme example - Brain neuroscience. With the biological model of psychology, the subject is all but absent, and the mind is a reductionist machine of 'meaningless' interactions. So, as such, Lacan restricted himself to a more 'Hegelian' approach towards the mind, speaking almost transcendentally, restricting himself to a stance of subjectivity. It is often the biggest subject of quibble his critics have with him, but likewise, perhaps the greatest strength in his philosophy. So, I feel it is not so much that Hofstadter has 'revealed truths' that Lacan missed out on, so much as one cannot speak of these 'truths' within the frame of Lacanian theory by means of its very approach to psychodynamics. Lacan is far to Hegelian, I guess you could say. Coincidentially, this is the very 'gap' in Hofstadter's theory that I am mentioning. It is not one limited to him, so much as it is the irreducible gap between the non-subjective psychological models (Neuroscience, behavioralism, Psychometrics) and the subjective models (Psychodynamics [the 'Hegelian' models, so to speak]). MySpace Forums » Religion & Philosophy » Philosophy » Douglass Hofstadter and Ken Wilbur
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