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Slavoj Žižek

Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism Paperback – October 6, 2015

by Slavoj Zizek (Author)

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Philosophical materialism in all its forms – from scientific naturalism to Deleuzian New Materialism – has failed to meet the key theoretical and political challenges of the modern world. This is the burden of philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s argument in this pathbreaking and eclectic new work. Recent history has seen developments such as quantum physics and Freudian psychoanalysis, not to speak of the failure of twentieth-century communism, shake our understanding of existence.

In the process, the dominant tradition in Western philosophy lost its moorings. To bring materialism up to date, Žižek – himself a committed materialist and communist – proposes a radical revision of our intellectual heritage. He argues that dialectical materialism is the only true philosophical inheritor of what Hegel designated the “speculative” approach in thought.

Absolute Recoil is a startling reformulation of the basis and possibilities of contemporary philosophy. While focusing on how to overcome the transcendental approach without regressing to naïve, pre-Kantian realism, Žižek offers a series of excursions into today’s political, artistic, and ideological landscape, from Arnold Schoenberg’s music to the films of Ernst Lubitsch.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Verso
Publication date

October 6, 2015
Dimensions

5.44 x 1.26 x 8.27 inches
ISBN-10

9781781686829
ISBN-13

978-1784781996
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Editorial Reviews

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Praise for Slavoj Žižek:

“The excitable fluency, ursine congeniality and gleeful readiness to provoke and offend all feed the sense of authentic sponanaeity and energy that has made Žižek somethig like European philosophy’s punk icon, packing out auditoriums around the world.”
—Josh Cohen, New Statesman

““Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj Žižek ... one of the world’s best-known public intellectuals.”
—John Gray, New York Review of Books

“A gifted speaker—tumultuous, emphatic, direct—he writes as he speaks.”
—Jonathan Rée, Guardian

“Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive.”
—Terry Eagleton

About the Author

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Less Than Nothing; The Year of Dreaming Dangerously; Living in the End Times; First as Tragedy, Then as Farce; In Defense of Lost Causes; six volumes of the Essential Žižek; and many more.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1784781991
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; Reprint edition (October 6, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781781686829
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784781996
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.22 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.44 x 1.26 x 8.27 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,731,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #849 in Philosophy Criticism (Books)
- #2,535 in Communism & Socialism (Books)
- #7,201 in Literary Criticism & Theory

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Slavoj Žižek

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"The most dangerous philosopher in the West," (says Adam Kirsch of The New Republic) Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include "First as Tragedy, Then as Farce;" "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle;" "In Defense of Lost Causes;" "Living in the End Times;" and many more.

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Matthew Rapaport

More metaphysical musings on Hegel, the universe, and the nature of the human subject

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2017

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In the main, I think "Absolute Recoil" is a rewrite and restatement of "Less Than Nothing". The subject is the same, the emergence of being from less than nothing, the relation between the "Real of impossible All" to "the One" that cannot be one insofar as the Nothing is not stable as nothing and its relation to what is more than one but not two. All of this self-negating appearing as something is seen (by Zizek) reflected in everything from the physical foundations of the universe (quantum mechanics), emancipatory political events (the "class struggle" made impure by a "third thing" that both spoils the original relation and at the same time provides the impetus that keeps the struggle forever alive and transforming itself), to the twisted imperfections of human psychology, all of it a speculation about that which we cannot know beyond the horizon of Kantian transcendental categories within which we are ultimately trapped.

As in the earlier book Zizek proceeds by way of illustration through literature and film. He uses many of the same stories (and jokes) and a few new ones. As with the earlier book, religion, particularly Christianity receives the most in depth treatment as "fictional illustration" of the turning of nothing into less than nothing and from that which appears to a subject (itself a lack in being existing by way of an absence in being itself) to be something into the contrast between nothing and less than nothing. Zizek seems not to perceive that this particular treatment is the least meaningful of all. If God is real then it would be obvious that Zizek's reading of the Christian story must be false. God cannot die, and in point of fact Zizek particularly ignores (it is notable for its absence) the story of the Resurrection. If God is not real then none of the Christian story can mean what Zizek thinks it means anyway. It cannot be an allegory of the creation (first of the world and then of the human subject) any more than any other creation myth or for that matter any other fictional narrative; Jesus' death on the cross can have no more metaphysical meaning than any other of thousands of Roman executions by crucifixion. Here his examination of Freud and Lacan (both feature prominently here, Badiou appears less in this one) at least has some backstop. We are commonsensically real to ourselves although that reality (for Zizek a "lack in the One" must emerge in a withdrawal from "the Real of the One".

All of his various threads are summed up in a final dramatic chapter which carries everything up from the appearance-as-negative of the human subject to the origins of the universe. In all of this, Zizek refers back always to Hegel whose system, as interpreted by Zizek, can accommodate all the various nuances of literature and psychology he explores. If my review here seems full of obscure metaphor I have succeeded in illustrating Zizek's impenetrability by realist philosophers such as myself.

I have no problem with restatements, philosophers do this all the time. My own third book is a restatement of my first. One hopes that having worked further through a subject, subsequent statements of its themes will be more concise and clearly laid down. "Absolute Recoil" might be a more concise statement of "Less than Nothing" but if it is it is hard for me to see it because all of this is couched in Continental anti-realist language which is utterly alien to me. But if you are a Zizek fan, and if you could follow "Less than Nothing" then you will likely enjoy this slightly less ponderous re-working of it.

5 people found this helpful

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Ivo Maropo

Madness materialized

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2015

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This is a very frustrating book. Not so much due to its difficulty (as already mentioned by others, it's probably easier than Less Than Nothing), but because it has effectively ruined my hopes of ever becoming a decent philosopher - much like, maybe, Hitchcock has ruined Zizek's own hopes of becoming a filmmaker.

After having read both Less Than Nothing and this one (plus many of his other books), now I know I'm not up to the task of ever realizing my own dream (and Philosophy has always been my biggest inspiration in life). Whatever I do, Zizek is always infinitely ahead of me in both insight and knowledge.

There is a fool among this book's reviewers who honestly believes to have a "supplement" for Zizek's Dialectical Materialism, but the poor bastard does not seem to know to what real extent (despite what he may think of himself) is Zizek a master of the "dialectical serpent", always ready to flex/bend its own muscles against its own structure, and successfully strike back (and with full force) its attacker.

Resistance is indeed futile here. There are only bad critics of Zizek's work - and that even includes Adrian Johnston. Zizek seems to know everything there is to know by heart (and he always possess brilliant insights for everything he knows). I'm officially admiting defeat and leaving for the master the task of redefining what it means to be a philosophical materialist for the 21st century.

Thanks for screwing with my lifelong dream, Slavoj. The more I have viciously studied you for the last 3 1/2 years, the more painfully clear it became to me that you are in a completely different level; an overall level of your own. Here, take your 5 stars.

28 people found this helpful

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Boris

Delightful and Cathartic

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2014

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This book is cathartic for anyone who has been following Zizek along. In order to understand it, one absolutely needs to have read most of the Hegelian corpus (at the very least - Phenomenology & Logic), preceded by Kant and the idealists, the late Schelling not to be missed, Lacan - some Ecrits and a few key seminars would be good, and previous Zizek's works, especially - Less Than Nothing (but Indivisible Remainder and Parallax View are highly recommended). Also Zizek Ontology by Adrian Johnston would be of great help. Basic familiarity with Heidegger is also good, as is that with Deleuze and Althusser, not to mention Benjamin.

With these under the belt, reading Absolute Recoil is a breeze and extremely pleasurable. Without them, in the words of Lacan in Kant avec Sade: Those of my readers who are in this virgin relationship to the Critique (of Practical Reason) of not having read it - please put this article down and come back to it after having read it. I don't believe one would be able to understand much of what the author is saying without having been plugged into the stream of his thought over the years. If one has, however, another delightful journey awaits and it is not to be missed.

23 people found this helpful

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Jackson

Bought new, came very obviously used.

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2023

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The spine has a crack on the inside, writing on many pages, dents, scratches, the cover is beginning to peel, the book doesn’t even close right, etc. Again, I bought this as new. I’m excited to read it but I’m angry I didn’t get my money’s worth

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F. J. Kardatzke

Zizek pulls some of the world's best thinkers into the kitchen for a bit of communion.

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2014

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Easier read than less than nothing, haven't finished it yet though, so I'm not sure Zizek realizes the full implications of symbol systems for mankind.

One person found this helpful

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Piitr.H

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2017

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Žižek at his finest.

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Jeremy

Great book

Reviewed in Australia on May 27, 2019

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Great book. Unfortunately arrived slightly damaged. Not enough to send back but enough to notice.

Christian Fuchs

Fuchs, Christian. 2014. The Dialectic: Not ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2014

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Fuchs, Christian. 2014. The Dialectic: Not just the Absolute Recoil, but the World’s Living Fire that Extinguishes and Kindles Itself. Reflections on Slavoj Žižek’s Version of Dialectical Philosophy in "Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism". tripleC: Communciation, Capitalism & Critique 12 (2): 848-875.

http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/640

Slavoj Žižek shows in his book Absolute Recoil (and previous Hegelian works such as Less than Nothing) the importance of repeating Hegel’s dialectical philosophy in contemporary capitalism. Žižek contributes especially to a reconceptualisation of dialectical logic and based on it the dialectic of history. The reflections in this paper stress that the dialectic is only the absolute recoil, a sublation that posits its own presuppositions, by working as a living fire that extinguishes and kindles itself. I point out that a new foundation of dialectical materialism needs a proper Heraclitusian foundation. I discuss Žižek’s version of the dialectic that stresses the absolute recoil and the logic of retroactivity and point out its implications for the concept of history as well as Žižek’s own theoretical ambiguities that oscillate between postmodern relativism and mechanical materialism. I argue that Žižek’s version of the dialectic should be brought into a dialogue with the dialectical philosophies of the German Marxists Hans Heinz Holz and Herbert Hörz. Žižek’s achievement is that he helps keeping alive the fire of dialectical materialism in the 21st century. Such a dialectical fire is needed for a proper revolutionary theory.
Hegel’s dialectical philosophy has in the course of the 20th century lost influence in Marxist theory. Too many theorists repeated the bourgeois and postmodern reflex to dismiss Hegel as having a deterministic, closed and totalitarian system of philosophy. The merit of Žižek’s recent work, including Absolute Recoil, is that he has massively strived to bring back Hegel to the attention of critical theory. Recent discussions about how to use Hegel’s Logic for reading Marx’s Capital and critically understanding capitalism (show how important Hegel’s dialectic remains in 21st century capitalism.
In this paper, I reflect on Žižek’s version of Hegelian dialectics and ask the question what kind of Hegelian dialectic is most appropriate today. I first discuss Žižek’s logic of the dialectic as retroactivity (section 2). Section 3 moves from Žižek’s dialectical materialism to the discussion of his version of historical materialism. In section 4, I suggest amendments to Žižek’s dialectical logic. Sections 5 and 6 analyse the implications of Žižek’s historical dialectic, first in general (section 5) and second by asking how we should interpret Auschwitz and what the implications of Žižek’s historical-dialectical materialism are in this respect (section 6).

3 people found this helpful