In the most rigorous articulation of his philosophical system to date, Slavoj ®i¾ek provides nothing short of a new definition of dialectical materialism.

In forging this new materialism, ®i¾ek critiques and challenges not only the work of Alain Badiou, Robert Brandom, Joan Copjec, Quentin Meillassoux, and Julia Kristeva (to name but a few), but everything from popular science and quantum mechanics to sexual difference and analytic philosophy. Alongside striking images of the Möbius strip, the cross-cap, and the Klein bottle, ®i¾ek brings alive the Hegelian triad of being-essence-notion. Radical new readings of Hegel, and Kant, sit side by side with characteristically lively commentaries on film, politics, and culture.

Here is ®i¾ek at his interrogative best.

Table of contents
INTRODUCTION: THE UNORIENTABLE SURFACE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

THEOREM I: THE PARALLAX OF ONTOLOGY
Modalities of the Absolute-Reality and Its Transcendental Supplement – Varieties of the Transcendental in Western Marxism - The Margin of Radical Uncertainty

COROLLARY 1: INTELLECTUAL INTUITION AND INTELLECTUS ARCHETYPUS: REFLEXIVITY IN KANT AND HEGEL
Intellectual Intuition from Kant to Hegel-From Intellectus Ectypus to Intellectus Archetypus

SCHOLIUM 1.1: BUDDHA, KANT, HUSSERL
SCHOLIUM 1.2: HEGEL`S PARALLAX
SCHOLIUM 1.3: THE “DEATH OF TRUTH”

THEOREM II: SEX AS OUR BRUSH WITH THE ABSOLUTE
Antinomies of Pure Sexuation-Sexual Parallax and Knowledge-The Sexed Subject - Plants, Animals, Humans, Posthumans

COROLLARY 2: SINUOSITIES OF SEXUALIZED TIME
Days of the Living Dead – Cracks in Circular Time

SCHOLIUM 2.1: SCHEMATISM IN KANT, HEGEL… AND SEX
SCHOLIUM 2.2: MARX, BRECHT, AND SEXUAL CONTRACTS
SCHOLIUM 2.3: THE HEGELIAN REPETITION
SCHOLIUM 2.4: SEVEN DEADLY SINS

THEOREM III: THE THREE UNORIENTABLES
Möbius Strip, or, the Convolutions of Concrete Universality-The “Inner Eight”-(((Suture Redoubled)))-Cross-Capping Class Struggle-From Cross-Cap to Klein Bottle-A Snout in Plato`s Cave

COROLLARY 3: THE RETARDED GOD OF QUANTUM ONTOLOGY
The Implications of Quantum Gravity-The Two Vacuums: From Less than Nothing to Nothing – Is the Collapse of a Quantum Wave Like a Throw of Dice?

SCHOLIUM 3.1: THE ETHICAL MOEBIUS STRIP
SCHOLIUM 3.2: THE DARK TOWER OF SUTURE
SCHOLIUM 3.3: SUTURE AND HEGEMONY
SCHOLIUM 3.4: THE WORLD WITH(OUT) A SNOUT
SCHOLIUM 3.5: TOWARDS A QUANTUM PLATONISM

THEOREM IV: THE PERSISTENCE OF ABSTRACTION
Madness, Sex, War- How to Do Words with Things-The Inhuman View – The All-Too-Close In-Itself

COROLLARY 4: IBI RHODUS IBI SALTUS!
The Protestant Freedom-Jumping Here and Jumping There-Four Ethical Gestures

SCHOLIUM 4.1: LANGUAGE, LALANGUE
SCHOLIUM 4.2 - PROKOFIEV`S TRAVELS
SCHOLIUM 4.3: BECKETT AS THE WRITER OF ABSTRACTION