Real opposition and contradiction; on the notion of antagonism by Ernesto Laclau

Abstract

This text analyzes Laclau's theory of contradictions and its relation with the logic of propositions and Hegelian theory. According to Laclau, opposing propositions do not necessarily imply an antagonistic relation, but in an antagonistic relation, when it comes to not fully constituted identities, the structure of opposition cannot be reduced to the form of propositions. Moreover, Laclau understands opposition in a Hegelian sense, and shows that antagonisms do not allow themselves to be subsumed in the reflexive structure of thought. In the constitution of subjectivity by antagonism, an external other is assumed which is not conceptually subsumable, as that which escapes the laws of conformation of the subject itself and which is foreign to the chains of equivalence that subject positions constitute in each social field. In summary, the text stresses that for Laclau contradictions can be understood both in the sense of the logic of propositions and in the Hegelian sense, and that, in the case of an antagonistic relation, the structure of the opposition cannot be reduced to the form of propositions, but requires a deeper understanding of the reality that escapes the laws of conformation of the subject itself and the chains of equivalence of the subject positions in each social field.