master signifier
(en)
a Lacanian term (following the linguistics of Saussure); really just another signifier (i.e., something that organises discursive structures) but one which stops the slippage of the signified under the signifier and fixes meaning, thereby forming a stable symbolic order. i don't really know tbh. a platonic ideal of a concept like "freedom" or "health"?
Alain Badiou develops the notion of ‘atonal’ worlds – monde atone – which lack the intervention of a Master-Signifier to impose meaningful order onto the confused multiplicity of reality.
uncertain
9 years, 2 months ago