Magic is defined as influence acting without objective mediation
Evidence
This standpoint can be called the magical relationship of the feeling soul, for this term connotes a relation of inner to outer or to something else generally, which dispenses with any mediation; a magical power is one whose action is not determined by the interconnection, the conditions and the mediations of objective relations. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 366
Categorization
- DEFINE: Gives a precise philosophical definition of the ‘magical’ as causality-without-mediation — a neat contrastive pole to the dialectical system.
- XREF: connects to: Magic achieves domination through mimetic imitation, not through claiming absolute truth — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37; The magical relation is influence sublated into spirit controlling spirit’s thoughts — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 367; Psychic causality cannot be mechanical or constant-succession, only magic action at a distance — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 544 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- The magical relation is influence sublated into spirit controlling spirit’s thoughts
#expands(0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 367 - Psychic causality cannot be mechanical or constant-succession, only magic action at a distance
#expands(0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 544 - Mediation by work yields a dialectical world-conception free of magic.
#qualifies(0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 351 - Psychic states act on each other magically and resist intellectualistic causal explanation
#corroborates(0.80)