Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism

About this book

Discover a 1 000-page resurrection of Hegel a giant of Western philosophyfrom one of the worlds best-known public intellectuals (New York Review of Books). For the last two centuries Western philosophy has developed in the shadow of Hegel an influence each new thinker struggles to escape. As a consequence Hegels absolute idealism has become the bogeyman of philosophy obscuring the fact that he is the defining philosopher of the historical transition to modernity a period with which our own times share startling similarities. Today as global capitalism comes apart at the seams we are entering a new period of transition. In Less Than Nothingthe product of a career-long focus on the part of its authorSlavoj iek argues it is imperative we not simply return to Hegel but that we repeat and exceed his triumphs overcoming his limitations by being even more Hegelian than the master himself. Such an approach not only enables iek to diagnose our present condition but also to engage in a critical dialogue with key strands of contemporary thoughtHeidegger Badiou speculative realism quantum physics and cognitive sciences. Modernity will begin and end with Hegel.