Talk:Sinthome

Where does this word come from, and in what fields of study is it used? AnonMoos 14:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the center part of the Borromean rings forms a Reuleaux triangle ONLY IF all three circles are drawn so that the center of each circle is on the circumference of the other two (i.e. if there are three intersecting Vesica piscis figures). However, that's by no means always the case... AnonMoos 14:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

the sinthome is what organizes jouissance. it's actually the fourth ring that holds the borromean knot together. this article needs some work....Acornwithwings 05:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Added the *cleanup-confusing* tag

I added the *cleanup-confusing* tag. Per WP:CLARIFY: "likely to be confusing to the average reader, because it is obtuse, confused, or missing key information. Sometimes, we all write text that makes perfect sense to us, but does not make sense to most other people." Please rewrite this article so that it is no longer likely to be confusing to the average reader and instead makes sense to most other people. Thank you. -- 201.19.77.39 11:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I added a few links. See Wikipedia:Red_link. Please note that IMHO these links do not correct the comprehensibility problem noted above. IMHO, the article still needs an extensive rewrite for comprehensibility/clarity. Thank you. -- 201.19.77.39 11:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

We should try to confine discussion to one place - rather than also on the Wikiproject page as well. Both this and foreclusion look fine to me, since they are specialist terminology, rather than general concepts. No one is going to be reading them that doesn't know who Lacan is, for example; which implies a basic acquaintance with Imaginary, Symbolic etc. I'm by no means an expert in this field, but looks clear and understandable to me. I don't think it a problem with a confused description, but rather with a complex idea. Compare other specialist terms in other disciplines--completely randomly based on my own recent browsing, for example, Reptiliomorpha. DionysosProteus 12:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

"No one is going to be reading them that doesn't know who Lacan is."

IMHO, we should assume exactly the opposite. The Wikipedia is available to everyone in the world who has a computer and an Internet connection. This article is the top Google hit for "Sinthome". We should assume, not only that many people will be coming to this article who have no very good understanding of Lacan and Lacan-related terms, and are coming here precisely for clarification, but that as editors we have a responsibility to make our article(s) comprehensible to them.

Perhaps the basic point here: Making this Wikipedia article, or any Wikipedia article, clear and helpful to the average / lay / naive / ignorant (choose any term you like) reader in no way diminishes its usefulness to the more knowledgeable reader -- we should easily be able to provide material helpful to both. A win-win situation.

Re your observation that many Wikipedia articles are difficult for the average reader to comprehend: This has been memorably rebutted by "Do you ever catch all the fish?" [1]. No one can scan or correct all the articles on Wikipedia; as is obvious, a very large percentage of articles need help; the fact that one or more other articles need revision is no argument at all that we should not revise this article. -- 201.19.77.39 13:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that any of the articles discussed needed revising; they don't, I believe. This is a specialist term that requires an understanding of Imaginary, Symbolic and Real at the very least for comprehension. You're not suggesting duplicating material from those articles in order to render this one transparent to the completely random broswer? Wouldn't that be redundant, given the wikilink system? I struggle to imagine the circumstances in which a 'lay' person or whatever would be looking for a definition of "Sinthome"!?! The google results isn't an argument as this tends to be true for most wikipedia articles, doesn't it? You point out that the articles are available to everyone with an internet connection; true, but it doesn't follow that everyone will be searching for 'sinthome'; if you can suggest a circumstance in which they would, I'm happy to agree that the article would benefit from a dumbing down ;-) DionysosProteus 14:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not advocating "dumbing down" across the board, but rather that every Wikipedia article, including this one, should enable a lay reader to get a handle on the subject, and as well can contain more technical information for the specialist. I'm not asking for much here -- maybe half-a-dozen sentences worth of basic / definitional information.

It occurs to me that I am myself an example of the Wikipedia user who would benefit from such treatment of this article. I arrived at Sinthome after encountering the term in James Joyce and wondering what it meant. I'm not stupid or ignorant, but I know next to nothing about Lacan and his ideas, and after reading this article (and some of the other Lacan-related ones), I still don't. -- 201.19.77.39 21:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think perhaps it's worth remembering that even if this term was more fully expained there is little guarantee it would be more easily digestible. Lacan is an incredibly high-brow theorist and as an above contributer points out, it is unlikely people arriving at this page will not have a basic understanding of Lacanian theory. To make the definition easier to understand would involve dumbing down the concept to the point where it was entirely disinvested with meaning. Some concepts simply cannot be explained in simple terms. I arrived here looking for a definition to help with my reading of Lee Edelman and this article was clear enough for me. Lacan and 'sinthome' are specialist terms for a specialist field, to explain it in terms suitable for the literacy of Sun newspaper readers would make the entire process of defintion redundant.--139.184.30.134 (talk) 14:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I see, yes, that is an appropriate circumstance. You've said that despite browsing to the other related articles that this one is little or no clearer. Could you outline which parts of this one in particular, in light of that related browsing, remain obscure? That should offer a starting-point for development. DionysosProteus 12:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this should be readable for the average layman, but one of the most beneficial aspects of Wikipedia is that a topic which needs more explanation will be linked to within the text of the article itself. We don't need to explain symbolic, imaginary, Lacan etc in full because a lay reader can easily click on these links and get a better idea of what this article is about. Acornwithwings 17:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought this was a very admirable attempt at summarising a conceptof potentially endless complexity. Including explanations of the specialist terms within the entry would make it far less user-friendly. It seems to have been a couple of years since the clean-up/ clarify note was put on, and I'm starting to share some people's frustration with their appearance as a 'health-warning' on all Lacanian pages, where other specialist fields don't carry them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.19.36.187 (talk) 21:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What subject anyway ?

Article: "Lacan redefines the psychoanalytic symptom in terms of his topology of the subject."

But I wonder what subject ?

• the Lacanian subject
• the cartesian subject
• the subject as described by philospher X

Does someone know for shure ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.223.55.175 (talk) 05:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)