Que savons-nous de Lacan? Que savons-nous de Marx? Que savons-nous de Kant? Que savons-nous de la démocratie et du totalitarisme? De la bureaucratie et de la servitude? De la nécessité et de la contingence? De la représentation et des images? Du communisme et de la psychanalyse? De la déconstruction et de la philosophie analytique? Du Witz et du sérieux? Que savons-nous qui n’en soit pas un cliché mille fois rebattu – ou une conviction trop confortable? A travers une éblouissante (...) lecture de Hegel, qui en bouleverse de part en part la compréhension, Slavoj Zizek dynamite tous les clichés et met à mal toutes les convictions pour proposer de nouvelles manières de répondre à ces questions. Nous avions fait de Hegel le penseur de l’abstraction et de la réaction, Zizek en fait celui du concret et de la révolution - la sienne, et celle à venir. (shrink)

In his formidable Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, Kojin Karatani endeavors to assert the critical potential of an in-between stance which he calls the “parallaxview”: when confronted with an antinomic stance, in the precise Kantian sense of the term, one should renounce all attempts to reduce one aspect to the other. One should, on the contrary, assert antinomy as irreducible, and conceive the point of radical critique not as a certain determinate position as opposed to another position, but as (...) the irreducible gap between the positions themselves, the purely structural interstice between them. Kant’s stance is thus “to see things neither from his own viewpoint, nor from the viewpoint of others, but to face the reality that is exposed through difference .” What Kant does is to change the very terms of the debate; his solution—the transcendental turn—is unique in that it first rejects any ontological closure: it recognizes a certain fundamental and irreducible limitation of the human condition, which is why the two poles, rational and sensual, active and passive, cannot ever be fully mediated—reconciled. And, according to Karatani, Marx, in his “critique of political economy,” when faced with the opposition of the “classical” political economy and the neo-classic reduction of value to a purely relational entity without substance, accomplished exactly the same breakthrough toward the “parallax” view: he treatedthis opposition as a Kantian antinomy, i.e., value has to originate outside circulation, in production, and in circulation. (shrink)

In his formidable Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, Kojin Karatani endeavors to assert the critical potential of an in-between stance which he calls the “parallaxview”: when confronted with an antinomic stance, in the precise Kantian sense of the term, one should renounce all attempts to reduce one aspect to the other. One should, on the contrary, assert antinomy as irreducible, and conceive the point of radical critique not as a certain determinate position as opposed to another position, but as (...) the irreducible gap between the positions themselves, the purely structural interstice between them. Kant’s stance is thus “to see things neither from his own viewpoint, nor from the viewpoint of others, but to face the reality that is exposed through difference (parallax).” What Kant does is to change the very terms of the debate; his solution—the transcendental turn—is unique in that it first rejects any ontological closure: it recognizes a certain fundamental and irreducible limitation (“finitude”) of the human condition, which is why the two poles, rational and sensual, active and passive, cannot ever be fully mediated—reconciled. And, according to Karatani, Marx, in his “critique of political economy,” when faced with the opposition of the “classical” political economy and the neo-classic reduction of value to a purely relational entity without substance, accomplished exactly the same breakthrough toward the “parallax” view: he treatedthis opposition as a Kantian antinomy, i.e., value has to originate outside circulation, in production, and in circulation. (shrink)

In his formidable Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, Kojin Karatani endeavors to assert the critical potential of an in-between stance which he calls the “parallaxview”: when confronted with an antinomic stance, in the precise Kantian sense of the term, one should renounce all attempts to reduce one aspect to the other. One should, on the contrary, assert antinomy as irreducible, and conceive the point of radical critique not as a certain determinate position as opposed to another position, but as (...) the irreducible gap between the positions themselves, the purely structural interstice between them. Kant’s stance is thus “to see things neither from his own viewpoint, nor from the viewpoint of others, but to face the reality that is exposed through difference (parallax).” What Kant does is to change the very terms of the debate; his solution—the transcendental turn—is unique in that it first rejects any ontological closure: it recognizes a certain fundamental and irreducible limitation (“finitude”) of the human condition, which is why the two poles, rational and sensual, active and passive, cannot ever be fully mediated—reconciled. And, according to Karatani, Marx, in his “critique of political economy,” when faced with the opposition of the “classical” political economy and the neo-classic reduction of value to a purely relational entity without substance, accomplished exactly the same breakthrough toward the “parallax” view: he treatedthis opposition as a Kantian antinomy, i.e., value has to originate outside circulation, in production, and in circulation. (shrink)

The Cartesian cogito—the principle articulated by Descartes that "I think, therefore I am"—is often hailed as the precursor of modern science. At the same time, the cogito's agent, the ego, is sometimes feared as the agency of manipulative domination responsible for all present woes, from patriarchal oppression to ecological catastrophes. Without psychoanalyzing philosophy, _Cogito and the Unconscious_ explores the vicissitudes of the cogito and shows that psychoanalyses can render visible a constitutive madness within modern philosophy, the point at which "I (...) think, therefore I am" becomes obsessional neurosis characterized by "If I stop thinking, I will cease to exist." Noting that for Lacan the Cartesian construct is the same as the Freudian "subject of the unconscious," the contributors follow Lacan's plea for a psychoanalytic return to the cogito. Along the path of this return, they examine the ethical attitude that befits modern subjectivity, the inherent sexualization of modern subjectivity, the impasse in which the Cartesian project becomes involved given the enigmatic status of the human body, and the Cartesian subject's confrontation with its modern critics, including Althusser, Bataille, and Dennett. In a style that has become familiar to Žižek's readers, these essays bring together a strict conceptual analysis and an approach to a wide range of cultural and ideological phenomena—from the sadist paradoxes of Kant's moral philosophy to the universe of Ayn Rand's novels, from the question "Which, if any, is the sex of the cogito?" to the defense of the cogito against the onslaught of cognitive sciences. Challenging us to reconsider fundamental notions of human consciousness and modern subjectivity, this is a book whose very Lacanian orthodoxy makes it irreverently transgressive of predominant theoretical paradigms. _Cogito and the Unconscious_ will appeal to readers interested in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and theories of ideology. _Contributors. _Miran Bozovic, Mladen Dolar, Alain Grosrichard, Marc de Kessel, Robert Pfaller, Renata Salecl, Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupancic. (shrink)

Jacques Lacan coined the term “subjective destitution” to describe the concluding moment of a psychoanalytic treatment. This concept can also usefully be applied to art and to politics. In art, subjective destitution can be defined as a passage from being-towardsdeath to undeadness, in other words to the position of the living dead – this passage takes place between Shostakovich’s 14th symphony and his final symphony, the 15th. In politics, subjective destitution designates the passage of a political subject to a radical (...) de-subjectivization, to becoming an object of a political cause. (shrink)

The Cartesian cogito—the principle articulated by Descartes that "I think, therefore I am"—is often hailed as the precursor of modern science. At the same time, the cogito's agent, the ego, is sometimes feared as the agency of manipulative domination responsible for all present woes, from patriarchal oppression to ecological catastrophes. Without psychoanalyzing philosophy, _Cogito and the Unconscious_ explores the vicissitudes of the cogito and shows that psychoanalyses can render visible a constitutive madness within modern philosophy, the point at which "I (...) think, therefore I am" becomes obsessional neurosis characterized by "If I stop thinking, I will cease to exist." Noting that for Lacan the Cartesian construct is the same as the Freudian "subject of the unconscious," the contributors follow Lacan's plea for a psychoanalytic return to the cogito. Along the path of this return, they examine the ethical attitude that befits modern subjectivity, the inherent sexualization of modern subjectivity, the impasse in which the Cartesian project becomes involved given the enigmatic status of the human body, and the Cartesian subject's confrontation with its modern critics, including Althusser, Bataille, and Dennett. In a style that has become familiar to Žižek's readers, these essays bring together a strict conceptual analysis and an approach to a wide range of cultural and ideological phenomena—from the sadist paradoxes of Kant's moral philosophy to the universe of Ayn Rand's novels, from the question "Which, if any, is the sex of the cogito?" to the defense of the cogito against the onslaught of cognitive sciences. Challenging us to reconsider fundamental notions of human consciousness and modern subjectivity, this is a book whose very Lacanian orthodoxy makes it irreverently transgressive of predominant theoretical paradigms. _Cogito and the Unconscious_ will appeal to readers interested in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and theories of ideology. _Contributors. _Miran Bozovic, Mladen Dolar, Alain Grosrichard, Marc de Kessel, Robert Pfaller, Renata Salecl, Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupancic. (shrink)

The Return of the Political Economy. If value, as the abstraction of use value, as real abstraction, is at the very beginning of conceptual thought, it implies an idealistic representation of society. Hegel’s logic is not however that of Marx’s Capital. It is rather a mystifying expression of the real inversion, between man and thing, of a subjectivity that is immerged in a substantial totality and which is to be understood in materialistic terms : Spirit is a substance that (...) subsists only through the activity of the subjects engaged in it. Such is the process of capital. Communism emerges only through its failures to actualize itself fully. This is the starting point for a consideration of material labor and rent. (shrink)

Starting from the distinction between “ideal ego”, “ego-ideal” and “superego” structured from the Imaginary-Symbolic-Real triad made by Lacan, this study investigates how is possible to distinguish the a-sexual social space from the domain of libidinally-cathexed interactions. Through the analysis of Balibar’s, Miller’s, Schuster’s and Hägglund’s ideas, paths and strategies are defined to analyze the existing dynamics between symbolic power, law and superego. What emerges is the reconstruction of a new subjectivity which is capable, at the same time, to overcome the (...) jouissance-superego dynamic at the basis of Lacanian reflection and face the challenges of contemporary post-humanism. Therefore, what subject stands for is the inhuman core of being-human, what Hegel called selfrelating negativity, what Freud called death drive. The text proposes, in short, how the Subject is what is in a human being more than human, the immortality of the deathdrive which makes it a living dead, something that insists beyond the cycle of life and death. (shrink)

KAZALOIzberi si svojo votlino!Kopernik, Darwin, Freud ... in mnogi drugiNovi znanosti o videzu nasprotiOdpori razčaranjuWhen the God Comes AroundDesublimirani objekt postideologijeNevarnost? Kakšna nevarnost?»Postavljanje predpostavk«Hegel kognitivist?Lažna neprozornostČustva lažejo ali kje se Damasio motiHegel, Marx, DennettOd fizike k načrtu?Nezavedno dejanje svobodeJezik zapeljevanja, zapeljevanje jezika.

Immanuel Kant was one of the leading lights of 18th-century philosophy; his work provided the foundations for later revolutionary thinkers such as Hegel and Marx. This work contains the keystone of his critical philosophy - the basis of human knowledge and truth.

Hegel 's classic Phenomenology of Spirit is considered by many to be the most difficult text in all of philosophical literature. In interpreting the work, scholars have often used the Phenomenology to justify the ideology that has tempered their approach to it, whether existential, ontological, or, particularly, Marxist. Werner Marx deftly avoids this trap of misinterpretation by rendering lucid the objectives that Hegel delineates in the Preface and Introduction and using these to examine the whole of the Phenomenology. (...) class='Hi'>Marx considers selected materials from Hegel 's text in order both to clarify Hegel 's own view of it and to set the stage for an examination of post-Hegelian philosophy. The primary focus of Marx's book is on the account. Hegel gives of the phenomenological journey from natural consciousness to philosophical wisdom. In showing that Hegel 's many statements concerning consciousness 'finding itself' or 'knowing itself' in its world can be understood as discovering the rationality of the conditioning world, Marx offers a solution to several sets of interrelated problems that have troubled students of Hegel. His book contains valuable analyses of the relation between Hegel 's thought and that of Descartes and Kant as well as that of Karl Marx, and it also sheds considerable light on the question of the internal unity or coherence of the Phenomenology. (shrink)

We comment on the last chapter of Henrich where the author offers a ‘key’ to Hegel’s Logic focusing on the problem of the passage from self-reference to determination in the beginning of the Logic. We argue that what he offers as a ‘key’ is actually a reduction of Hegel to the logic of understanding from the point of view of an autonomous Ego; consequently, he excludes dialectics. Contrarily, we present Hegel’s own solution, eliciting the remark where he shows that the (...) proposition “Being and Nothing are the same” negates itself insofar as it is uttered and reflected on the Other’s understanding. We conjecture that this remark offers a privileged point from which to consider the connection Hegel-Lacan, provided we recognize the Absolute in Hegel as the big Other in Lacan. We suggest that the dialectical identity of identity and difference is actually an operation in the Agora and that the Hegel-Marx-Lacan theory can be properly denominated dialectical materialism. We also offer an answer to Žižek’s question of how a “neutral medium of designation” can emerge within a “life-world practice” or out of a “universe of matter. (shrink)

What do we know about Hegel? What do we know about Marx? What do we know about democracy and totalitarianism? Communism and psychoanalysis? What do we know that isn't a platitude that we've heard a thousand times - or a self-satisfied certainty? Through his brilliant reading of Hegel, Slavoj Zizek - one of the most provocative and widely-read thinkers of our time - upends our traditional understanding, dynamites every cliché and undermines every conviction in order to clear the ground (...) for new ways of answering these questions. When Lacan described Hegel as the ‘most sublime hysteric’, he was referring to the way that the hysteric asks questions because he experiences his own desire as if it were the Other's desire. In the dialectical process, the question asked of the Other is resolved through a reflexive turn in which the question begins to function as its own answer. We had made Hegel into the theorist of abstraction and reaction, but by reading Hegel with Lacan, Zizek unveils a Hegel of the concrete and of revolution - his own, and the one to come. This early and dazzlingly original work by Zizek offers a unique insight into the ideas which have since become hallmarks of his mature thought. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in critical theory, philosophy and contemporary social thought. (shrink)

"'Der heute vorherrschende Begriff von Subjektivität beruht auf dem Habermas'schen Projekt gegenseitiger Anerkennung von frei und verantwortlich handelnden Akteuren. Was diesem Projekt entgeht, ist das antagonistische Herzstück von Subjektivität: die traumatische Verstörung, die in den Begriff des Subjekts selbst -- von Kant bis Hegel -- eingeschrieben ist. Mit Bezug auf Lacan erinnert uns Finkelde kraftvoll an diese vernachlässigte Dimension: die wahre Bedeutung von exzessiver Subjektivität liegt darin, dass Subjektivität als solche exzessiv ist. Das Buch Exzessive Subjektivität ist nicht bloß ein (...) wichtiger Beitrag zur Subjektphilosophie, es ist viel mehr: es bestimmt das Themenfeld gänzlich neu. Kurz gesagt, es ist bereits jetzt ein Klassiker' (Slavoj Žižek)" --Back cover. (shrink)

In the space of barely more than five years, with the publication of four pathbreaking books, Slavoj Žižek has earned the reputation of being one of the most arresting, insightful, and scandalous thinkers in recent memory. Perhaps more than any other single author, his writings have constituted the most compelling evidence available for recognizing Jacques Lacan as the preemient philosopher of our time. In _Tarrying with the Negative_, Žižek challenges the contemporary critique of ideology, and in doing so opens the (...) way for a new understanding of social conflict, particularly the recent outbursts of nationalism and ethnic struggle. Are we, Žižek asks, confined to a postmodern universe in which truth is reduced to the contingent effect of various discursive practices and where our subjectivity is dispersed through a multitude of ideological positions? _No_ is his answer, and the way out is a return to philosophy. This revisit to German Idealism allows Žižek to recast the critique of ideology as a tool for disclosing the dynamic of our society, a crucial aspect of which is the debate over nationalism, particularly as it has developed in the Balkans—Žižek's home. He brings the debate over nationalism into the sphere of contemporary cultural politics, breaking the impasse centered on nationalisms simultaneously fascistic and anticolonial aspirations. Provocatively, Žižek argues that what drives nationalistic and ethnic antagonism is a collectively driven refusal of our own enjoyment. Using examples from popular culture and high theory to illuminate each other—opera, film noir, capitalist universalism, religious and ethnic fundamentalism—this work testifies to the fact that, far more radically than the postmodern sophists, Kant and Hegel are our contemporaries. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste artigo, pretendemos trabalhar, a partir de uma leitura de Zizek e Lacan, a perspectiva radical de liberdade como superação da dialética entre a Lei moral kantiana e o gozo sádico. Para isso, procuramos primeiramente mostrar como Lacan articula a relação de Kant com Sade, para, em seguida, pensar como, segundo Zizek, o psicanalista encontra uma saída para o princípio de liberdade kantiana, a partir da ética do desejo puro, o que nos permitirá pensar um Kant sem Sade.: In (...) this article, based on a reading of Zizek and Lacan, we discuss the radical perspective of freedom as an overcoming of the dialectic between the Kantian moral law and sadistic joy. We first try to show how Lacan articulates Kant's relationship with Sade, and then consider how, according to Zizek, the psychoanalyst finds an outlet for the Kantian principle of freedom based the ethics of pure desire, which allows us to think of a Kant without Sade. (shrink)

Žižek s work on Heidegger has not been examined in the same way as his work on Hegel, Lacan, Marx and Kant. In order to shed light on his political thought – oscillating between a heroic Leninism and a subversive _ Ideologiekritik _ – we are reconstructing his critique of Heidegger as it follows from the first chapter of _ The Ticklish Subject _. In that we want to show how his critique is essentially Kantian – Which means for (...) Žižek: A critique that doesn’t retreat from the full consequences of the subject’s finiteness. That is excactly what Žižek traces in both Heidegger and Kant, focussing around the role of transcendental imagination. In a last step we are showing how his doubled political position follows from this and hint at the intuition that his heroic Leninism itself could be conceived as a sort of retreat from those very consequences. (shrink)

Early in his 1993 book Tarrying with the Negative, Slavoj Žižek asks contemporary philosophy to “repeat the Kantian gesture.” The implication is that (much like Plato did with the Sophists) Kant accepted the critique of metaphysics made by David Hume, affirming it in an unexpected positive sense. The analogous gesture for a would-be Kant in our time would be to accept deconstruction’s insistence on the contingency of meaning while treating contingency not as a failing, but as the very stuff of (...) truth itself. For Žižek this is precisely what Jacques Lacan has already done, and this makes Lacan the pivotal thinker of our era. Yet as we follow Žižek’s pursuit of this theme in his recent article “The Parallax of Ontology” (an extract from his book Sex and the Failed Absolute), we catch sight of a new direction in Žižek’s thinking. His previous model of parallax in terms of two separate and irreconcilable realities seems to shift toward a new emphasis on the differential becoming of the two, rather than their paradoxical co-existence. (shrink)

Lacan and Marx: The Invention of the Symptom provides an incisive commentary on Lacan's reading of Marx, mapping the relations between these two vastly influential thinkers. Unlike previous books, Bruno provides a detailed history of Lacan's reading of Marx and surveys his references to Marx in both his writings and seminars. Examining Lacan's key argument that Marx "invented the symptom", Bruno shows how Lacan went on to criticize Marx and contrasts Marx's concept of (...) surplus-value with Lacan's surplus-enjoyment. Exploring the division between Marxist and psychoanalytic perspectives on social and psychological need and Lacan's formalisation of the capitalist discourse, the book compares the positions of Althusser, Deleuze and Guattari, and Zizek on the relations between Lacan, Marx and capitalism, using a wide range of cultural examples, from Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Brecht's Joan Dark and Pierpont Mauler. Through these readings, Bruno also elaborates an extended commentary on Lacan's central idea of the division of the subject. His focus is not only on showing how we can exit from capitalism but also, and just as importantly, on showing how we can make capitalism exit from us. This book will be of great interest to scholars and readers of Lacan and Marx from across the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy and political economy, and will also appeal to Lacanian psychoanalysts in clinical practice. (shrink)

Yugoslavia-to Slovenia -- Enlightenment-with Hegel -- Psychoanalysis-from Lacan -- Politics-repeating Marx -- Culture-acting out.

Slavoj Žižek is an extremely interesting philosopher of our time who translated the philosophy of Hegel, Marx and the psychology of Lacan into a formidable scholarship and activism. Importantly, his philosophy participates in Alain Badiou’s conviction that the function of philosophy is to corrupt the youth, to alienate them from the hegemonic ideologico-political order, to spread radical doubts, and enable them to think unconventionally, boldly think dangerously.

Der Fokus auf die Sprache bestimmte die Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, die sowohl die Dekonstruktion der Metaphysik als auch den Tod des Subjekts verkündete. Der Psychoanalytiker Jacques Lacan führte das Subjekt des Begehrens wieder in den philosophischen Diskurs ein und entwickelte aus der Struktur der Sprache eine neue, symbolische Logik des Unbewussten. Die Logik des Signifikanten, deren Geschichte diese Arbeit nachzeichnet, um sie zu transzendieren, stellt die Frage nach der Dialektik von Signifikant und Begriff, Sprache und Logik, Bewusstem und Unbewusstem, (...) Ich und Subjekt, Gesetz und Begehren, Denken und Sein. Durch die Funktionen der Metonymie, der Metapher und des Stepppunktes sowie über das Schema der vier Diskurse werden die Tropen der traditionellen philosophischen Logik - Begriff, Urteil und Schluss - neu interpretiert. Das Peirce'sche Konzept der Abduktion ermöglicht es, sowohl den Borromäischen Knoten Lacans - Imaginäres, Symbolisches und Reales - wie auch die transzendentale Dialektik und Ontologie der Moderne, die auf Kants und Hegels Revolutionen der Denkungsart zurückgehen, schlusslogisch zu begründen. (shrink)

This paper examines the historical claims about philosophy, dating back to Parmenides, that we argue underlie Jacques Lacan’s polemical provocations in the mid-1970s that his position was an “anti-philosophie”. Following an introduction surveying the existing literature on the subject, in part ii, we systematically present the account of classical philosophy Lacan has in mind when he declares psychoanalysis to be an antiphilosophy after 1975, assembling his claims about the history of ideas in Seminars XVII and XX in ways earlier contributions (...) of this subject have not systematically done. In part iii, focusing upon Lacan’s remarkable reading of Descartes’ break with premodern philosophy—but touching on Lacan’s readings of Hegel and the early Wittgenstein—we examine Lacan’s positioning of psychoanalysis as a legatee of the Cartesian moment in the history of western ideas, nearly-contemporary with Galileo’s mathematization of physics and carried forwards by Kant’s critical philosophy and account of the substanceless subject of apperception. In different terms than Slavoj Žižek, we propose that it is Lacan’s famous avowal that the subject of the psychoanalysis is the subject first essayed by Descartes in The Meditations on First Philosophy as confronting an other capable of deceit that decisively measures the distance between Lacan’s unique “antiphilosophy” and the forms of later modern linguistic and cultural relativism whose hegemony Alain Badiou has decried, at the same time as it sets Lacan’s antiphilosophy apart from the Parmenidean legacy for which thinking and being could be the same. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es hacer una reseña de los conceptos fundamentales que elabora Slavoj Žižek en su libro “El sublime objeto de la ideología”. Tomaré algunas ideas centrales acerca del síntoma, la ideología y la fantasía, así como también haré algunos comentarios. Žižek nos advierte de no caer en las trampas actuales ilusorias de que vivimos en una época posideológica.

In this essay, I respond to Žižek's charges that my turns to biology risk naturalizing away key features of non-natural subjectivity à la German idealism and Lacanianism. The crux of this dispute between him and me concerns how close to or far from a life-science-based naturalism a materialist theory of the subject with allegiances to Kant, Hegel, Freud, and Lacan should be. I contend that materialism must be closer to naturalism than Žižek allows— while insisting simultaneously that the spontaneous naturalism (...) of the cutting edge of the life sciences isn’t the semi-reductive paradigm Žižek believes it to be. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début -- I -- Phénoménologies hégelienne et husserlienne Hegel et Husserl sur l'intersubjectivité Itinéraires phénoménologiques La dialectique de l'intentionnalité Essai de synthèse d'une méthode phénoménologique -- II -- Classes sociales selon Marx Imaginaire social (...) et creation des idéologies Production et classes sociales dans Le Capital L'évolution du concept de la lutte des classes dans la pensée de Marx Lesclasses sociales dans la philosophie de l'histoire de Marx Pages de fin. (shrink)

InLess Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, Slavoj Žižek presents the results of his long meditation on the meaning and ultimate implications of Hegelian philosophy. In this review-article, I will first examine the stages of Žižek’s transformation of Hegelianism, and then analyse the main themes brought up inLess than Nothing. The development of a ‘polemological’ interpretation of the Hegelian concepts of ‘reconciliation’ and ‘absolute’ leads Žižek to emphasise the role of negativity and antagonism in the process of (...) constitution of reality and subject as part of reality itself. This implies a reinterpretation of dialectical materialism: reality is not something that simply precedes the subject, but which contains just multiplicities of multiplicities, and thus the Void itself. Žižek’s assertion that the ultimate reality is the Void itself then renders unavoidable the critique of Hegelian Marxism based on the centrality of the category of alienation. The last part of the review-article surveys, instead, how Žižek’s re-reading of Hegel affects his relation with Marx and also examines the role played by ‘contradiction’ in his theoretical proposal. (shrink)