- 457 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
A panoramic view of the cosmos must begin with the tension of a single political moment. In Quantum History, Slavoj Žižek brings together Hegelian dialectics, Lacan psychoanalysis and quantum mechanics to rethink history, reality and political possibility.
Taking up Lenin's challenge to radically reconsider materialism in the wake of each big scientific discovery, and rejecting the recent vogue for giving a vague spiritualist spin to wave mechanics, Žižek embraces the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics with characteristic erudition and verve. Drawing on the central themes of the holographic universe, non-commutativity and the collapse of superpositions, Žižek evolves a quantum-inspired ontology which reinvents the historical materialism of Hegel and Heidegger – and compels a brutal, often darkly funny, inquisition into the chances of radical emancipatory acts today.
Quantum History takes the reader from the absolute contradiction of the primordial void through quantum oscillations to our ordinary reality, weaving in Lacan and Deleuze, Rovelli and Schelling, opera, cinema, sex and war. Žižek is at his sharpest, saddest, most provocative best as he demonstrates that there is no way of extracting ourselves from the texture of history, no neutral position from which the workings of the world can be observed transparently – we must act from a contingent, complex and inscrutable political moment, in sadness and in doubt, but defiantly.
Taking up Lenin's challenge to radically reconsider materialism in the wake of each big scientific discovery, and rejecting the recent vogue for giving a vague spiritualist spin to wave mechanics, Žižek embraces the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics with characteristic erudition and verve. Drawing on the central themes of the holographic universe, non-commutativity and the collapse of superpositions, Žižek evolves a quantum-inspired ontology which reinvents the historical materialism of Hegel and Heidegger – and compels a brutal, often darkly funny, inquisition into the chances of radical emancipatory acts today.
Quantum History takes the reader from the absolute contradiction of the primordial void through quantum oscillations to our ordinary reality, weaving in Lacan and Deleuze, Rovelli and Schelling, opera, cinema, sex and war. Žižek is at his sharpest, saddest, most provocative best as he demonstrates that there is no way of extracting ourselves from the texture of history, no neutral position from which the workings of the world can be observed transparently – we must act from a contingent, complex and inscrutable political moment, in sadness and in doubt, but defiantly.
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Yes, you can access Quantum History by Slavoj Žižek in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophers. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Halftitle page
- Series page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction: Materialism and quantum criticism
- I Universal: Collapse comes first
- 1 Why a Hegelian needs quantum mechanics
- 2 Why quantum mechanics needs Hegel
- 3 Noncommutativity in the symbolic and in the (quantum) real
- II Particular: From Hegel to Heidegger . . . and back
- 1 Names for finitude: Hegel, Heidegger, Pippin
- 2 The night of the world
- 3 Heidegger’s politics of finitude
- III Singular: Politics in a quantum world
- 1 The hologram of conflicting universalities
- 2 Can artificial intelligence really think?
- 3 The politics of vocation
- Variations
- Variation 1 Frozen beauty: Rovelli, Deleuze and the Stoics
- Variation 2 No substitute fortrue universals
- Variation 3 Pure voice, Pure sound: Beethoven, Globokar, Act
- Variation 4 Acts of reconciliation
- Variation 5 Moderately conservative communism
- Variation 6 The painted void
- Variation 7 The many monstersof the cinema
- Variation 8 Sexual superpositions
- Variation 9 Make the kitchen maid king
- Conclusion: The hungerto be something
- Notes
- Index