ISI Library

Annotation: The Parallax View is Slavoj Žižek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Žižek 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. Žižek 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, Žižek 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, Žižek, 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 Žižek 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, Žižek 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 Žižek'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.

Identifier: 9780262240512

Status: Available

Other title information: spre o semiotică a discursului politic

Annotation: "Homo homini lupus", the famous line of Plautus, univocally interpreted by philosophers such as Bacon, Hobbes, Hume and others, still suggests that man is the only "animal" that attacks his fellow man for reasons other than instinctive ones. At the same time, however, the greed that turns some people into beasts seems to be balanced by opposite attitudes, synthesised by Seneca in the principle "Homo res sacra homini". Between these extremes marked by tears and love, the entire tense history of the human being unfolded. "Quo vadis, homine?", this is the question to which, in order to extinguish potential tensions, the politician owes him an answer, valuing the science of reading the signs that foreshadow the future...

Identifier: 9737303075

Status: Available

Other title information: towards a materialist theory of becoming

Annotation: This original contribution to current debates is written for those who find changes and transformations challenging and necessary. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, feminist theory, gender studies, sociology, social theory and cultural studies.

Identifier: 0745625762

Status: Available

Annotation: Writing and Difference, a collection of Jacques Derrida's essays written between 1959 and 1966, has become a landmark of contemporary French thought. In it we find Derrida at work on his systematic deconstruction of Western metaphysics.

Identifier: 0415255837

Status: Available

Other title information: Reflections on the Representational Nature of Language

Annotation: Beyond the Symbol Model: Reflections on the Representational Nature of Language presents arguments on several sides of the contemporary debate over the representational nature of language. Contributors include philosophers, linguists, psychologists, semioticians, and communication theorists from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Northern Ireland, and Israel. The chapters respond to the argument that language can no longer be viewed as a system of signs or symbols, and that a post-semiotic account can be developed from the recognition that language is first and foremost constitutive articulate contact.

Identifier: 0791430839

Status: Available

Other title information: Oder Wo Liegt Das Ende Der Moderne?

Annotation: Der erste tell der Arbeit untersucht Derridas Dissemination und Adornos Asthetische Theorie in bezug auf deren angaben zur Asthetik. Im zweiten teil der arbeit geht es dann um die Andwendungen dieser Theorien, wobei Adornos Essays uber Stefan George und Derridas Text zur Lyrik Paul Celans, Schibboleth, diakritisch uberpruft werden.

Identifier: 0820420255

Status: Available

Other title information: Faucault, Lyotard, Derrida

Annotation: This new study focuses on the art/literature problem in each thinker's work, and how this issue provides critical perspectives on philosophy, history, and political theory

Identifier: 0415902916

Status: Available

Annotation: Cinders is among Derrida's most remarkable and revealing of this distinguished author's many writings. While Derrida customarily devotes his powers of analysis to exacting readigs of texts from Plato to Aristotle and Freud to Heidegger, readers of Cinders will soon discover that Derrida is engaged in a poetic self-analysis.

Identifier: 0803216890

Status: Available