Abstract
One of the red threads of Slavoj Žižek’s entire intellectual career up through the present is the enactment of a ‘return to Hegel’ partly modeled on Jacques Lacan’s ‘return to Freud.’ In diametrical opposition to received exegetical wisdom about Hegelian philosophy, Žižek maintains that Hegel’s is the philosophy of contingency par excellence. Furthermore, in his defenses of Hegel against commonplace objections and caricatures, Žižek turns the very features of Hegelian thought provoking these objections and caricatures into the precise means of debunking them. Herein, I focus on Žižek’s handling of the interrelated issues of the end-of-history closure and apparently fatalistic-teleological character of Hegel’s System. In so doing, I develop an immanent critique of these Žižekian efforts, presenting Hegelian criticisms of Žižek’s Hegelianism, ways that point to how Hegel remains relevant for contemporary Marxism.
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- 1.
Adrian Johnston, Žižek’s Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity [hereinafter cited parenthetically as ŽO] (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2008), 123–268.
- 2.
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- 3.
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- 4.
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- 5.
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- 10.
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- 11.
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- 12.
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- 13.
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- 14.
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- 16.
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- 17.
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- 20.
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- 21.
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- 22.
G.W.F. Hegel, Science of Logic [hereinafter cited parenthetically as SL], trans. A.V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), 529–571; GW, 11: 380–392. Citations of Hegel refer to the pagination of the English translation, followed by the numbered paragraph or paragraphs of the original in brackets, in turn followed by the pagination of the Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1968–), except when a text is not a part of the latter. References to the critical edition are given by the abbreviation GW, volume and page number.
- 23.
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- 24.
Adrian Johnston, ‘From Scientific Socialism to Socialist Science: Naturdialektik Then and Now,’ in The Idea of Communism 2: The New York Conference, ed. Slavoj Žižek (London: Verso, 2013), 103–136; ‘Materialism Without Materialism: Slavoj Žižek and the Disappearance of Matter,’ in Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism, ed. Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan [forthcoming 2015]); ‘This is orthodox Marxism: The Shared Materialist Weltanschauung of Marx and Engels,’ in ‘On Sebastiano Timpanaro,’ Special Issue, Quaderni materialisti (forthcoming); A Weak Nature Alone, vol. 2 of Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press [forthcoming]).
- 25.
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- 26.
Karl Kautsky, Frederick Engels: His Life, His Work, and His Writings, trans. May Wood Simmons [1887/1888], http://marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1887/xx/engels.htm.
- 27.
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- 28.
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- 29.
Louis Althusser, ‘The Humanist Controversy,’ in The Humanist Controversy and Other Writings (1966–1967), ed. François Matheron, trans. G.M. Goshgarian (London: Verso, 2003), 240–241; ‘Elements of Self–Criticism,’ in Essays in Self–Criticism, trans. Grahame Locke (London: New Left Books, 1976), 135; Être marxiste en philosophie, ed. G.M. Goshgarian (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2015), 71–76.
- 30.
Althusser, ‘The Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encounter,’ in Philosophy of the Encounter, 169–171, 188–190; ‘Correspondence about ‘Philosophy and Marxism’: Letter to Fernanda Navarro, 10 July 1984,’ in Philosophy of the Encounter, 217–218; ‘Philosophy and Marxism,’ 272–273, 277–278; ‘Portrait of the Materialist Philosopher,’ in Philosophy of the Encounter, 290–291.
- 31.
Louis Althusser, ‘On Feuerbach,’ in The Humanist Controversy, 88–89; ‘The Humanist Controversy,’ in The Humanist Controversy and Other Writings, 234, 241–242; ‘Reply to John Lewis,’ in Essays in Self-Criticism, 54, 56; ‘Réponse à une critique,’ in Écrits philosophiques et politiques, vol. 2, ed. François Matheron (Paris: Stock/IMEC, 1994–5), 378.
- 32.
G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Fragments of Historical Studies,’ in Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.F. Hegel, ed. Jon Stewart, trans. C. Hamlin and H.S. Harris (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2002), 99; System of Ethical Life (1802/3) and First Philosophy of Spirit (Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/4), ed. and trans. H.S. Harris and T.M. Knox (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1979), 170–171; GW, 5: 353–354; G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right [hereinafter cited parenthetically as EPR], ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 266–268, §244–246, 269, §248; GW, 14,1: 194–195, 196; ‘On the English Reform Bill,’ in Political Writings, ed. Laurence Dickey and H.B. Nisbet, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 255–256; GW, 16: 367–372; Althusser, ‘Philosophy and Marxism,’ 276.
- 33.
Plekhanov, ‘For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s Death,’ 471–472.
- 34.
Althusser, ‘Philosophy and Marxism,’ 279.
- 35.
Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History,’ in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969), 253–264.
- 36.
Althusser, ‘Portrait of the Materialist Philosopher,’ 291.
- 37.
Louis Althusser, ‘The Historical Task of Marxist Philosophy,’ in The Humanist Controversy, 188–189; ‘Une question posée par Louis Althusser,’ in Écrits philosophiques et politiques, vol. 1, 346–347, 353–356; ‘The Transformation of Philosophy,’ trans. Thomas E. Lewis, in Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists and Other Essays, ed. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 1990), 262–264; ‘Marxism Today,’ trans. James H. Kavanagh, in Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy, 276–277; Initiation à la philosophie pour les non-philosophes, ed. G.M. Goshgarian (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), 379–381; 22 e congress (Paris: François Maspero, 1977), 30–31; Ce qui ne peut plus durer dans le parti communiste (Paris: François Maspero, 1978), 91, 96; ‘Correspondence about ‘Philosophy and Marxism’: Letter to Fernanda Navarro, 10 July 1984,’ 217 ‘Correspondence about ‘Philosophy and Marxism’: Letter to Fernanda Navarro, 8 April 1986,’ 242; ‘Philosophy and Marxism,’ 253–255.
- 38.
Johnston, ‘Marx’s Bones;’ A Weak Nature Alone.
- 39.
Althusser, ‘Correspondence about ‘Philosophy and Marxism’: Letter to Fernanda Navarro, 18 September 1984,’ 229.
- 40.
Althusser, ‘The Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encounter,’ 193–194.
- 41.
Sigmund Freud, SE, 17: 85, 19: 143–144, 184–185, 253, 23: 203; Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, The Language of Psycho-Analysis, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1973), 118–121. Citations of Freud refer to The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols, ed. and trans. James Strachey, in collaboration with Anna Freud, assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953–74). References to the standard edition are given by the abbreviation SE, volume and page number.
- 42.
Octave Mannoni, ‘Je sais bien, mais quand même…,’ in Clefs pour l’Imaginaire ou l’Autre Scène (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1969), 9–33; Adrian Johnston, Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2009), 92; and LTN, 983.
- 43.
G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature: Being Part Two of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 33–40, §257–259; GW, 20: 247–251.
- 44.
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- 45.
See also The Encyclopedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), 227–230, §153–154; GW, 20: 170–173; Lectures on Logic: Berlin, 1831, trans. Clark Butler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) 167–169.
- 46.
G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit [hereinafter cited parenthetically as PS], trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) 1, 3–4, 20, 22, 50–52; GW, 9: 9, 11–12, 29, 30, 56–58. See also SL, 34, 48–49, 53–54; GW, 21: 12–13, 32–33, 37–38.
- 47.
See also The Encyclopedia Logic, 33, §9, 37–39, §12–15, 56, §24; GW, 20: 49, 52–56, 67–68; Lectures on Logic, 3.
- 48.
Adrian Johnston, ‘A Review of Frank Ruda’s Hegel’s Rabble,’ Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2012, http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/31707-hegel-s-rabble-an-investigation-into-hegel-s-philosophy-of-right/.
- 49.
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- 50.
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- 51.
G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956), 447; Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Auf der Grundlage der Werke von 1832–45 neu edierte Ausgabe, vol. 12, eds E. Moldenhauer and K.M. Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), 529.
- 52.
G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Hegel to Niethammer: Bamberg, October 28, 1808,’ in Hegel: The Letters, trans. Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 179.
Briefe von und an Hegel, vol. 1, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1952–1960), 253.
- 53.
See also G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (New York: The Humanities Press, 1955), 425–448. These lectures, based on Michelet’s second edition, are not included in the Werke, which uses the superior first.
- 54.
See also The Encyclopedia Logic, 35, §11, 131–132, §82; GW, 20: 51–52, 120; Hegel, Lectures on Logic, 79–80.
- 55.
Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, 11–13.
- 56.
Johnston, ‘The Voiding of Weak Nature,’ 146–147.
- 57.
Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History,’ 254; Johnston, Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations, xiii–xvi and Prolegomena, vol. 2.
- 58.
Karl Marx, ‘Preface to A Critique of Political Economy,’ in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 390.
- 59.
Mao Tse-Tung, ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,’ in Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung (Peking: Foreign Languages, 1971), 442–444, 446, 464; ‘Speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee’ [September 24, 1962], https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_63.htm; ‘Speech to the Albanian Military Delegation’ [May 1, 1967], https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_74.htm; Johnston, Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations, 55–57.
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Johnston, A. (2016). Absolutely Contingent: Slavoj Žižek and the Hegelian Contingency of Necessity. In: McGrath, S., Carew, J. (eds) Rethinking German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53514-6_10
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