Slavoj Zizek. Materialism and Theology. 2007 3/8

[BalladoftheWindfish]

NOW THIS IS AN ATHEIST I WOULD LOVE TO ENGAGE. He even quotes Catholic sources - I love it.

[ot44eto]

The main problem with philosophy and modern science is that our scientific instruments become so precise that thay shown us things that are nonsense fo us. Our common sense is created in specific environment and it is not appliable on very large or very small scales. This is why our common sense fails and our philosphy is impotent to explain the structure of reality in it's extremes. So don't pay attention of some phylosophycal tautology about the natural word. This is no way to gain knowledge.

[JaCorBoar]

"there must be some unknown feature missing"

Stringtheory = God

[7freddie7]

Dawkins can't even tell us a lot about evolutionary biology, actually. He's not a particularly important scientist; he's merely an expert self-promoter and aggregator of other people's work.

[jaggerlags]

@7freddie7 He's done more for understanding of evolution than many. Why is this so threatening that you'd have to call him a self-promoter and aggregator of other peoples work? Ha! I should hope so, that seems to be the so called duty of any published author and honest scientist. Richard Dawkins could tell you a lot about evolutionary biology.

[Jtherva]

This guys doing a good job of explaining why not to believe in religions so far.

[almable1337ify]

wtf

[JaffarDS]

As a Christian, I find Zizek's insight very interesting. I also find it interesting that he likes Chesterton (who is one of my favorite authors).

[mindovermattjr]

Marx's materialism so dwarfs the scientific understanding of physics that we have today. Materialism is a misleading term since energy forces are unaccounted for due to their being difficult to perceive, for instance however, radiation, music, cultural jamming, hegemony(and other institutional power relationships), hormonal reactions, and drug use are some energy forces that exist but may be unaccounted for by the 'materialist' who only believes in matter as opposed to energy and matter.

[partofnopart]

zizek is not a postmodern philosopher by any stretch of the imagination - he is part of a continental, aggressively anti-postmodern trend in philosophy. Some attribute it to his style, which I can see to a very limited extent, but the charge of going too fast and lacking depth is often overplayed against zizek. He is far more accessible, I imagine, once one has a minimal grasp of German idealism - and, equally common-sensical, once one has actually read at least some of what he references.

[robotaholic]

materialism and atheism are logical

[simonreij]

he is good at prancing and frenetically stabbing around his reasonably shady comparisons and points. leaving you so busy keeping up with his confounding spins and examples you have little time to appraise what he is actually trying to say. watching it again leaves you stunned by how little he is saying and how flimsily it is backed. trouble is i still totally agree with the essence of what he's saying. i like his sentiment and attitude

[slopydrunk]

he is laying out a theory that takes as its foundation the "inexplicableness of everything"."Here's a theory: Kill brain, you die, try to deny" and that is the beautiful aesthetic totally human point. The absurdity of the normal implies irrationality but irrationality is the normal of the absurd so that what is normal is a sense of the absurd that produces the need for philosophy or wonder and thus can render the all of existence as sublime in all senses

[homerthompsonman]

I am always amazed at the nonsense this sort of book maggot can generate.

It states in the sidebar that this sort of "theorizing" is an entirely circular undertaking:

"...he uses popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and the theory of Jacques Lacan to explain politics and popular culture."

Not only that, he states at the beginning that he is laying out a theory that takes as its foundation the "inexplicableness of everything".

Here's a theory: Kill brain, you die, try to deny.

[stankballz71]

in other words u DO NOT UNDERSTAND A WORD HE IS SAYING. go smoke some more meth dude.

[partofnopart]

book maggot? nonsense? It always amazes me how hostile people can get towards material that hasn't be conveniently dumbed-down for them. If you don't understand, that's one thing. If you infer from this that there's nothing of any substance to understand then you are, well, naive and unlikely to want to enrich your vocabulary.

The 'use accessible language' argument, which is valid in certain contexts is often abused by people who are lazy and unwilling to put the work into learning the trade

[dgontar]

"...he uses popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and the theory of Jacques Lacan to explain politics and popular culture."

Not only that, he states at the beginning that he is laying out a theory that takes as its foundation the "inexplicableness of everything".

That's only conditionally circular reasoning, not necessary. It's (necessarily) circular if these ideas are not part of a larger framework and do not form an inference.

[dgontar]

"...he uses popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and the theory of Jacques Lacan to explain politics and popular culture."

Not only that, he states at the beginning that he is laying out a theory that takes as its foundation the "inexplicableness of everything".

Minor correction, it's neither conditional or necessary. It cannot be determined from the information given.

[dgontar]

Actually I checked up on what I said and I had it right the first time. That was a contingent, or conditional statement, that Zizek presents. But I still disagree with philosophers who say that there are "two kinds of truth", contingent and necessary. Contingent truth is not actually truth at all.

[theantigaia]

@dgontar the contingency he is referring to is that of your relative perspective, am I correct?

I'm trying to get some of these terms down..I'm a newb to philsophy lol.

[tim0608011901]

Thanks a lot for uploading these

[mrfatd]

dawkins is a scientist, zizek is a postmodernist. postmodernism is just a mystic branch of pseudophilosophy

[lunarlodge]

don't you mean "pheudopsilosophy?"

[WolYou]

mrfatd: Zizek is a scientist. All sciences are directly triggered by philosophy. Philosophy defines the underlying logic of science. Without philosophy we would find ourselves in a world of myths and with no chance to question them.

[eydos]

I thoroughly agree.

[spinozareagan]

Zizek isn't a postmodernist. You and all the rest of the vulgar materialists/petty atheists (Dawkins fan boys) are way out of your element.

Dawkins can tell us an awful lot about evolutionary biology. But he can tell us nothing of our Being.

[nitsky09]

I agree. Dawkins is like the cat that got the cream. So astounded that people still refute Darwinism, when really, its not worthy of much intellectual discussion. I always laugh at the atheist/theist dichotomy. Both are essentially symptomatic of the same sickness that plagues western thought. Credit to Zizek for flagging this up!

[ryguillian]

@spinozareagan His understanding of evolutionary biology (at least as summarized in "The Selfish Gene") is somewhat primitive; he doesn't give much credit to epigenetic possibilities... see "The Four Dimensions of Evolution"

[spinozareagan]

Yes, anyone who doesn't subscribe to a reductionistic scientism is a mystic and a pseudophilosopher. Right on.

Dawkins is, afterall, a scientist, and can tell us so much about evolutionary biology. He is a REAL philosopher!

[spinozareagan]

Yes, anyone who doesn't subscribe to a reductionistic scientism is a mystic and a pseudophilosopher. Right on.

Dawkins is, afterall, a scientist, and can tell us so much about evolutionary biology. He is a REAL philosopher!

[spinozareagan]

Right. Anyone that doesn't subscribe to a reductionistic scientism is a mystic and a pseudophilosopher.

But Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, is a TRUE philosopher

[schzx]

"Anyone that doesn't subscribe to a reductionistic scientism is a mystic and a pseudophilosopher."

Yes, pretty much.

[gen6k]

reduction > induction

God, singularity, mind, supervene are placeholders.

[thisisnothappening2]

Is this criticism of Derrida that he totalizes the exceptional?

[donnca]

00:50; hilarious.

[bushka5]

This makes my head hurt! I think I will stick to the music videos

[justdweezil]

I've seen him twice in person... I'm a philosophy student. Zizek speaks in non-sense. He constructs lots of little ideas that are either trivially true or superficially novel into huge, nonsense chains that he touts as coherent hypothesis. If you think you understand Zizek, try paraphrasing or summarizing what he says without simply regurgitating his words.

He can't even do it.

[richidpraah]

that's strange, because i understand perfectly.. and also stranger because i've always had a certain reservation about zizek over his psychology, but his critique of dialectical materialism, and also his surprising (to me) alright understanding of mysticism is why he, to my applauding agreement, wonderfully takes on the truly ignorant, vulgar and dangerous "atheist" positions of dawkins, dennett etc. those pop-discourses has nothing to do with actual mystical experience, which appropriates "god"

[camipco]

His coherent hypothesis is that science and religion both point us to the conclusion that the universe isn't a system understandable in full not because either method is limited, but because incompleteness is a fundamental characteristic of the universe. Further the absence of completeness is crucial, because without it (the absence) we are not free (paralyzed by determinism in the case of science, or God's long-view where all suffering is justified in the case of religion).

[rootberg]

"incompleteness is a fundamental characteristic of the universe."

Actually incompleteness is a fundamental characteristic of a formal system rich enough to contain "basic arithmetics", you can't use the concept of incompleteness in such a loose way, it makes no sense.

[partofnopart]

I don't see the relevance of seeing zizek 'in person' or being a 'philosophy student' to your failure to understand Zizek. Of course your dismissiveness makes sense here since it not only allows you to project your own failures onto him, but it also catalogues the reasoning behind it: your thinking stops short. By no means do I definitively understand zizek (if it even makes sense to frame things in those terms), but his arguments are more than empty gestures. I suggest you try studying.

[lavverlylad]

Are you a philosophy student? You seem to have decided on an orthodox normality by which to measure what everyone else says. You need to shake your kaleidoscope methinks...

[sickuntodeath2]

Apologies to abovethewaves. I gave you a thumbs down instead of a thumbs up for you comment

[abovethewaves]

Brilliant critique of Derridean ontology. Talk about the return of the repressed-Lacan and Hegel turned back on Derrida by way of feminism, very well done, spectral even!

[hi0u91e9]

having listened to it again i see that zizek was saying the opposite- that mod science has departed from a chesterton position. but i still don't get how mod science overcomes the paradox of a comitment to universal reason and miracles

[hi0u91e9]

can you help me with the bit where he uses lacan's theory of the non-all. why is modern science's view that there is nothing that cannot be expained by reason- in itself inconsistent and allows for the appreciation of miracles, quantum mechanics and so fourth? is it still to do with the voluntarist theology embraced by descartes- that of a primary and inexplicable will of God?

[abovethewaves]

thanx 4 posting