Slavoj Žižek vs Graham Harman: Debate in contemporary philosophy

Authors

  • Chyatat Supachalasai , Faculty of Humanities and Social Science (Political Science Program), Suan Dusit University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v47i2.776

Keywords:

reality, , transcendental, materialism, post-humanism, Speculative Realism

Abstract

This article examines the debate in politics and philosophy between two philosophers, namely Slavoj Žižek and Graham Harman. The arguments on politics and philosophy laid out by the two thinkers show a critical dialogue between one who emphasizes human action and the other who is more post-humanist. Such a debate is not one of disagreement between the Right and the Left in politics. Rather, it shows a deconstruction of humans as the central agency and concurrently the emergence of non-human actors participating in creating exciting as well as groundbreaking movements on earth. Therefore, this article considers that the debate opens up and prompts a rethinking of many significant concepts in the social sciences and contemporary philosophy such as reality, materialism, the transcendental, truth, New Realism (Speculative Realism), for instance. Žižek’s main responses to these concepts are rooted in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Meanwhile, Harman’s key answers to the puzzle are influenced by Bruno Latour’s ‘Actant’, Alfred North Whitehead’s ‘Prehension’, and Manuel DeLanda’s ‘Flat Ontology’.                

Downloads

References

Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press.

Callon, Michel, and Bruno Latour, eds. 1981. Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them do so. In Advances in social theory and methodology: Towards an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies, eds. K. Knorr-Cetina, and A.V. Cicourel. Boston: Routledge&Kegan Paul.

Chomsky, Noam, and Michel Foucault, eds. 2006. The Chomsky-Foucault debate: On human nature. New York: The New Press.

Debate Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault: On human nature. YouTube video, 1:10:02, posted by withDefiance, March 13, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8 (Accessed on April 04, 2017)

DeLanda, Manuel. 2013. Intensive science and virtual philosophy. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Duel + Duet: Slavoj Žižek, and Graham Harman at SCI-Arc on March 1, 2017, YouTube video, 2:17:47, posted by The Žižek Times, March 2, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =r1PJo_-n2vI Debate Slavoj Žižek VS Graham Harman (Accessed on April 04, 2017)

Harman, Graham. 2016. Immaterialism. Malden: Polity.

-----. 2010. Towards speculative realism: Essays and lectures. Hants: Zero Books.

-----. 2008. On the horror of phenomenology: Lovecraft and Husserl. Collapse 4.

-----. 2005. Guerrilla metaphysics: Phenomenology and the carpentry of things. Illinois: Carus Publishing Company.

-----. 2002. Tool-being: Heidegger and the metaphysics of objects. Illinois: Carus Publishing Company.

Lacan, Jacques. 2007. The seminar of Jacques Lacan: The other side of psychoanalysis.Trans. Russell Grigg. New York: W.W. Norton.

-----. 2004. Ecrits: A selection. Trans. Bruce Fink. London: Routledge.

-----. 2007. The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Karnac Books.

Meilllassoux, Quentin. 2008. After finitude: An essay on the necessity of contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2017. The courage of hopelessness: Chronicles of a year of acting dangerously. London: Allen Lane.

-----. 2016. Disparities. London and New York: Bloomsbury.

-----. 2014. Absolute recoil. New York: Verso.

-----. 2012. Less than nothing: Hegel and the shadow of dialectical materialism. New York: Verso.

-----. 2010. Living in the end times. New York: Verso.

-----. 2007. The indivisible remainder: On Schelling and related matters. New York: Verso.

-----. 2006. The metastases of enjoyment: On women and causality. New York: Verso.

-----. 2001. On belief. London: Routledge.

-----. 2000. The ticklish subject: The absent centre of political ontology. New York: Verso.

-----. 1989. The sublime object of ideology. New York: Verso.

Downloads

Published

20-09-2022

How to Cite

Supachalasai, Chyatat. 2022. “Slavoj Žižek vs Graham Harman: Debate in contemporary philosophy”. Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Sciences 47 (2). Bangkok, Thailand:149-77. https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v47i2.776.

Issue

Vol. 47 No. 2 (2017): July - December

Section

Research Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2017 Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Public Licensing Terms

Copyright and Licensing Policy

The Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science publishes all content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Copyright

All published articles in the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science are the copyright of the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. Authors transfer all rights to the journal upon acceptance of their manuscript for publication.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

Under this license:

  • Attribution (BY): Users must give appropriate credit to the authors, the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use.

  • NonCommercial (NC): Users may not use the material for commercial purposes. Commercial use requires prior written permission from both the authors and the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

  • NoDerivatives (ND): If users remix, transform, or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material. Adaptations of the work require prior written permission from both the authors and the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

Open Access Statement

The Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, in accordance with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Self-Archiving Policy

Authors may archive the final published version, preprints, or postprints of their articles in institutional repositories or on their personal websites, provided that they acknowledge the original publication in the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science with a complete citation and a link to the journal's website.

Permissions

For any use beyond those covered by the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, please contact:

Editorial Office
Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science
Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
Email: cusocscij@gmail.com

For more information about the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, please visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/