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Title: The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World by Slavoj Zizek, F.W.J. von Schelling, Judith Norman ISBN: 0-472-06652-8 Publisher: UMP Pub. Date: 15 July, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An engaging read
Comment: My review concerns the text of Schelling's Ages of the World. I am not terribly interested in Zizek and I started his essay, but quickly was bored.
This essay by Schelling is simply tremendous. Schelling is one of the most underrated of modern philosophers. Try reading this with Schelling's essay "Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Related Matters" (1809).
Schelling's vision is one of a world which finds its being completely in God. It is a kind of pantheism that attempts to escape the strict determinism and fatalism of Spinozism. Freedom is not a property of the will, but it is the essence of divine being as such. A beautiful work of insightful philosophical analysis and intriguing biblical exegesis.
Rating: 4
Summary: entertaining as always
Comment: If you've never seen Slavoj Zizek speak in person, you should make every effort to do so. With his intense but cuddly East Block labor leader persona, he is certainly the most charismatic orator on the academic Left today.
I mention this because in _The Abyss of Freedom_, Zizek's lively spoken style comes through far better than in a book like _The Ticklish Subject_, a solid piece of thinking stifled by its heavy academic structure.
At first, Zizek's reading of Schelling's essay promises to be a bit one-sided. As usual, he has a heavy Lacanian axe to grind, and beats to death his view that the concept of a pre-existent reality is somewhat naive, and that the difference between reality and appearance _is itself_ posited by the fantasizing of the human subject. (Personally, I regard this move as little more than standard Idealist trickery.)
But once you finish Zizek's introductory essay and read Judith Norman's fine translation of Schelling's _Weltater_, you will be surprised to find that Zizek has been an illuminating guide. He makes Schelling "newsworthy" for contemporary philosophy in a way that all the vague pro-Schelling propaganda by Heideggerians never does.
I would also add that many of Zizek's digressions in his essay are brilliant enough to deserve book-length treatments in their own right. See above all his brief tirade on "the inherent stupidity of proverbs"-- framed as a set of entertaining throwaway remarks, Zizek's commentary on proverbs actually contains the germ of a shockingly novel philosophy of language.
There are moments when Zizek's obvious Lacanian agenda frustrates me, but in the end I always want to say "Thank God for the existence of Slavoj Zizek." He's waking us out of _some_ sort of slumber, I'm sure.
Rating: 3
Summary: A compelling and confusing abyss
Comment: This book is an odd creature to say the least. A great but under-appreciated text of German idealism is re-published in a new translation, along with an interpretive essay that evaluates it from the standpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Personally, I found Schelling's portrait of the world as moving continuously towards full consciousness of itself to be utterly fascinating. I'm still not sure what to make of Zizek's essay - I have always been utterly baffled by Lacan - but if you're into that kind of thing, you might enjoy it.
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Title: Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences by Slavoj Zizek ISBN: 0415969212 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Novalis: Fichte Studies by Novalis, Jane Kneller ISBN: 0521643929 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Alain Badiou, Ray Brassier ISBN: 0804744718 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom by Friedrich W. Schelling, Friedrich W. Schnelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling, James Gutmann ISBN: 087548025X Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Puppet and the Dwarf : The Perverse Core of Christianity by Slavoj Zizek ISBN: 0262740257 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 12 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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