[1] The etymology of the term refers to it as the absence of brilliance in the astronomical sense such as the fading or the disappearance of a star.
Jones suggested that fear of aphanisis was in both sexes more fundamental than castration anxiety, an argument he used against Sigmund Freud in their debate over female sexuality.
[4] Jones originally proposed aphanisis as a condition of female subjects based on their physiological characteristics.
[8] He diverged from Jones' theory by maintaining that this phenomenon does not have a purely physiological basis, arguing that it is in the plane of intersubjective desire based in the signifier.
Žižek developed the concept of aphanisis in terms of the dialectic of presence and absence—the gap between the core of the personality and the symbolic narrative in which the individual lives.