紀要論文

紀要論文

text

Osaka Human Sciences. 2026, 12, p. 129-148

Voice, Time, and Dialectics : Critique of the political economy of memory and imagination, Part V

Nojiri, Eiichi

Graduate School of Human Sciences, The University of Osaka

英語

text

2026-03

This article is the English translation of the original one Nojiri, E. (2025). “Voice, Time, and Dialectics: Critique of the Political Economy of Memory and Imagination, Part V”. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, 51, 145–167. (in Japanese). https://doi.org/10.18910/100822

This article is the fifth (Part V) of a series of six 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), the so-called normal, most human beings. The so-called normal can be defined only by comparing it with the so-called abnormal. In conclusion, the author elucidates that it is the being of ‘the otherness’ that always and already permeates the normal and stable working of memory. It is that which frames the structure and content of the ego. In particular, the heteronomous nature of memory and imagination capabilities of typically developed individuals is depicted. Part I traces the position of imagination from Augustine to Descartes and, Part II, its position in Kant and Heidegger. Part III examines Hegel’s theory of imagination with precision. Hegel transforms the Kantian productive imagination into one that makes “sign.” Part IV closely examines what “sign” and “mechanical memory” are in Hegel and discusses the enigma of the synchronized function of “sign-making fantasy.” In this Part V, I work on the riddle of “sign-making fantasy” and discuss the theoretical possibility of a “pseudosynchronic circuit” that synchronizes our fantasies, using contemporary linguistics and psychology. Compared with Kant’s visual imagination, Hegel’s imagination is phonetic. Hegel considered voice to be the medium that connects intuition and language. Voice is a physical existence, but it also has the property of disappearing. The voice of another person enters one’s inner self. One’s voice can be superimposed on others’ voices. Voices can be superimposed on letters and images. Due to its nature as a transparent medium, voice produces a “sign.” However, Hegel also states that the negativity of voice, which denies the directness of intuition, is still “abstract negativity.” The “concrete negativity” of truth, which transforms linguistic symbols into something internal, is the intellect. However, Hegel does not explain concrete negativity. This “concrete negativity” transforms recollection into memory. It is a component that accompanies speech and a force that enables us to overwrite the voices of others on our own, internalize others’ language, and simultaneously retain it within ourselves as an external object. It is the light that could rescue “Funes the Memorious” from the darkness of recollection’s fullness and drag him out to the dialogue with others. In Part VI, we will examine the nature of this “concrete negativity” mentioned by Hegel, based on the distinction between metaphor and metonymy in Jakobson’s famous paper on two types of aphasia.

10.18910/104201

104201

Voice, Time, and Dialectics : Critique of the political economy of memory and imagination, Part V

Nojiri, Eiichi

Graduate School of Human Sciences, The University of Osaka

英語

2026-03

Osaka Human Sciences

12

129

148

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/104201

10.18910/104201

https://doi.org/10.18910/104201