Zizek spoke October 26 at St Mark’s Bookshop in Manhattan. What follows is not the complete talk, but some interesting parts. Reprinted from impose (with a few corrections), where the complete transcript can be found. Bill Clinton says ominously, “because your demands create a vacuum, and if you don’t bring quickly concrete proposals which will fill in [...]
Posts under ‘Philosophy’
Some contributions to thinking in the present moment
There’s a new wind blowing across this globalized world, from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Spain to Occupy Wall Street. How do the theoretical investigations of this site relate to this, to what’s new and emerging? This question of the emergence of novelty, of understanding this very changing world so as to help to [...]
Badiou on existence
The following is a bit more abstract than what we usually publish here, but for those who want to understand what Badiou is doing philosophically, this essay (originally a talk) will repay the effort. The talk was obviously given several years ago, and was originally published in lacanian ink 29 (Spring 2007). It is republished [...]
Zizek on our situation — and communism
Slovaj Zizek is always interesting, always changing, often irritating or apparently dismissable, but always (I believe) serious and radical in intent. The following is republished here from the symptom. Our task is thus to remain faithful to this eternal Idea of communism: to the egalitarian spirit kept alive over thousands of years in revolts and utopian [...]
How can communism come to be?
Bruno Bosteels is one of that group of Badiou translators (Peter Hallward, Oliver Feltham, Alberto Toscano, Jason Barker are some others) who have also written interpretively and critically on him. Bosteels’ latest writing in this vein is Badiou and Politics, a much anticipated book, literally just out, which readers can expect to see talked about [...]
What is Badiou’s communism?
The following essay by J. Ramsey is expanded from remarks delivered at the Platypus Society Convention in April, as part of a panel on Badiou and Post-Maoism: Marxism and Communism Today. Other speakers were Chris Cutrone of Platypus (whose paper can be found here), Mike Ely of Kasama (whose remarks can be found on Kasama), [...]
On the concept of class truth – III
The first and second parts of this essay, published over the past two days, appear below. This is the third and final installment, and includes the bibliography for the whole. Class Truth — An Essential Concept: Part 3 by Vern Gray Interpreting or Contemplating the World, and Changing It Class truth is part of both; [...]
On the concept of class truth – II
The second part of Vern Gray’s essay. The first, appearing yesterday, can be found below. The third and final part will be published tomorrow. Class Truth — An Essential Concept: Part 2 by Vern Gray Class Truths in the Natural Sciences It has often been assumed that, among the various spheres of thought, only the [...]
On the concept of class truth – I
A defining characteristic of Marxism, philosophically, has been its emphasis on the close connection of theory and practice, between truth and practical human activity: The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Defining this connection more closely, however, and tracing its [...]
The limits of critique
One aspect of the contemporary scene that has often seemed perhaps harder to deal with than any other has been the pervasive atmosphere of irony. It’s not quite cynicism, nor “the worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction,” but rather a stepped-back “meta” attitude, where’s it’s never the thing itself [...]
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