Brief Description
Argues that, in the face of the failures of philosophical materialism, the only way to keep up with the challenges of the modern world is to embrace dialectical materialism and provides a new foundation for the philosophy.
Learn More about the Book
Philosophical materialism in all its forms from scientific naturalism to Deleuzian New Materialism has failed to meet the key theoretical and political challenges of the modern world. This is the burden of philosopher Slavoj i[ek s argument in this pathbreaking and eclectic new work. Recent history has seen developments such as quantum physics and Freudian psychoanalysis, not to speak of the failure of twentieth-century communism, shake our understanding of existence.
In the process, the dominant tradition in Western philosophy lost its moorings. To bring materialism up to date, i[ek himself a committed materialist and communist proposes a radical revision of our intellectual heritage. He argues that dialectical materialism is the only true philosophical inheritor of what Hegel designated the speculative approach in thought.
Absolute Recoil is a startling reformulation of the basis and possibilities of contemporary philosophy. While focusing on how to overcome the transcendental approach without regressing to naive, pre-Kantian realism, i[ek offers a series of excursions into today s political, artistic, and ideological landscape, from Arnold Schoenberg s music to the films of Ernst Lubitsch."
Review Quotes
1. "Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive." --Terry Eagleton
Praise for "Less Than Nothing"
"Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj Žižek ... one of the world's bestknown public intellectuals." --John Gray, "New York Review of Books"
"A gifted speaker - tumultuous, emphatic, direct - and he writes as he speaks." --Jonathan REe, "Guardian"
"A serious attempt to reanimate or reactualize Hegel." --Robert Pippin, author of "Hegel's Idealism"
"From the Hardcover edition."
2. Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive. Terry Eagleton
Praise for "Less Than Nothing"
Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj i[ek ... one of the world s bestknown public intellectuals. John Gray, "New York Review of Books"
A gifted speaker tumultuous, emphatic, direct and he writes as he speaks. Jonathan Ree, "Guardian"
A serious attempt to reanimate or reactualize Hegel. Robert Pippin, author of "Hegel s Idealism"
"From the Hardcover edition.""
3. Praise for Slavoji[ek:
The excitable fluency, ursine congeniality and gleeful readiness to provoke and offend all feed the sense of authentic sponanaeity and energy that has made i[ek somethig like European philosophy s punk icon, packing out auditoriums around the world.
Josh Cohen, "New Statesman"
Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj i[ek ... one of the world s best-known public intellectuals.
John Gray, "New York Review of Books"
A gifted speaker tumultuous, emphatic, direct he writes as he speaks.
Jonathan Ree, "Guardian"
Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive.
Terry Eagleton
"From the Hardcover edition.""
4. Praise for Slavoji[ek:
The excitable fluency, ursine congeniality and gleeful readiness to provoke and offend all feed the sense of authentic sponanaeity and energy that has made i[ek somethig like European philosophy s punk icon, packing out auditoriums around the world.
Josh Cohen, New Statesman
Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj i[ek ... one of the world s best-known public intellectuals.
John Gray, New York Review of Books
A gifted speaker tumultuous, emphatic, direct he writes as he speaks.
Jonathan Ree, Guardian
Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive.
Terry Eagleton
From the Hardcover edition."
