A materialized double signals death while an immaterial double sustains the subject

Evidence

Of all the prostheses that mark the history of the body, the double is doubtless the oldest. But the double is precisely not a prosthesis: it is an imaginary figure, which, just like the soul, the shadow, the mirror image, haunts the subject like his other, which makes it so that the subject is simultaneously itself and never resembles itself again, which haunts the subject like a subtle and always averted death. This is not always the case, however: when the double materializes, when it becomes visible, it signifies imminent death. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 321

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes the double as imaginary figure versus its materialized, death-bearing form.
• XREF: Connects to Freud’s uncanny (heimlich/unheimlich) and to the mirror stage later invoked via Lacan. — connects to: Materializing the phantasm of the double destroys its power — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 322; Doubling in reality signals something important is being denied — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 25; Only the Other’s being, not the for-itself, contains death — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1272 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Materializing the phantasm of the double destroys its power #expands (0.82) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 322
• Only the Other’s being, not the for-itself, contains death #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1272
• Doubling in reality signals something important is being denied #qualifies (0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 25
• Human reality consists of two ekstases, one into being and one into non-being #expands (0.73) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 261
• Being-towards-death frames mortality as the source of authentic existence #complicates (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 933