The Sign-Making Fantasy : Critique of the political economy of memory and imagination, Part IV
Nojiri, Eiichi
Osaka Human Sciences, 2025, 11, 79-99
Number of Access:47（2025-06-08 12:28 Counts）
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Identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.18910/100849
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This article is the fourth (Part IV) of a series of six to eight parts. Alloying philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, this series seeks to articulate a relationship between the essential nature of Western philosophy’s metaphysical method of dialectics and the structure of memory in human beings. Covering Western philosophers from ancient to modern, such as Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Hegel, Lacan, Derrida, and Jakobson, and quoting social, cultural, and psychopathological materials such as Sarashina Diary (the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue in 11c Japan), Funes the Memorious (Jorge Luis Borges), Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami), 1984 (Apple Computer television commercial), autism spectrum disorder, late capitalism, and even the Quest Atlantis boom, this series endeavors to elucidate the nature of memory in the neurotypical (NT), i.e., the so-called normal, the majority of human beings. It is only in comparison with the so-called abnormal that the socalled normal can be defined. As a conclusion, the author elucidates that it is the being of ‘the otherness’ which always and already permeates the normal and stable working of memory, and it is that which frames the structure and content of the ego. In other words, the heteronomous nature of the capability of memory and imagination of typical developed individuals will be depicted. In Part I, I traced the position of the imagination from Augustine to Descartes, and in Part II, its position in Kant and Heidegger. In Part III, I examined Hegel’s theory of the imagination with precision. Hegel transforms the Kantian productive imagination into an imagination that makes “sign”. In this Part IV, I will examine closely what “sign” and “mechanical memory” are in Hegel, and discuss the enigma of the synchronized function of “sign-making fantasy.” In Hegel, a “sign” is a symbol that has a meaning other than that indicated by its own sensory characteristics. Hegel gives examples of cap badges, flags, and tombstones, but in our time, one might cite the Apple trademark. Apple’s apple symbol represents an apple, but the meaning it actually communicates to people is not “apple.” While people see an apple there, they are reading another meaning into it. Hegel says the Egyptian pyramids are “sign.” A famous and interesting statement by Hegel, which Derrida also draws attention to and discusses. Pyramid is a symbolic expression that excludes any human or natural form. Hegel highly values such “sign” representations because this is how man leaves the world of natural, sensible meaning and enters the world of meaning expressed only by the human Language system. Hegel says that the world of “mechanical memory” is a meaningless/senseless dimension. It is called meaningless/senseless, but it is rather the world of the universal meaning system. Man enters this world of universal meaning through the power of “signmaking fantasy”. For Hegel, “recall” and “memory” are different. Recall is the recall of sensible images, while memory is the world of meaning divorced from sensible images. Hegel does not clarify why the switch occurs from mere passive recall (the storage of mental images in “darkness”) to active imagination (the power of fantasy to manipulate mental images at will, the light that illuminates the darkness). It just happens in Hegel. Furthermore, Hegel posits without reservation that fantasy is the reason that leads us into the world of general knowledge and general memory. He does not clarify the mechanism how individual fantasies become not an arbitrary and personal delusions, but general intelligence. In the next Part V, I will work on the riddle of “sign-making fantasy” and discuss the theoretical possibility of a “pseudo-synchronic circuit” that synchronizes our fantasies, using Contemporary linguistics and psychology.
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This article is the fourth (Part IV) of a series of six to eight parts. Alloying philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, this series seeks to articulate a relationship between the essential nature of Western philosophy’s metaphysical method of dialectics and the structure of memory in human beings. Covering Western philosophers from ancient to modern, such as Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Hegel, Lacan, Derrida, and Jakobson, and quoting social, cultural, and psychopathological materials such as Sarashina Diary (the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue in 11c Japan), Funes the Memorious (Jorge Luis Borges), Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami), 1984 (Apple Computer television commercial), autism spectrum disorder, late capitalism, and even the Quest Atlantis boom, this series endeavors to elucidate the nature of memory in the neurotypical (NT), i.e., the so-called normal, the majority of human beings. It is only in comparison with the so-called abnormal that the socalled normal can be defined. As a conclusion, the author elucidates that it is the being of ‘the otherness’ which always and already permeates the normal and stable working of memory, and it is that which frames the structure and content of the ego. In other words, the heteronomous nature of the capability of memory and imagination of typical developed individuals will be depicted. In Part I, I traced the position of the imagination from Augustine to Descartes, and in Part II, its position in Kant and Heidegger. In Part III, I examined Hegel’s theory of the imagination with precision. Hegel transforms the Kantian productive imagination into an imagination that makes “sign”. In this Part IV, I will examine closely what “sign” and “mechanical memory” are in Hegel, and discuss the enigma of the synchronized function of “sign-making fantasy.” In Hegel, a “sign” is a symbol that has a meaning other than that indicated by its own sensory characteristics. Hegel gives examples of cap badges, flags, and tombstones, but in our time, one might cite the Apple trademark. Apple’s apple symbol represents an apple, but the meaning it actually communicates to people is not “apple.” While people see an apple there, they are reading another meaning into it. Hegel says the Egyptian pyramids are “sign.” A famous and interesting statement by Hegel, which Derrida also draws attention to and discusses. Pyramid is a symbolic expression that excludes any human or natural form. Hegel highly values such “sign” representations because this is how man leaves the world of natural, sensible meaning and enters the world of meaning expressed only by the human Language system. Hegel says that the world of “mechanical memory” is a meaningless/senseless dimension. It is called meaningless/senseless, but it is rather the world of the universal meaning system. Man enters this world of universal meaning through the power of “signmaking fantasy”. For Hegel, “recall” and “memory” are different. Recall is the recall of sensible images, while memory is the world of meaning divorced from sensible images. Hegel does not clarify why the switch occurs from mere passive recall (the storage of mental images in “darkness”) to active imagination (the power of fantasy to manipulate mental images at will, the light that illuminates the darkness). It just happens in Hegel. Furthermore, Hegel posits without reservation that fantasy is the reason that leads us into the world of general knowledge and general memory. He does not clarify the mechanism how individual fantasies become not an arbitrary and personal delusions, but general intelligence. In the next Part V, I will work on the riddle of “sign-making fantasy” and discuss the theoretical possibility of a “pseudo-synchronic circuit” that synchronizes our fantasies, using Contemporary linguistics and psychology.
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