Abstract
Considering the Hegelian master–slave dichotomy over the exchange of the gaze, the paper focuses on the issue of vision and visibility, reinterpreted in Sartre’s phenomenological discussions in different ways. The Hegelian emphasis on recognition finds reflection in the treatment of vision as force expressed through visibility in Sartre and as an issue of self recognition in Lacan. Drawing the Hegelian tag with a comparative argument between Sartre and Lacan, the paper focuses on the different perspectives over the concept of gaze or look. It argues that even sharing the same Hegelian legacy regarding the notion of gaze and recognition Sartre and Lacan differs to a considerable extent in their treatment of the impact of gaze. While emphasising more on the phenomenological-existential analysis of the issue of individual recognition Sartre presents gaze as a strong alienating force released from another powerful subject affecting the intersubjective power relation, Lacan, stands on a non-reciprocal relation between seeing and seen by making a difference between the eyes of the subject that looks at and the gaze which is on the side of the object without having any capacity to become a subject. The paper concentrates on these issues over a broader argument on Sartre’s concept of intersubjective gaze.
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Notes
Sartrean use of the term God as “being-in-itself-for-itself” shows that it refers to a being that is conscious and self aware but at the same time, of a fixed nature and beyond change. This is self-contradictory and hence not possible.
(nosubject.com/index.php?title=gaze, accessed on 13/4/15).
(nosubject.com/index.php?title=gaze, accessed on 13/4/15).
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