Dialogue between Zubiri and Lacan: the powerfulness of the real and the anguish

Abstract

Initially, a background of the problem of language and entity in philosophy and of language in psychoanalysis is presented. This article describes coincidences and differences between Zubiri and Lacan, and explains how Heidegger is a common point in his reflections. When elaborating it, divergences that prevent an equalization but that allow the understanding of one author with respect to the other were found; a concept in Zubiri can be key to understanding the real Lacanian: powerfulness. In Zubiri, the radical is the powerfulness as an attribute of the strength and power of the real that in its formality prints an affection in otherness to the percipient. In Lacan and Heidegger, that first impression provokes anguish by the a-symbolic condition of the pristine encounter between the percipient and the exteriority. Powerfulness-anguish will serve to make dialogue the boundaries of the real, thought of in some texts by Zubiri and Lacan. Finally, it is concluded: to Zubiri and Lacan four letters unite and separate them: r-e-a-l.