The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work toappear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can bedefined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change inobservational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating twopoints between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossibleshort circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.Modes of parallax can beseen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality inquantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysisbetween interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives.In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on threemain modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax thatconditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gapbetween the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, whichreaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" inthe skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearablelightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism thatallows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizekoffers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in anovel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.The Parallax View not only expandsZizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences)but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework thatunderlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readingsof literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscenejokes.

This book is on these lists:

• January 2012 Indie Next List
• December 2011 Indie Next List
• November 2011 Indie Next List