Set theory could offer a formalization of thought, but also about the psyche. In the following paper, a model of psychological functioning is firstly developed, that connects Jean Laplanche’s basic anthropological situation with an enigmatic message from the other, an “enclaved unconscious” and the later translation of this message into thoughts and ideas. I see this model against the background of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s theory of mind and Jacques Marie Émile Lacan’s RSI-paradigm: the sensations in the enclaved unconscious are (...) real, they are – apart from certain, unrepresentable remainders (“objects a”) – determined by imaginary and symbolic. In the second step, I formulate these relationships based on Alain Badiou’s philosophical model in set theory. I follow Badiou’s approach of “multiplicity” and “counting-as-one”, which is outlined in his main work Being and Event, and examine the various sets or subsets of real, imaginary, and symbolic elements. In connection with the real unconscious, the idea of the “void set” and its evental site within the psychological situation plays a key role, not least from a therapeutic perspective. (shrink)

Lars von Triers Filme »Antichrist«, »Melancholia« und »Nymphomaniac« vermitteln den Autoren zufolge in einer verstörenden Weise den »Schock des Realen«, der aus einer Zone des Unvorstellbaren und Unbegreiflichen einbricht. Es sind absurde, sinnfreie Zumutungen, die sich der Filmszenen bemächtigen und diese in »Oberflächenabgründe« verwandeln. Solche Effekte werden in ausgewählten Szenen in den erwähnten Filmen v.a. im Rückgriff auf Lacans Theorien untersucht.