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The Parallax View
The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.
Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.
The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes. This is Zizek at the height of his powers, both as a writer and a thinker.
Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.
The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes. This is Zizek at the height of his powers, both as a writer and a thinker.
434 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
194 people are currently reading
4503 people want to read
About the author
Slavoj Žižek
642 books7,578 followersSlavoj Žižek is a Slovene sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic.
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
June 29, 2009
In the documentary Zizek!, the man claims that his three best and most theoretically significant books are (assuming, in true Hegelian fashion, that you can also count three as four): The Sublime Object of Ideology, Tarrying with the Negative, The Ticklish Subject, and The Parallax View. This then allows us to delineate the conceptual trajectory of Zizek's career so far: from the Object, through Negativity, to the Subject, and finally, Parallax. What justifies Zizek in claiming (on the dust jacket) that this is his "magnum opus"? If anything can legitimate this claim, it is that in this work Zizek finally lays claim to his distinctive ontology (although Zizek would not claim its distinctiveness, he would claim that it is Hegel's ontology, albeit Hegel read in a Lacanian vein)--the ontology of the barred S, the split-subject, the self-different One. This ontology gathers together all the concepts of his intellectual trajectory: both subject and object are nothing more than pure self-relating negativity, and it is only through the shifts of parallax that allow us to discern the difference (which is minimal). This ontology has guided Zizek in an implicit fashion from the beginning, but it is only recently that Zizek has had develop it in an explicit fashion, to differentiate his position from that of his contemporaries'--most notably from Alain Badiou's mathematical ontology of pure multiplicity woven from the Void.
In this book Zizek develops a new conceptual operator, that of the Parallax Gap, which takes its place alongside Zizek's other theoretical conceptual operators--the Vanishing Mediator, the Indivisible Remainder, the Minimal Difference, etc. Zizek employs a curious (and to some, frustrating) methodology in elaborating his theoretical concepts; rather than articulating them in a concise theortical description, he merely puts them to work in example after example in different contexts. In this book Zizek runs through the usual gamut of intellectual domains in elaborating the notion of parallax gap: from german idealism to Christian theology, cognitive brain sciences to contemprorary politico-economic ideology. (The chapters on cognitive science--a field only recently taken up by Zizek--are particularly impressive.) This methodology demands a peculiar sort of engagement from the reader, in that in order to really discern the theoretical stakes of Zizek's arguments, one has to read carefully and not get distracted by the innumerable references to popular culture, literature and cinema. One must discern, under the continually variegated examples adduced to illustrate his claims, the theoretical tools at work. Anyone willing to give this book the exertion and discipline required, however will be amply rewarded.
This book certainly rates as one of Zizek's best, and is crucial for understanding Zizek's most recent conceptual innovations and his grasp on the ideological coordinates of a post-9/11 world. Although his other books contain specific engagements on various topics of cultural relevance, to understand the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of his engagement, this book is a must read.
In this book Zizek develops a new conceptual operator, that of the Parallax Gap, which takes its place alongside Zizek's other theoretical conceptual operators--the Vanishing Mediator, the Indivisible Remainder, the Minimal Difference, etc. Zizek employs a curious (and to some, frustrating) methodology in elaborating his theoretical concepts; rather than articulating them in a concise theortical description, he merely puts them to work in example after example in different contexts. In this book Zizek runs through the usual gamut of intellectual domains in elaborating the notion of parallax gap: from german idealism to Christian theology, cognitive brain sciences to contemprorary politico-economic ideology. (The chapters on cognitive science--a field only recently taken up by Zizek--are particularly impressive.) This methodology demands a peculiar sort of engagement from the reader, in that in order to really discern the theoretical stakes of Zizek's arguments, one has to read carefully and not get distracted by the innumerable references to popular culture, literature and cinema. One must discern, under the continually variegated examples adduced to illustrate his claims, the theoretical tools at work. Anyone willing to give this book the exertion and discipline required, however will be amply rewarded.
This book certainly rates as one of Zizek's best, and is crucial for understanding Zizek's most recent conceptual innovations and his grasp on the ideological coordinates of a post-9/11 world. Although his other books contain specific engagements on various topics of cultural relevance, to understand the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of his engagement, this book is a must read.
November 9, 2015
Zizek reminds us, on nearly every page, that he's read Hegel. That much must be certain. I even assume he's read Hegel multiple times. And by Hegel, I mean Hegel, the Hegel-est of Hegels, or perhaps I am conjuring up a Big-Hegel-Other by invoking his name to represent the body of work. Not only has Zizek read Hegel, but very few people have read Hegel other than Zizek. What they read instead was, probably, l'objet petit H, which is precisely Hegel's point anyway (weren't you listening?). Of course, the average Hegel reader wouldn't know that -- Zizek, on the other hand, does.
I was told that this would be the most comfortable introduction into Zizek, but no, sorry, I don't know what he's talking about half the time. I almost do better when he doesn't define his terms. Anything Lacanian is expected to either be absorbed through context or through example, i.e. "it's just like this anecdote, or this short story, this piece of music, this historical event, this movie, this artistic sub-genre, this political figure, this..."
That's not to say it's not smart, or I didn't get anything out of it, because I got a lot out of it, and I am happy to have read it. But at the present time, I'm not sympathetic to what my professor would call "sexy" Hegel, this nouveau Hegel that seems to be have been lifted wholecloth from the Hegel of yore. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to what Zizek writes about and attributes to nouveau Hegel. Perhaps, as he is wont to say, Hegel wasn't Hegelian enough. Regardless, it's clear to me that the world still hasn't seen enough Hegel. Hegel is here, here to stay.
I was told that this would be the most comfortable introduction into Zizek, but no, sorry, I don't know what he's talking about half the time. I almost do better when he doesn't define his terms. Anything Lacanian is expected to either be absorbed through context or through example, i.e. "it's just like this anecdote, or this short story, this piece of music, this historical event, this movie, this artistic sub-genre, this political figure, this..."
That's not to say it's not smart, or I didn't get anything out of it, because I got a lot out of it, and I am happy to have read it. But at the present time, I'm not sympathetic to what my professor would call "sexy" Hegel, this nouveau Hegel that seems to be have been lifted wholecloth from the Hegel of yore. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to what Zizek writes about and attributes to nouveau Hegel. Perhaps, as he is wont to say, Hegel wasn't Hegelian enough. Regardless, it's clear to me that the world still hasn't seen enough Hegel. Hegel is here, here to stay.
Want to read
March 8, 2009And never will finish it, or pick up another one of his books again for that matter. There is far too much structural artifice, and ironic use of tyrannical ideology for me to take him seriously. It's a shame that so many people take to heart what this man has to say about leftist ideology and political revolution, when I seriously doubt that half of his readers actually know exactly what he is talking about. Granted, I could be wrong about all of this, but I find most of his writings to be heavily reliant upon the sort of intellectual gimmickry that distracts from the essence or basic meaning of what he is trying to say, which once one strips all of that gimmick away, might find that it's really quite shallow.
Read
September 6, 2008This is my first foray into Zizek, and he claims this is his magnum opus. Admission #1: I've never read Lacan, and what I've encountered of his ideas has made me ask "really?" Which is less of a problem when reading Zizek than I would expect. I find the idea of the "objet petit a" pretty interesting, so this might lead to some interesting Lacanian readings down the line. There's no real thesis statement, and that makes this book pretty frustrating in a lot of ways as well. However, Zizek relates a lot of dense, turgid ideas to well-known pop culture memes, generating an accessible read... seriously, the ideas of Alain Badiou as expressed in Finding Nemo. I'm also impressed at Zizek's way of taking other scholars and simultaneously discrediting some of their ideas while building on others (Badiou, Levinas, Deleuze, Negri, Adorno). And I'm VERY impressed by his strong commitment to a humane, hopeful political rubric beyond the "anything goes!" ethos of Baudrillard, etc., the stodgy fetishizations of the conservatives, and the obscurantist tactics of deconstruction. On the whole, a solid, worthwhile effort.
February 11, 2023
Until I read this book, I’d always wanted philosophy/theory books to have more examples. This has way more examples than exampleds. His obsessions with cinema, anti-semitism, communism, and Hegel/Lacan made it a page turner.
September 1, 2016
So far i have understood 'bracketing' from Zizek as i had not yet. and it answers a question, how does this idea help unmovable students to move into a/the discussion?
Because of bracketing, we can place a wedge in between attitudes and open up the space where production and circulation move,
Zizek writes,
"The basic Hegelian correction of Kant is thus that the three domains of reason (theoretial, practical, aesthetic) emerge through the shift in the subjects attitude that is through "bracketing": the object of science emerges through bracketing cognitive-theoretical concerns; and the aesthetic domain emerges through bracketing theoretical and moral concerns" (p. 50). That is to say, we bring a productive attitude towards our work in these areas whether we mean to or not, albeit obtained by different kinds of correct reasoning.
But the awareness of these differences, is a reification or rather is just an abstraction. Thus language and communication occurs in a space of an imagined a 'leap of faith' where the value of the terms being discussed are understood and accepted. We owe this to Kant. Kant would say the meaning is immanent in the terms of the words and is within basis of discussion just waiting to be emerged in the act of communicating, as an immanent unfolding.
Zizek takes another view based on his reading of Hegel and Marx. It is precisely these antinomies, or the contradictions in these attitudes of knowledge, theoretical, practical and aesthetic - of both writers and readers, that forms a more fragile state where value is both implicit in the words and is created in the act of communicating them, by bracketing our concerns vis-a-vis other concerns.
Within this space between concerns, or meaning-value a parallax is presented. Zizek says that due to this tension space, a temporary synthesis must occur here. The tension between production and circulation (of unclear terms - my add here) is that of the parallax (pp.50-52). Certain words like elite, assume a provisional place as a shared meaning in communication. But really, because these meanings are of the parallax, originally from contradictory attitudes about elitism and modes of understanding elitism, a tension is produced in communicating them. For example, If we use the word elite or philosophy, why strive for its clear meaning if we already have it? (p. 52) Zizek asks us, "why strive for something that we allegedly already have?" (p. 52)
Thus, Zizek claims, it's ultimate lack of guarantee is exposed, by presenting what we should strive for as already accomplished (p. 52).
ok, that was just two pages.
Because of bracketing, we can place a wedge in between attitudes and open up the space where production and circulation move,
Zizek writes,
"The basic Hegelian correction of Kant is thus that the three domains of reason (theoretial, practical, aesthetic) emerge through the shift in the subjects attitude that is through "bracketing": the object of science emerges through bracketing cognitive-theoretical concerns; and the aesthetic domain emerges through bracketing theoretical and moral concerns" (p. 50). That is to say, we bring a productive attitude towards our work in these areas whether we mean to or not, albeit obtained by different kinds of correct reasoning.
But the awareness of these differences, is a reification or rather is just an abstraction. Thus language and communication occurs in a space of an imagined a 'leap of faith' where the value of the terms being discussed are understood and accepted. We owe this to Kant. Kant would say the meaning is immanent in the terms of the words and is within basis of discussion just waiting to be emerged in the act of communicating, as an immanent unfolding.
Zizek takes another view based on his reading of Hegel and Marx. It is precisely these antinomies, or the contradictions in these attitudes of knowledge, theoretical, practical and aesthetic - of both writers and readers, that forms a more fragile state where value is both implicit in the words and is created in the act of communicating them, by bracketing our concerns vis-a-vis other concerns.
Within this space between concerns, or meaning-value a parallax is presented. Zizek says that due to this tension space, a temporary synthesis must occur here. The tension between production and circulation (of unclear terms - my add here) is that of the parallax (pp.50-52). Certain words like elite, assume a provisional place as a shared meaning in communication. But really, because these meanings are of the parallax, originally from contradictory attitudes about elitism and modes of understanding elitism, a tension is produced in communicating them. For example, If we use the word elite or philosophy, why strive for its clear meaning if we already have it? (p. 52) Zizek asks us, "why strive for something that we allegedly already have?" (p. 52)
Thus, Zizek claims, it's ultimate lack of guarantee is exposed, by presenting what we should strive for as already accomplished (p. 52).
ok, that was just two pages.
March 9, 2023
Sorprende que Zizek se haya convertido en una súper-estrella pop cuando, leyendo sus obras maestras (El sublime objeto...; El Espinoso sujeto; Visión de Paralelaje; Sexo y el absoluto fallido...) uno no puede sino maravillarse de la complejidad monumental de su pensamiento. Y es de agradecer que sus tesis las repita desde diferentes voces y ejemplos (a veces, leyendo El acoso de las fantasías o Lachrimae Rerum uno tiene la sensación de ya haber leído gran cantidad de pasajes).
Zizek exige conocimientos previos de autores nada fáciles de entender: Hegel, Marx, Heidegger y Lacan (entre otros: Althusser, Benjamin, Adorno...). Esto me lleva a afirmar que la mayor parte de los que lo aplauden por sus performances mediáticas o divulgativas (I.e. Mis chistes mi filosofía; videos de El guía perverso del cine...) o los cientifistas y logicistas-analiticos que lo critican, claramente no lo han comprendido.
De hecho, veo imposible asumir las reflexiones zizekianas (salvando alguna de sus obras más asequibles tipo Seis reflexiones en torno a la violencia ) sin haber practicado la experiencia psicoanalitica varios años. Caso contrario, la lectura de Zizek exige un acto de fe, lo que puede ser un arma de doble filo.
Desde un posicionamiento puramente filosófico, Zizek y sus discípulos (Zupancik, Copjec, McGowan...) pueden ser considerados los abanderados de la mejor interpretación teorico-practica (y ética) de la teoría de la subjetividad europea (inaugurada con Nietzsche y Husserl) y de la teoría crítica social (Marx, Escuela de Fráncfort). Se puede estar en desacuerdo con parte de dicho bagaje y/o herencia sin que ello malogre su producto final. Dedicarse a la filosofía y no trabajar/entender esta línea de pensamiento implica, a mi modo de ver, no ser filósofo en absoluto.
Desde otras posiciones, esta línea de pensamiento también entronca con el psicoanálisis entendido como herramienta interpretativa (algo que inquieta a algunos psicoanalistas, caso de Bruce Fink, pero que se demuestra de gran utilidad para el arte, tal y como Mitchell, Didi-Huberman y otros han sabido aprovechar). En este sentido, su utilidad antropológica, histórica, política y artística queda fuera de toda duda, tal y como saben aquellos que crítican la superfluidad clínica de tantos estudios supuestamente "culturales" que obvian la tradición filosofico-psiquica-antropologica que Zizek viene a ejemplificar.
Zizek exige conocimientos previos de autores nada fáciles de entender: Hegel, Marx, Heidegger y Lacan (entre otros: Althusser, Benjamin, Adorno...). Esto me lleva a afirmar que la mayor parte de los que lo aplauden por sus performances mediáticas o divulgativas (I.e. Mis chistes mi filosofía; videos de El guía perverso del cine...) o los cientifistas y logicistas-analiticos que lo critican, claramente no lo han comprendido.
De hecho, veo imposible asumir las reflexiones zizekianas (salvando alguna de sus obras más asequibles tipo Seis reflexiones en torno a la violencia ) sin haber practicado la experiencia psicoanalitica varios años. Caso contrario, la lectura de Zizek exige un acto de fe, lo que puede ser un arma de doble filo.
Desde un posicionamiento puramente filosófico, Zizek y sus discípulos (Zupancik, Copjec, McGowan...) pueden ser considerados los abanderados de la mejor interpretación teorico-practica (y ética) de la teoría de la subjetividad europea (inaugurada con Nietzsche y Husserl) y de la teoría crítica social (Marx, Escuela de Fráncfort). Se puede estar en desacuerdo con parte de dicho bagaje y/o herencia sin que ello malogre su producto final. Dedicarse a la filosofía y no trabajar/entender esta línea de pensamiento implica, a mi modo de ver, no ser filósofo en absoluto.
Desde otras posiciones, esta línea de pensamiento también entronca con el psicoanálisis entendido como herramienta interpretativa (algo que inquieta a algunos psicoanalistas, caso de Bruce Fink, pero que se demuestra de gran utilidad para el arte, tal y como Mitchell, Didi-Huberman y otros han sabido aprovechar). En este sentido, su utilidad antropológica, histórica, política y artística queda fuera de toda duda, tal y como saben aquellos que crítican la superfluidad clínica de tantos estudios supuestamente "culturales" que obvian la tradición filosofico-psiquica-antropologica que Zizek viene a ejemplificar.
December 26, 2010
anyone who says this book is hard, tuff, resistant to interpatation is the enemy to the opposition.
haha, yes they are a friend. i have a strange pathology,idk why maybe i was journalist or fbi police whatever in another life ,i have to take notes and check every fact look up writers read their works its stupid to be this way but i am curious to a fault and this drives me to what end not a comprehensive understanding of zizek but a reasonible idea of the conceptual "shoulders" he stands on. ok so you have a gun to my head and you say "wtf is this book about" its not about a gap this view is too much bullshit. it's about how can you understand another if you don't know who you are. haha. no i'm very serious here. there is a lot of talk about ideology "big words" but this is just a story zizek tells about himself how can you understand it you can not. what is possible for you is to understand yourself is your orgins, your motives, how you got this way, what is the background you see yourself in, the commons of culture are only commons because we share them you are in bed with reality. For me zizek is not Logic he is wholistic in his ADD. he really cares i believe about the beauty of humor's structure as the backdoor to analyst. its really just a book about indirect lines of divergent thinking with a twist. a thumb up the ass while fucking. you know a surpize. haha.
haha, yes they are a friend. i have a strange pathology,idk why maybe i was journalist or fbi police whatever in another life ,i have to take notes and check every fact look up writers read their works its stupid to be this way but i am curious to a fault and this drives me to what end not a comprehensive understanding of zizek but a reasonible idea of the conceptual "shoulders" he stands on. ok so you have a gun to my head and you say "wtf is this book about" its not about a gap this view is too much bullshit. it's about how can you understand another if you don't know who you are. haha. no i'm very serious here. there is a lot of talk about ideology "big words" but this is just a story zizek tells about himself how can you understand it you can not. what is possible for you is to understand yourself is your orgins, your motives, how you got this way, what is the background you see yourself in, the commons of culture are only commons because we share them you are in bed with reality. For me zizek is not Logic he is wholistic in his ADD. he really cares i believe about the beauty of humor's structure as the backdoor to analyst. its really just a book about indirect lines of divergent thinking with a twist. a thumb up the ass while fucking. you know a surpize. haha.
December 16, 2008
The problem with starting with the magnum opus, as this was the first book by Zizek that I'd read, is that it's almost way too sprawling to wrap your mind around. At the same time, hammering the theory down is almost essential to reading other books by Zizek. So, this is almost an essential book if you're tackling Zizek but be prepared to be reminded how much time you wasted hanging out with your friends and drinking instead of reading or, well, even seeing movies. Btw, the movie 'Matrix' is discussed in depth, so it might be a good idea to see that again.
Anyway, there's not much I can say about Zizek that hasn't already been said. He's probably definitely the most exciting philosopher alive today. That being said, this being his magnum opus, it is VERY fractured. One wonders whether he couldn't have had more coherence. The reading is undoubtedly fascinating but there is a lot of subject-jumping. Thinking about the underlying theory, that may (or may not?) be the point. Btw, it'd be a good idea if you had some idea of what both Hegel and Lacan were on about before tackling this beast.
Anyway, there's not much I can say about Zizek that hasn't already been said. He's probably definitely the most exciting philosopher alive today. That being said, this being his magnum opus, it is VERY fractured. One wonders whether he couldn't have had more coherence. The reading is undoubtedly fascinating but there is a lot of subject-jumping. Thinking about the underlying theory, that may (or may not?) be the point. Btw, it'd be a good idea if you had some idea of what both Hegel and Lacan were on about before tackling this beast.
September 9, 2015
What Zizek does in this book is what made the other two Zizek books I read this summer good. Always hard to rate - his project is too large, we only have parts and this book had some of the best.
March 28, 2020
就算是其他书都不标记，这本书也一定要标记下，这是我读过的第一本后现代主义著作，以前所读的都是一些泛泛而论的著作，也就是普及本，是根本无法体会到后现代哲学的魅力。这本书让我第一次真正领会到了后哲学的魅力，不得不说早在我知道后现代主义时，就已经被它纷繁瑰丽的世界深深吸引了，而如今，终于，真正的、第一次领悟到它的魅力。
June 28, 2014
philosophy doesn't exist any longer. a concept like noumena can't find a solid foothold in the brain's computational logic. nothing exists in isolation (everything that exists, exists in a relationship) unless we can be assured of the boundaries, and not the arbitrary boundaries of a map, the boundaries of real space. this is why philosophy is a continuous argument over definitions. they're malleable. they're not immutable. you can send me all the definitions in a self-consuming realm like cultural theory, science is always a layer above them.
i may not understand zizek on his terms, i understand him in my terms, cosmological scientific holism, which is what everything else is a subset of. language, space, biology even geology. this is why the needless employment of a metaphor for parallax fails. it only relates to the human and their material, it doesn't isomorphically relate to the rest of the universe. it's as cheap as finding a puzzle piece from another set and believing it fits merely because it has the exact shape, yet the images will never match.
the facts are: classical logic does not relate to cosmology and cannot be a description of how we reason. only intuitionist logic or topos theory can be applied to our being. it describes a logic that never has a complete view. and it is a logic that holds up with other beings that have similar or completely different views (that may not answer the same questions the same way, or can agree that the answer cannot be answered as yet).
What we have here in Parallax View is circus Junk. Culture isn't a theoretical realm, it's real, it has operant archetypes, stability. Pressing his theoretical envelope into cogsci might be quirky or prescient for Zizek, but not when the meanings (parallax for one) are pressed into the service of theory instead of explored as valences or qualities, ie: proof and contrasts. Like Foucault, Slavoj is really a verbose circus ringleader who doesn't control his players, they merely show up as sound-bite references and he waxes poetics while they perform under his tent. Give us a thesis instead of theory, maybe then the proofs will line-up and offer some structure. Don't use a biological necessity as a metaphor for political theory under the pretense of psychoanalysis. That's just wordplay. More and more definitions of words that slur their definitions through change (time). This is the problem in philosophy-theory, it desperately wants to be a science (was Kant closest? Spinoza? Popper?) and by default, those late 20th century bloomers like Barthes, Foucault, and Zizek all employ semiosis or Freud/Lacan to instigate what should become a science but can't. Why? The tools (language) don't match the organ (mind-body-neural net). There's a vast divide between meaning and myth, even between verb and noun. These are all kings' languages (the vast IE: indo-european) the theorists and scientists are forced to use (consider the idiocy of labeling species with latin names and calling it 'scientific'). The interzone are linguists like Jackendoff and Chomsky who unwittingly try and bridge the verbs with the brain, but they're so busy proving a neural set of rules, the theory falls to the side, where it will belong forever discarded. Study the brain, know your IE is a flawed lingual tree hopelessly devolving. Zizek can print all the ideas of parallax he wants (my favorite is Kafka's inanimal contrast to our logic of inhuman), but he can't scrape it to match the brain's vast insight using the meaning of optical parallax. The paradox is Zizek gets the airplay (500+ ratings in Goodreads) while contemporary cogsci masters like Zenon Pylshyn, who are doing the work Ziz can only dream about, gets three. I come to bury Caeser, before he is deified.
Here's a quote from Parallax: "The standard formula of the ultimate goal of the debate between the humanities and cognitivism is that of 'bridging the gap' --namely, the gap between nature, between 'blind' biological (chemical, neuronal. . .) processes and the experience of awareness and sense--what, however, if this is the wrong task? What if the actual problem is not to bridge the gap but, rather, to formulate it as as such, to conceive it properly?"
That sentence, does it have a reference? There is no "standard formula of the ultimate goal of the debate between the humanities and cognitivism" That may be Ned Block's or Ryle's etc, but there is no standard Venn he's identifying. It's not an invention from left-field, but there is no extreme or absolute he's talking about. 'Blind' - biology is not blind, consciousness arrives through biology. I'll give it to you straight, there is no gap. He's offering a gap that only absolutists can still subscribe to, why? To create drama (his best ability). All sciences are subsets within physics. Meaning and belief are the highest computational values in cog sci, yet the concept of meaning is flawed, like our awareness of consciousness. Yet experience is inextricable from belief, but it doesn't require meaning, ever. There's the gap, not between what he's setting up for a barfight, but between discrepancies in things that we've indexed.
Humanity is merely a facet of things here. All we really know is the quantum seems to demand records out of matter. Both the fossils of animals and photographs taken by humans are records. Deciding that photographs are 'more interesting' than fossils as records, well, that obviously should be a massive dilemma, one that frightens people into dissolving deities, yet it's not questioned by Zizek, and that's the core lie of the field, that's the fakery. The whole program of Marxism supposes a human-centered path, and very clearly that may be irrelevant in the Universe's construction.
That's the only 'true' question left. Not the bullshitter's deciphering of gaps between imaginary words like noumena and what we try and call reality. His result is solipsism. It's navel-gazing.
From my point of view, Zizek's probing in the light (2000s) of all the revelations emerging from physics, neuroscience, cog-sci, linguistics, is to write this Parallax book, to pick the least essential things from a fraction of these fields and to write a treatise on selves, mostly his self. Using ideas that brain structuralism belied in the 80s somewhat successfully, and have now been destroyed. Well, that's like the town-crier that hasn't read the news for years yet still has something he wants to shout about.
It's poetry. It's not relevant beyond the era it was born in.
i may not understand zizek on his terms, i understand him in my terms, cosmological scientific holism, which is what everything else is a subset of. language, space, biology even geology. this is why the needless employment of a metaphor for parallax fails. it only relates to the human and their material, it doesn't isomorphically relate to the rest of the universe. it's as cheap as finding a puzzle piece from another set and believing it fits merely because it has the exact shape, yet the images will never match.
the facts are: classical logic does not relate to cosmology and cannot be a description of how we reason. only intuitionist logic or topos theory can be applied to our being. it describes a logic that never has a complete view. and it is a logic that holds up with other beings that have similar or completely different views (that may not answer the same questions the same way, or can agree that the answer cannot be answered as yet).
What we have here in Parallax View is circus Junk. Culture isn't a theoretical realm, it's real, it has operant archetypes, stability. Pressing his theoretical envelope into cogsci might be quirky or prescient for Zizek, but not when the meanings (parallax for one) are pressed into the service of theory instead of explored as valences or qualities, ie: proof and contrasts. Like Foucault, Slavoj is really a verbose circus ringleader who doesn't control his players, they merely show up as sound-bite references and he waxes poetics while they perform under his tent. Give us a thesis instead of theory, maybe then the proofs will line-up and offer some structure. Don't use a biological necessity as a metaphor for political theory under the pretense of psychoanalysis. That's just wordplay. More and more definitions of words that slur their definitions through change (time). This is the problem in philosophy-theory, it desperately wants to be a science (was Kant closest? Spinoza? Popper?) and by default, those late 20th century bloomers like Barthes, Foucault, and Zizek all employ semiosis or Freud/Lacan to instigate what should become a science but can't. Why? The tools (language) don't match the organ (mind-body-neural net). There's a vast divide between meaning and myth, even between verb and noun. These are all kings' languages (the vast IE: indo-european) the theorists and scientists are forced to use (consider the idiocy of labeling species with latin names and calling it 'scientific'). The interzone are linguists like Jackendoff and Chomsky who unwittingly try and bridge the verbs with the brain, but they're so busy proving a neural set of rules, the theory falls to the side, where it will belong forever discarded. Study the brain, know your IE is a flawed lingual tree hopelessly devolving. Zizek can print all the ideas of parallax he wants (my favorite is Kafka's inanimal contrast to our logic of inhuman), but he can't scrape it to match the brain's vast insight using the meaning of optical parallax. The paradox is Zizek gets the airplay (500+ ratings in Goodreads) while contemporary cogsci masters like Zenon Pylshyn, who are doing the work Ziz can only dream about, gets three. I come to bury Caeser, before he is deified.
Here's a quote from Parallax: "The standard formula of the ultimate goal of the debate between the humanities and cognitivism is that of 'bridging the gap' --namely, the gap between nature, between 'blind' biological (chemical, neuronal. . .) processes and the experience of awareness and sense--what, however, if this is the wrong task? What if the actual problem is not to bridge the gap but, rather, to formulate it as as such, to conceive it properly?"
That sentence, does it have a reference? There is no "standard formula of the ultimate goal of the debate between the humanities and cognitivism" That may be Ned Block's or Ryle's etc, but there is no standard Venn he's identifying. It's not an invention from left-field, but there is no extreme or absolute he's talking about. 'Blind' - biology is not blind, consciousness arrives through biology. I'll give it to you straight, there is no gap. He's offering a gap that only absolutists can still subscribe to, why? To create drama (his best ability). All sciences are subsets within physics. Meaning and belief are the highest computational values in cog sci, yet the concept of meaning is flawed, like our awareness of consciousness. Yet experience is inextricable from belief, but it doesn't require meaning, ever. There's the gap, not between what he's setting up for a barfight, but between discrepancies in things that we've indexed.
Humanity is merely a facet of things here. All we really know is the quantum seems to demand records out of matter. Both the fossils of animals and photographs taken by humans are records. Deciding that photographs are 'more interesting' than fossils as records, well, that obviously should be a massive dilemma, one that frightens people into dissolving deities, yet it's not questioned by Zizek, and that's the core lie of the field, that's the fakery. The whole program of Marxism supposes a human-centered path, and very clearly that may be irrelevant in the Universe's construction.
That's the only 'true' question left. Not the bullshitter's deciphering of gaps between imaginary words like noumena and what we try and call reality. His result is solipsism. It's navel-gazing.
From my point of view, Zizek's probing in the light (2000s) of all the revelations emerging from physics, neuroscience, cog-sci, linguistics, is to write this Parallax book, to pick the least essential things from a fraction of these fields and to write a treatise on selves, mostly his self. Using ideas that brain structuralism belied in the 80s somewhat successfully, and have now been destroyed. Well, that's like the town-crier that hasn't read the news for years yet still has something he wants to shout about.
It's poetry. It's not relevant beyond the era it was born in.
June 18, 2018
I would give this book 6 stars if i could.
March 15, 2021
Zizek é um autor nato. Tem uma escrita simples, cativante, eu diria que é o único filósofo que caso não tivesse sucesso na carreira acadêmica poderia facilmente virar um apresentador de stand-up. É o único "piadista" que já vi no meio da filosofia. No mais, livro excelente.
March 9, 2016
Recuerdo que cuando empecé a leerlo pensaba en lo bien que se debería sentir poder decir que leí este libro. Zizek es de alguna forma el filósofo de moda, está en la discusión. Por supuesto no conozco a nadie en persona que haya leído Zizek, o nunca hablamos sobre eso, pero me da la sensación de que quedaría bien decir “leo Zizek”. Este libro es particular (no es lo primero que leo de Zizek) es más bien un libro teórico. Con lo que también la cuestión está en salirse un poco del filósofo rockstar (para eso más bien Viviendo en el Final de los Tiempos o alguno de sus documentales), y apuntar a su “seriedad” (saber de su amistad con Badiou, por ejemplo, me hizo pensar en Zizek más seriamente). Ponerse a leer esto es entonces toda una apuesta: 474 páginas de densa filosofía posmoderna pidiendo a gritos el bagaje lacaniano, hegeliano, heideggeriano, marxista, jamesoniano, wagneriano, kafkiano, etc. que no tengo.
En buena medida, no valió la pena. Me animo a decir que no tanto porque no lo entendí, aunque obviamente me hubiera venido bien tener formación de grado de filosofía aunque sea. Me pasó lo que ya me pasó otras veces con libros de este estilo: mucho concepto y pocas nueces. No me dice nada, no aprendí nada de cómo funciona el mundo: esa es mi sensación.
De lo que conozco un poco más es sobre cristianismo, exégesis, etc. y en varios momentos encontré a Zizek diciendo cosas que no son exactamente así. Cuando describe lo que piensa un creyente, no me representa ni un poco. Me preocupa que pase lo mismo con otras cosas que no conozco tanto, como la lectura que hace de los seminarios lacanianos, de los que no tengo idea.
Me encontré con un Zizek escribiendo para pacientes de terapia (yo nunca hice terapia, pero entiendo que hay toda una bibliografía detrás de este tipo de personas, siguiendo la línea de El psicoanalista de Katzenbach), eso no me había pasado con sus otros libros.
Me pareció un libro primermundo-centrado con poco para decirle a Argentina. Y para gente grande. Me imagino que le escribe a un inglés (cómo él) de unos 66 años (cómo él) que hace terapia (seguramente como él).Eso hace que su target sea una persona bastante diferente a mí.
Obviamente me dejó con ganas de seguir investigando algunas cosas. Lo que más: quedé muy manija de ver El Anillo del Nibelungo, idealmente al festival de Bayreuth , pero bueno, sino al menos de youtube, tal vez empezar por leerlo para poder entenderlo. También de leer más de Kafka.
Obviamente se autoplagia, de hecho encontré un pasaje de The Liar's Tale citado en la página 195 y después de nuevo en la 399. Para mí ahí también hay un problema de edición, a él se le puede pasar pero tiene que haber un par de tipos que leen y revisan.
Todo bien con Zizek, leería otra cosa ( The Sublime Object of Ideology es el gran clásico que todavía no leí, pero es medio viejo, no sé si no estará muy desactualizado, así que el que puede ser es Violence sino) pero a este le tengo que poner tres estrellas.
En buena medida, no valió la pena. Me animo a decir que no tanto porque no lo entendí, aunque obviamente me hubiera venido bien tener formación de grado de filosofía aunque sea. Me pasó lo que ya me pasó otras veces con libros de este estilo: mucho concepto y pocas nueces. No me dice nada, no aprendí nada de cómo funciona el mundo: esa es mi sensación.
De lo que conozco un poco más es sobre cristianismo, exégesis, etc. y en varios momentos encontré a Zizek diciendo cosas que no son exactamente así. Cuando describe lo que piensa un creyente, no me representa ni un poco. Me preocupa que pase lo mismo con otras cosas que no conozco tanto, como la lectura que hace de los seminarios lacanianos, de los que no tengo idea.
Me encontré con un Zizek escribiendo para pacientes de terapia (yo nunca hice terapia, pero entiendo que hay toda una bibliografía detrás de este tipo de personas, siguiendo la línea de El psicoanalista de Katzenbach), eso no me había pasado con sus otros libros.
Me pareció un libro primermundo-centrado con poco para decirle a Argentina. Y para gente grande. Me imagino que le escribe a un inglés (cómo él) de unos 66 años (cómo él) que hace terapia (seguramente como él).Eso hace que su target sea una persona bastante diferente a mí.
Obviamente me dejó con ganas de seguir investigando algunas cosas. Lo que más: quedé muy manija de ver El Anillo del Nibelungo, idealmente al festival de Bayreuth , pero bueno, sino al menos de youtube, tal vez empezar por leerlo para poder entenderlo. También de leer más de Kafka.
Obviamente se autoplagia, de hecho encontré un pasaje de The Liar's Tale citado en la página 195 y después de nuevo en la 399. Para mí ahí también hay un problema de edición, a él se le puede pasar pero tiene que haber un par de tipos que leen y revisan.
Todo bien con Zizek, leería otra cosa ( The Sublime Object of Ideology es el gran clásico que todavía no leí, pero es medio viejo, no sé si no estará muy desactualizado, así que el que puede ser es Violence sino) pero a este le tengo que poner tres estrellas.
April 9, 2009
Definitely not the most engaging Zizek I've read, but not because it isn't full of interesting ideas. Rather it's because in order to fully follow Zizek's arguments here you need to have first read and comprehended the work of Hegel, Lacan, Dennett, Marx, Deleuze & Guattori, Kant, Chalmers, Heidegger, Badiou, Nietzshe; I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. The assumed knowledge of the reader is just absurd, but I guess the intended audience is professional academic philosophers.
That said, the ideas here are pretty compelling, assuming you can decode what they are exactly. Its central theme is the idea that truth exists within the very "gap" between mutually irreconcilable and equally distorted perspectives. Zizek explores how this idea manifests itself in the realm of ontology with the question of appearance versus reality, in the realm of science with the problem of consciousness, and in the realm of politics with the left/right ideological stalemate.
I guess I just wish Zizek would have been able to talk about these ideas without having to constantly formulate entire arguments based around the assumption that I've read his complete bookshelf.
That said, the ideas here are pretty compelling, assuming you can decode what they are exactly. Its central theme is the idea that truth exists within the very "gap" between mutually irreconcilable and equally distorted perspectives. Zizek explores how this idea manifests itself in the realm of ontology with the question of appearance versus reality, in the realm of science with the problem of consciousness, and in the realm of politics with the left/right ideological stalemate.
I guess I just wish Zizek would have been able to talk about these ideas without having to constantly formulate entire arguments based around the assumption that I've read his complete bookshelf.
November 30, 2022
man!, i believe that this would be the first zizek's book i've read wherein he avoids repeating himself throughout the book, as well as it serves as a great introduction to zizek's thought as it lays out his core concepts in a comprehensive, accessible way. so, in this book, he investigates the relationships between the symbolic and the real, along with the concept of the big other and parallax. reflecting on concepts from other prominent thinkers, he also explores the concepts of ideology and subjectivity, together with class struggle and the notion of revolution. in addition, his writing style is engaging and lively, making it an enjoyable read. all in all, 'the parallax view' might thus be an important starting point for anyone interested in zizek's work since it provides the foundational ideas from which his later works are built.
September 13, 2008
Zizek is the smartest eurocentric, Christian, Hegelian Marxist (or is it Marxist Hegelian, or both a Marxist and a Hegelian...whatever) I know of.
(His section on conciousness was really good)
(His section on conciousness was really good)
December 15, 2018
god help anyone who takes this seriously
March 2, 2023
Este libro de Žižek es considerado uno de sus grandes trabajos. El planteamiento principal de todo el libro es la idea de “paralaje”, la cual implica que dos visiones de un mismo objeto son contrarias, no sólo tomando en cuenta la diferencia de los puntos desde el que se “observe” el objeto; también porque el cambio en el lugar de observación del objeto genera un desplazamiento aparente del mismo objeto. Esto implica que hay una oposición insalvable entre estas dos posiciones, un “corto circuito” y que la solución en sí no es tomar como verdadera una u otra posición. La respuesta es preguntarse porqué nace esta oposición insalvable, esta brecha entre dos visiones. Colocarse en ese sitio imposible y desde ahí trabajar en el análisis.
Esto lo utiliza para explicar que retrabajar la dialéctica hegeliana, en el sentido de que la idea tesis, antítesis y síntesis es una mala interpretación de Hegel. Para Žižek la correcta es que la brecha es constitutiva del fenómeno, algo que desarrollará más profundamente en “El sexo y el fracaso del absoluto”.
Este libro está dividido en tres secciones, con dos capítulos por sección, junto con una introducción y conclusión, y cada una aborda una y otra vez esta premisa, pero a manera de ensayo. Cada sección aborda trata de agrupas tres paralajes diferentes: el filosófico, el científico y el político.
De acuerdo a No Subject , cada una de estos paralejes se puede resumir en “la diferencia ontológica, el paralaje último que condiciona nuestro propio acceso a la realidad; el paralaje científico, la brecha irreductible entre la experiencia fenoménica de la realidad y su explicación científica, que alcanza su apogeo en las actuales ciencias del cerebro (según las cuales "nadie está en casa" en el cráneo, sólo montones de carne cerebral -una condición que Žižek llama "la insoportable levedad de no ser nadie"); y el paralaje político, el antagonismo social que no permite ningún terreno común.”
Para la exposición de cada capítulo recurre a múltiples referencias, filósofos, científicos, y hasta el uso de referencias a la ópera.
La parte más interesante tiene que ver con la discusión que hace sobre la neurociencia, discutiendo con Daniel Dennett y con Antonio Damasio sobre el materialismo e idealismo.
En este sentido, aunque haya una estructura, no tiene una exposición sistemática el libro, por lo que resulta a veces complicado de leer, en especial para los no conocedores de todas las referencias que hacer. A pesar de ello, también es una muestra de lo importante que puede ser el concepto de “visión del paralaje” para analizar una gran diversidad de temas.
Del libro es posible encontrar diversas reseñan en línea, probablemente la mejor que he leído es de Frederic Jameson https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n...
Esto lo utiliza para explicar que retrabajar la dialéctica hegeliana, en el sentido de que la idea tesis, antítesis y síntesis es una mala interpretación de Hegel. Para Žižek la correcta es que la brecha es constitutiva del fenómeno, algo que desarrollará más profundamente en “El sexo y el fracaso del absoluto”.
Este libro está dividido en tres secciones, con dos capítulos por sección, junto con una introducción y conclusión, y cada una aborda una y otra vez esta premisa, pero a manera de ensayo. Cada sección aborda trata de agrupas tres paralajes diferentes: el filosófico, el científico y el político.
De acuerdo a No Subject , cada una de estos paralejes se puede resumir en “la diferencia ontológica, el paralaje último que condiciona nuestro propio acceso a la realidad; el paralaje científico, la brecha irreductible entre la experiencia fenoménica de la realidad y su explicación científica, que alcanza su apogeo en las actuales ciencias del cerebro (según las cuales "nadie está en casa" en el cráneo, sólo montones de carne cerebral -una condición que Žižek llama "la insoportable levedad de no ser nadie"); y el paralaje político, el antagonismo social que no permite ningún terreno común.”
Para la exposición de cada capítulo recurre a múltiples referencias, filósofos, científicos, y hasta el uso de referencias a la ópera.
La parte más interesante tiene que ver con la discusión que hace sobre la neurociencia, discutiendo con Daniel Dennett y con Antonio Damasio sobre el materialismo e idealismo.
En este sentido, aunque haya una estructura, no tiene una exposición sistemática el libro, por lo que resulta a veces complicado de leer, en especial para los no conocedores de todas las referencias que hacer. A pesar de ello, también es una muestra de lo importante que puede ser el concepto de “visión del paralaje” para analizar una gran diversidad de temas.
Del libro es posible encontrar diversas reseñan en línea, probablemente la mejor que he leído es de Frederic Jameson https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n...
September 14, 2017
Este el Zizek que se supone que va en serio, lejos de la postura del meme y del "rock star de la filosofía" (?) y se nota. Hay momentos en que se hace denso y a uno lo encuentra mal parado teóricamente -sobre todo en cuanto a las bases mismas del pensamiento de Zizek, o sea Hegel y Lacan- y otras en que sin embargo la discusión está bakán y llena de ideas interesantes. Queda como tarea pendiente volver a leerlo después de un repaso de las ideas de Hegel y Lacan -un buen repaso- o de no leerlo como un libro unitario dentro del pensamiento de Zizek y alejado del resto de su producción y leerlo en paralelo con otras obras donde desarrolla las mismas ideas de manera más "amena"-y repite los mismos chistes, ese de Stephen King creo que estaba en The Pervert Guide To Cinema-, como parte de su programa, ese de leer "los avances de la física cuántica y todas sus presuposiciones recientes sobre el mundo a través de la dialéctica de George W. F. Hegel y viceversa" o como decía en otro lado de leer a Hegel a través de Lacan y a Lacan a través de casi todo lo demás.
Read
May 22, 2020Esse, eu guardo só pelas duas páginas e meia que ele gasta explicando porque Prokofiev é melhor que Shostakovich.
Isso eu já sabia sem precisar ver ninguém argumentar, mas foi bom.
E a segunda melhor frase do livro é "New Age is Evil". Disso eu também já sabia. Embora seja útil alguém se dar ao trabalho de analisar racionalmente... não é tão bom e exclusivo quanto as duas páginas e meia acima mencionadas :P
___
Ah, sim, o livro é grande. É praticamente um excesso de informação.
Tanto que, quando li, decidi que um Zizek por ano era suficiente.
Acabou que eu parei de comprar autores marxistas, praticamente, mas se ainda fosse um hábito, continuaria com só um Zizek por ano, creio eu.
Isso eu já sabia sem precisar ver ninguém argumentar, mas foi bom.
E a segunda melhor frase do livro é "New Age is Evil". Disso eu também já sabia. Embora seja útil alguém se dar ao trabalho de analisar racionalmente... não é tão bom e exclusivo quanto as duas páginas e meia acima mencionadas :P
___
Ah, sim, o livro é grande. É praticamente um excesso de informação.
Tanto que, quando li, decidi que um Zizek por ano era suficiente.
Acabou que eu parei de comprar autores marxistas, praticamente, mas se ainda fosse um hábito, continuaria com só um Zizek por ano, creio eu.
July 31, 2022
This is not the Zizek book I've enjoyed most. Sometimes this almost felt like a parody of Zizek's style moving with dizzying speed from metaphysics to psychoanalysis, and then to modern cultural reference. The underlying theme of a "parallax shift" in perspective, where a shift in viewpoint completely alters how something appears, does crop up throughout but as with much of Zizek's writing it is not a strongly structured exploration of the theme but rather something which colours the text throughout. As usual there are moments of almost revelatory insight, but for me these felt fewer than in some of his other work, and the text somewhat more dense.
August 15, 2023
Žižek's magnum opus (his words) centers on an argument that the gaps, or tension, between opposing views are what's 'real', rather than the views themselves. This 'parallax' sustains the opposing perspectives. Žižek commits over 300 pages of words to expounding on, as well as defending, this thesis. The real treat here is the dizzying array of sources, ideas, and arguments deployed throughout the book. No academic discipline, philosophy, or popular concept is unmentioned. While the book firmly walks the line between thorough argument and overindulgence, Žižek drops plenty of excellent insights to make the expedition worthwhile.
November 17, 2018
More difficult to digest than 'The Metastases of Enjoyment' & rather more Matthew 25:40-45 than assumed. It is raising my expectations, by razing my expectations. The gift of the gab has been shown to up expectorations, but that is not written in The Parallax View just my blabbermouth corrupting scientific trivia. The footnotes are extensive & fun & placed at the end of the book, which is bad for the mobile-phone reader. I assume there is secret men's business & secret women's business, this re-arrangement of the 26 letters then, is Stonehenge business.
Read
September 13, 2024Me when my review is almost a year after finishing the actual book...
This was such a #wildride and definitely one of the more challenging things I've ever read. Zizek's writing, despite resembling the diaries of someone who is slowly going insane, has a really nice way of pulling you in and keeping you attached on every word he has to say. Like yes king, Hegel DID affirm Kantian antinomian division...
This was such a #wildride and definitely one of the more challenging things I've ever read. Zizek's writing, despite resembling the diaries of someone who is slowly going insane, has a really nice way of pulling you in and keeping you attached on every word he has to say. Like yes king, Hegel DID affirm Kantian antinomian division...
January 10, 2024
Good book, but will require a pretty strong understanding of Hegel and the idea of dialectics to begin with. I enjoyed the discussion of the parallax gap, but I think that there should've been more of an emphasis on the un-bridgability of the gap vis-a-vis the Lacanian concepts he introduced but didn't connect.
November 6, 2019
Zizek writes the same book over and over, so if you're looking for one Zizek book to read it should be this one. The entire territory of his reconciliation of Marx and Hegel (and Lacan by extension of Hegel) is covered here in its most entertaining and digestible format.
February 17, 2023
Para quiénes se preguntan de qué palo va Zizek, es filosofía moderna en el ámbito contemporáneo. Toca temas novedosos y permite un alivio del posmodernismo (semiótico/lingüístico) que llena la academia.
January 19, 2024
I can't say I understood most of it. I can't even necessarily say I understood more than 30% of it. But, of what I did understand, it was pure genius. It completely changed the way I think about life and politics. My new favorite book.
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