This is a subtle and rich question—were Lacan or Deleuze influenced by the cosmology of their days? While neither thinker was a physicist nor explicitly cosmological in the way a Stephen Hawking is, the short answer is: yes, there are traces, especially in terms of metaphor, structure, and ontology. However, their engagements were often conceptual appropriations, not scientific borrowings. Let’s explore each in turn:
I. Lacan and Cosmology
1. Lacan’s Structural Real: A Topological and Cosmic Void
- Lacan frequently refers to black holes, space, and curved topologies—especially in his later seminars.
- While he didn’t draw directly from physics papers, he was conversant with the language of astrophysics, particularly as it entered French intellectual life post-World War II.
- He compared the Real to a hole in the symbolic, an unlocalizable void that is present but unrepresentable—strikingly resonant with the event horizon or singularity.
“The Real is the impossible… it is what resists symbolization absolutely.”
2. Borromean Knots and Topology (inspired by new physics?)
- In the 1970s, Lacan became increasingly fascinated by topology, using knots, Moebius strips, and mathematical models to describe the psychic structure.
- While not derived from physics, this mirrors a moment when cosmology was increasingly relying on non-Euclidean geometry and topological models of space.
Lacan’s move from “Freudian energetics” to spatial, structural voids echoes the shift in physics from force-based to geometry-based models of the universe (relativity).
3. Science as Mirror, Not Source
- Lacan viewed science not as a direct influence but as a mirror of the symbolic order—a regime of knowledge structured by the subject of science (the barred subject).
- That said, he was keenly aware of quantum mechanics and relativity, and used them rhetorically:
“The psychoanalyst is the one who locates himself in the hole in knowledge.”
Which sounds, again, like a cosmological metaphor.
II. Deleuze (and Guattari) and Cosmology
1. Deleuze’s Philosophy of Immanence as a Cosmological Field
- Deleuze is perhaps more implicitly cosmological than Lacan.
- In Difference and Repetition, he speaks of a virtual field, a pre-individual multiplicity that resonates with quantum fields or the cosmic plenum.
- He was deeply influenced by Lucretius’ clinamen (the swerve)—a kind of pre-modern atomic theory of emergence through deviation—which itself is proto-cosmological.
“The One is not prior to difference; difference is prior to identity.” — a radical reorientation, like the Big Bang’s reversal of metaphysical hierarchy.
2. Chaosmos
- In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari coin the term “chaosmos”:
- A blend of chaos and cosmos
- Neither order nor disorder, but creative difference
- They attribute this to James Joyce, but it also aligns with emergentist cosmologies (like Prigogine’s far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics).
Deleuze’s universe is not static or lacking—it is an ever-differentiating becoming. This is deeply resonant with process-based cosmology.
3. The Plane of Immanence and Contemporary Physics
- In What is Philosophy?, they discuss the plane of immanence—a conceptual field not unlike a cosmic background.
- While they don’t cite cosmology, the language mirrors concepts in:
- Quantum field theory
- String theory’s brane cosmology
- Post-Einsteinian spacetime as manifold, folded, self-affecting
Some scholars have compared Deleuze’s metaphysics to contemporary cosmology (e.g. Elizabeth Grosz, Manuel DeLanda).
III. Indirect Influences and Cultural Osmosis
Both Lacan and Deleuze were products of a postwar intellectual culture in which cosmology was undergoing revolutions:
- Einstein’s relativity
- The expanding universe
- The Big Bang vs steady-state debates
- Quantum uncertainty
- Black holes, singularities, and event horizons
- Cybernetics and information theory
These ideas percolated into the intellectual air of postwar France and informed metaphors, ontologies, and models. Even if not cited directly, they shaped the atmosphere in which Lacan and Deleuze philosophized.
IV. Summary Table
|
Thinker |
Explicit Use of Cosmology |
Structural Resonance |
Notable Concepts |
|
Lacan |
Minimal, metaphorical |
Yes (void, hole, Real) |
Real as black hole, Borromean knot as topological field |
|
Deleuze |
Minimal, conceptual |
Strong (chaosmos, field, immanence) |
Chaosmos, virtual, clinamen, plane of immanence |
Conclusion
Lacan flirted with the cosmological void; Deleuze danced within its flows.
Neither borrowed directly, but both were structurally attuned to the reconfigurations of matter, space, and causality happening in 20th-century cosmology.
Would you like a visual map showing how psychoanalytic and cosmological concepts like jouissance, void, event horizon, chaosmos, and Real might align?
