Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

The Mirror World: Being as Nothingness

Qixuan YeSt. Hilda’s School, Gold Coast, 4212, Australia*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

The question of whether the perceived world is a mere illusion has been a key area of interest to both essentialism and existentialism. Plato, the essentialist, argues that there is an objective reality transcendent to that which we perceive. Lacan, similarly, proposed that there exists a totality of reality in the human psyche, open to neo-natal children who have not yet entered the external world through language. In this paper, I argue that Lacan had taken a different route to Plato via his portrayal of the Real, that is, the original state of the world before it is rendered inaccessible by the ego’s entrance into the perceived reality, or the Mirror World. Elusive of being formulated by the signs of the perceived reality, or the Imaginary-Symbolic order, it is but a nothingness without concrete being. What exists is what is accepted as a part of the linguistic and epistemological conventions of the external world, and the perceived reality a mere Mirror Reflection of the psychic and social symbols and is thus illusory. The Ego, likewise, is argued to be contingent and imaginary, born out of its misidentification with one’s mirror image that one sees in the external world.

Keywords: Sartre; Essentialism; Ontological Nihilism; Lacan; Plato
Published: May 17, 2023
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/4/20220147
Volume: CHR Vol.4
pp. 40-49
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