Parallax: The Dialectics of Mind and World

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Parallax, or the change in the position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and more precisely, the assumption that this adjustment is not only due to a change of focus, but a change in that objects ontological status has been a key philosophical concept throughout history. Building upon Slavoj ieks The Parallax View, this volume shows how parallax is used as a figure of thought that proves how the incompatibility between the physical and the theoretical touches not only upon the ontological, but also politics and aesthetics. With articles written by internationally renowned philosophers such as Frank Ruda, Graham Harman, Paul Livingston and Zizek himself, this book shows how modes of parallax remain in numerous modern theoretical disciplines, such as the Marxian parallax in the critique of political economy and politics; and the Hegelian parallax in the concept of the work of art, while also being important to debates surrounding speculative realism and dialectical materialism. Spanning philosophy, parallax is then a rich and fruitful concept that can illuminate the studies of those working in epistemology, ontology, German Idealism, political philosophy and critical theory.

Reviews

The editors of the anthology have succeeded in providing the academic community with a comprehensive overview of ['parallax'] logic. * Allgemeine Zeitschrift fr Philosophie (Bloomsbury Translation) *
Parallax brings together a remarkable group of philosophers around the problem of conceptualizing the identity and difference of mind and world. It represents, in a way, the continental response to the canonical analytic formulation of the problem put forth in McDowells Mind and World (along with the vast literature it generated). Under the heading of parallax, a notion introduced into philosophy by Slavoj Zizek, the present volume takes a step further; it makes it possible to include in our thinking about the core problem the very split and antagonism between these two traditions of thinking the problem. The essays are challenging and not for the faint at heart; given the stakes at issue one could hardly imagine it any other way. * Eric L. Santner, The Philip and Ida Romberg Distinguished Service Professor of Modern Germanic Studies, The University of Chicago, USA *
The notion of parallax, as discussed in the contributions of this volume, offers a radical, surprising as well as disturbing perspective on the inextricable gap between mind and world: provoking a new and productive approach to the understanding of our - epistemic, scientific, aesthetic, ethical, and political - realities. * Joseph Vogl, Professor of Modern German Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, and Princeton University, Germany and USA *
Inspired by a signature concept of Slavoj iek, this superb collection by distinguished contributors cross-fertilizes broad swaths of contemporary thought with fresh readings of German idealism. Especially for the way that it brings together a wide range of problematics and traditions, this book should make a difference. * Richard Boothby, Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, USA *

Author Bio

Dominik Finkelde is Professor of Epistemology and Contemporary Philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy. He publishes on contemporary philosophy and German Idealism, especially on Hegel, Kant, Lacan, Frege, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, iek and Badiou. Christoph Menke is Professor for Practical Philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. His research focuses on political and legal philosophy, theories of subjectivity, ethics and aesthetics. Slavoj iek is Professor at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, UK. His recent publications include Hegel in a Wired Brain (2020), Sex and the Failed Absolute (2019), Disparities (2016), and Antigone (2016), all published by Bloomsbury.