In the following paper I shall be developing a critical discussion of the contemporary interpretation of Hegel proposed by a Yugoslavian, and more specifically Slovenian, philosopher named Slavoj Zizek, whose principal theoretical allegiance is to the thought of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The very existence of this body of work raises many intriguing questions about the theoretical, cultural, and political context from which it has arisen. Why, for example, should the notoriously obscure and difficult thought of a Parisian psychoanalyst (...) be of such interest not just to Zizek, but indeed to a whole circle of Slovenian intellectuals? Furthermore, why should a Lacanian approach be considered the most promising way to unlock the?secret of Hegel?? And why should Zizek and his fellow thinkers insist on the convergence of the thought of Hegel and Lacan, even in defiance of many of Lacan's own pronouncements on the matter? In a sense, the answer to the first of these questions already provides the answers to the other two. It is necessary to bear in mind that, for the most part, Yugoslavian philosophical life since the Revolution has been dominated not by the creaking orthodoxies of Soviet-style dialectical materialism, but by the far more plausible and congenial positions of what has come to be known as the Praxis School. The Marxism of the Praxis School, whose tradition still lives on, in the form of the journal Praxis International, is much closer, indeed can be seen as part of the philosophical current known in the other half of Europe as?Western Marxism?. (shrink)

John Watson's thought has not been well understood. A question suggested by previous scholarship, namely, how successful was he at his task of re-founding the Christian religion on a philosophical base? is answered first in terms of consistency with the theological tradition. His revision of Christian theology is found to be inadequate by traditional standards; it is then examined as a philosophy of religion which, to his mind, overcame the difficulties of classical theism. It is argued that, despite some advantages, (...) his philosophy of religion is deficient in two respects. First, its method is vitiated by a strained and sometimes mistaken interpretation of the philosophical tradition, indicative of arbitrariness. Second, "Speculative Idealism" as the result of that method reveals conceptual ambiguities corresponding to the ambiguities of classical theism. As the method is not self-evident and is used implicitly by Watson, and the results are philosophically ambiguous, the appropriation of this thought was theologically or philosophically shallow. Though Watson's thought, as far as it was understood, provided an underpinning for the "social gospel" movement in Canada, it is argued that this shallow appropriation explains, at least in part, the brevity of its appeal as philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Graham Priest has brilliantly analyzed Hegel's dialectics, as far as its logical and abstract ontological (metaphysical) structure goes, and has successfully related it to his own logically sophisticated dialethism. After briefly reminding the reader of his account, the paper turns to the other, not purely logical side of Hegel's dialectics, and points to his strategy of bringing together ontological, anthropological and historical matters together with the logical structure, in a manner quite foreign to analytic tradition. It concludes with the proposal (...) that Hegel's way of directly connecting logical ontological, anthropological and historical matters has played the crucial role in the birth of what later became known as specifically ``continental'' philosophy. The paper concludes by raising the question of the relation between the two, the abstract logico-ontological approach, favored by Priest, and the rich, anthropologically and historically informed one found in all major works of Hegel. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel is usually regarded as a/the metaphysician par excellence. However, his thought is multi-faceted and its overarching metaphysical scheme can be viewed as self-deconstructive and containing many elements that represent a non-metaphysical philosophical-epistemological stance. This paper will explore the possibilities of self-overcoming of Hegel’s metaphysics with reference to his understanding of the concept of the absolute as expounded in the Phenomenology of Spirit, especially the Preface. The paper is composed of two main sections from the ontological and (...) epistemological perspectives respectively. The first section deals with Hegel’s groundbreaking understanding of the absolute within the philosophical context of his time, explicating his agreements and disagreements with Spinoza, Kant’s critical philosophy and the post-Kantian philosophy of identity, represented by Fichte and Schelling, and, above all, highlighting Hegel’s own innovations, coming to grips with the intricacies of his thought. The section argues for a trans-immanent (J.-L. Nancy’s neologism) conception of the absolute in the Phenomenology, which means an absolute, opening up from and remaining within the very limits of human reason and worldly immanence, generating itself ad infinitum within its own finite limits. The second section, in turn, suggests a non-metaphysical way of understanding the knowledge of the absolute proposed by Hegel. His epistemological polemics with the Romantics is also considered, after that, disclosing self-deconstructive elements in Hegel’s system, in fact offering a gallery of images of fake, perspectival, relative “absolutes”. (shrink)