How philosophy got lost | Slavoj Žižek interview

a lady helps you to get up maybe you discover it's the love of your life so although you know well it was a pure contingency but the way you experience it all the your life if you're a romantic like I am you are waiting for that moment we have to live with this contradiction so philosophy is like Falling in Love absolutely [Music] welcome to have a light gets in thank you very much although immediately as a hegelian I must correct you you know something happens with already and then telling Hegel till death point of German

idealism light was associated with subjectivity subject is a light darkness is outside in chaotic nature but already there are some hints in can't his basic late text on religion within the reasons of within the limits of reason alone selling of course and Hegel the symbol of the inner symbol metaphor for the innermost core of the subject is night Darkness the night of the world Hegel says this wonderfully in some of his early texts that is this night if you look somebody in the eye you see objects but cut into pieces just floating around and everything

emerges out of this so I would say how does the light get in in a bad way light obfuscates this core of the subject where both Hegel and trailing refer to Jacob Jakob berme and other Mystics but speaking of Darkness you have a famous uh Hegel quotes that you like to to use lately which is that the Owl of Minerva flies is at dusk at the end of something of an end of the period but Hegel has also this other quote where he says that philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought and I was

wondering how do you reconcile those two questions I think he even says I think both things in the same paragraph what he means is that we live in a certain epoch but all we can do in our thinking is to grasp the conceptual structure at its purest of this epoch and for this reason so philosophy always comes too late Hagar is fanatically against any plans for the future and so on and for this reason I'm a total partisan of another materialist reversal of Marx into Hegel Hegel was at this level very modest he openly admitted

we can make some guesses and so on but Mark was way too idealist for Hegel Marx knew that generally at least if you have the right subjective position the exploited workers we can somehow get he was not a full determinist Marx but the let's call it objective tendency of History like if we don't screw it up something may be better socialism communism away class what Hegel would have said and that's why we we need where Hegel is at his best is he takes the beginning of a great Epoch where there are all the promises about

biker Cuban and shows how more or less necessarily it turns wrong his big example was of course French Revolution Freedom Terror but I think Hegel would have felt like fish in its own water in later time look at the second half of 19th century not in the colonies it's another story but in Europe it was a big era of progress even in Russia they abolished servidents in Germany Bismarck introduced first elements of global Health Care retirement plans suprajet and so on so the idea was things go on then you get the Great War the first

world war which was I think the event in some sense much worse than second world second world war just an after effect and sorry that I talk too much but you know who is here I must admit it although he was not such a great theoretism as marks you know who one of the few who predict that even the second world war in 1880 already angles in some letter saw the signs he says the way it goes now Germany will want a stronger place in dividing Colonia lead the world so there will be a World

War and we he was just lucky I think with an incredible foresight Engel says this war will end up maybe with Revolution at at least in some country like Russia and then he says there will be around 10 million dead people the official number today is nine million eight hundred and then in an ingenious Edition he says that if Germany loses maybe a decade or two later Germany will trigger Another War so that's the Paradox of Martin Hegel they were not idiots in concrete predictions they were often very accurate but back to Hegel what why

in 20th century would be ideal ground for Kegel look what happened October Revolution great promise sorry comrade Stalin is there raising up then we have fukuyama the end of History we are there haha sorry we know where we are today this is the Hegel we need today it doesn't mean we should do nothing but hegel's lesson is history repeats itself not in the sense of repeating the same but things go wrong necessarily and only in the second attempt maybe you can get it right so hegel's whole idea was not to turn against French Revolution because

of the terror but how to do it again at a higher level whatever so don't you think we terribly need this hegelian pessimism today like Hegel we all the theorists of global capitalism Global liberal Market they are describing a forum which is already disappearing if you ask me here I agree with my friend who doesn't agree with me on many other things Jan is very fakis who said what is happening now he is not moralistically complaining but yeah this weak figures like Bill Gates or Elon Musk and so on this is no longer old liberal

capitalism there are many theories like Neo federalism corporate authoritarianism but something new is emerging and we have are disoriented we don't really know what is happening you know the last text Hegel wrote was his uh some notes on the English Reform Bill he appears reactionary there he warns against expanding the universalizing the right to vote but hidden in this and some pearls he forces a future in which because the old Estates hierarchic Society will disappear the rebel will be controlled and manipulated by what he calls Rich Rebel the ruthless nouveau rich and it will be

even worse in this sense and he was right if nothing else today it's happening this is happening what is philosophy making sense of today given what the mainstream philosophical movement is for the most part analysic philosophy in the English speaking world what is it capturing is it capturing an aspect of our time you know what's my point here that I nonetheless have some hopes that a new era is slowly beginning also in philosophy till 20 years ago I would say it's approximate we had a clear division between analytic philosophy which also included got mixed with

brain sciences and so on so I know in some American big universities you had these Paradox that you feel dissect the brain of of a red its philosophy if you study hegelitz literature they were saying so we had this uh attitude best expressed in the introduction to the last book by Stephen Hawking although he simplified it very much but at some point he was right the result of this what we called discourse analysis predominance in Continental orientation is that many basic let's call them naively big metaphysical questions does the universe have an origin or end

do we have free will you look in Sciences for the answer does the universe have an origin that's what quantum physics cosmology is do we have free will that's what that's what a cognitive scientists are trying to do on the other hand the Continental orientation got more and more lost into what I call transcendental historicism that you the many others were doing the same thing but the clear case is for me here somebody like Michelle Foucault if you were to ask him for example what I will be asked in a debate now is there objective

morality his answer would have been all we can say is that to raise such a question is Possible only within a certain episteme a certain Horizon of meaning such a question wouldn't even have meaning in medieval times where in some sense morality was objective inscribed into so he was for him German have this beautiful word which means you cannot go behind the ultimate Horizon is what Foucault calls episteme The Horizon of knowledge through which we observe in reality and interact with it and there are of course great examples like with modern science it's not just

I believe in science that it's more true is that this difference emerged between reality out there and meaning we project into it so it's not just the science is more truthful the meaning of what is nature of what is truth changed and so the result unfortunately is that the so-called deconstructionism or this histories is hermeneutics all in it all you can do is describe analyze the Horizon of meaning within which me move and let's call them naively the big questions are simply dismissed as irrelevant I see Trends lately to move Beyond this at different levels

and with many of them I am even caught in polemics for example this object-oriented ontology and so on and so on but I think the general direction is the right one and my second point the series that I find Hope isn't it that still now by now I mean 30 40 years the latest advances in digital manipulations brain sciences and so on till now with all the new problems like nuclear explosions somehow basically the old morality still fitted you could rely to it but with what is happening now for example that's why pandemic interested me

we you know that the big debate must yes or no social distances this was at some level appropriately philosophical debate if we obey all the injunctions of doctors Healthcare institutions are we still free or not do we still retain our human dignity so here is my optimism as bad as things look we will need philosophy more than ever because again in our everyday problems it began with abortion it's basically almost a philosophical problem you know is it already a living being do we have the right or not so these are not good news because as

Hegel knew it already in his early system there's literally height system of Customs times when philosophy is needed are difficult times are times of trouble but I don't worry about us philosophers becoming useless because that's the last point I don't expect from philosophers Solutions the big problem today is rather that when we confront new phenomena we formulate we approach the problem in the old terms I think the biggest role philosophy can do today is to correct or at least make us think of how we approach the problems that's why as a philosopher for example I

oppose deep ecology because I think it's secretly still radically anthropocentric you know it's uh it's this idea that somehow rivers and forests have their rights yes but they don't know it so we humans even if they emphasize we are just one of the species but we are the only ones who have the universal view this is I think and don't underestimate this the big role of philosophy today to not to offer Solutions but to enable us to ask the right questions mystifications begin already at this level when we are aware of a problem but formulate

it in the wrong way so one of the big Frameworks that philosophy and science have been operating under uh for you know decades now is this kind of like some kind of form of individualism and some form of reductionism the idea that the the relevant unit in any kind of explanation is the individual and if we want to understand it we need to kind of see how his parts are working and so on no no here I think I hate this quick quick too fast generalization from Sciences but okay with all my limitations and so

on but isn't the big lesson if we draw maybe it's then this lesson maybe it's too quick generalization of quantum physics that precisely we should abandon entire materialist I'm not but this old idea that the ultimate realities empty space and and some stupid particles just floating there no you have oscillations you have ontological ambiguities waves and so on so uh I don't think that everything that is is in interaction of individual entities it I find it much more productive what some Quantum physically strikes to tries to give Forum to the idea that waves oscillations are

somehow primordial and that particles are interactions of multiple waves this I think again at all levels even at Social level we can abandon because here adorno I don't believe in his negative dialectics but he makes a wonderful note somewhere where he says as you said today's approach to society moves between the two extremes either individualism the starting point are individual individuals and then complex structures emerge through their interaction or he refers of course to Emile durkheim this organism's approach Society is the primordial fact and under certain conditions different types in each condition of individuals emerged

and then you know what is a dormant solution to this it's not the usual the electrical synthesis and of that but he says this very antinomy between individualism and social approach organisms is the deepest characteristic of our social reality itself this is not just an antinomy it in itself has its own Moment of Truth and taking this through today on the one hand we are always addressed like individuals that neoliberalism ultimately you are responsible and so on on the other hand we talk about this big impersonal objective Trends and so on and so on what

about the subjects because again there are sort of two main ideas floating around one is this kind of extreme naturalistic way of thinking of the subject as just an evolutionary product of each or even third grader but if you go to the extreme they even say subject in the sense of subjective experience of your spontaneous activity free will is as they call it users illusion and then you have different ways to move up like some people some analysts allow for the idea that through this complexity complex interaction of pre-subjective Parts something which maybe is not

simply an illusion can emerge at the higher level so at uh sorry finish your question no I was going to ask you how do you see philosophy contributing to this and can can science in some way contributes answering the question what is the subject or is that a pure philosophical question that we need to address separately again it depends on what do you understand as subject because usually subject is spontaneously conceived as an agent with this spontaneity of action I look around I decide I do what I want and so on and so on but

I think that in psychoanalytic sense here Freud has some thing to say subject is not primordially this spontaneity of the free will but it's a set of basic unconscious decisions the Paradox of Love is the same as intelligent theology new as the Paradox of believing in God kirkegaard says if somebody says kirkegaard said that it's somebody claims I study different religions and Christianity convinced me our best arguments no he said that's the worst idea you only see the argument for Christianity if you already believe it's the same with love I admire whatever your legs your

smile sorry for these sexisms because I'm already in love so love is on the one hand a free decision if there is a free decision it's to freely fall in love but it never happens in the present it's or at some point you have already fallen in love it always has this retroactivity and here I would say that a different type of subjective Freedom emerges which escapes both this Earth phenomenology of Consciousness and a scientific not and scientific naturalism can I take it back to something he said at the beginning of this answer about sort

of some limits of a naturalistic approach to the subject and you brought up love for that as an example yesterday in your debate with Harare you said I'm a naturalist not an idealist what do you mean by that I simply meant it this is a very complex question and I consciously took the path of as I tastelessly referred to it a couple of times like I will not pull and he did not pull the knife out you know no I Am Naturally just in the sense that I don't think there is the higher force or

whatever that everything there is in is in some broader sense nature but for me this doesn't mean that there is a zero level like what I mentioned before empty space and some stupid particles we never the lesson of quantum physics for me is that we never really Reach This zero level that that uh that uh at zero level we don't have clear image of empty space and particles what we get is some kind of wave oscillations and now they are making great advances I like the hypothesis with new Quantum physicists and stupid to really see

the scientific value but for example the Italian guy Marco rovelli I think you should get him here he's been to the festival he's been because I read I must admit it just some of his popular books his point is that space and time are themselves Quantified like you cannot like in that famous uh Paradox of infinite subdivision no there is a minimum Quantum of space and time and then in a very intelligent way he tries to develop the concept of matter out of this primordial tension of time space and space and he goes even further

claiming that space has priority here and now again it's not up to me but what I like is just that the problem is not we know the basic level of it to what we have to reduce think and then it goes more and more complex I think that at the ground level we get a big mess not just because of the limit of our knowledge that reality is in itself I like to repeat this motive ontologically open not fully constituted and so at this level I try it's high speculation I don't know how it works

I try to not the way Roger Penrose does he is also one of those who try uh to somehow locate the opening for human Freedom already at this Quantum level but not in this no Roger Penrose is more intelligent but some simplistic Quantum guys simply say oh if there is contingency blah blah doesn't this open uh space for Freedom no because never forget freedom is not contingency freedom is free decision determination if you just okay it's not contingent really but if you leave your decision like you through a through a coin in the air which

side this is not Freedom you don't decide freely it's just contingency and I am heavily working on that because uh my okay I will give you now a direct formula which will probably mean nothing but that's the I hate these words metaphysical core of my work now I take Buddhism very seriously but the ultimate Buddhist wisdom is nirvana void and I had wonderful debates in China in Japan with Buddhists and we ended up in a deadlock because from my standpoint Maybe I'm Wrong I appeared an idiot to them but from my standpoint they avoided the

key question which is the hegelian question not can we really break out of this wheel of Desire into the primordial peace void Nirvana but how did this primordial peace get Disturbed how did appearances appear emerged and this is what also Hegel says the problem is not this old kantian man what is behind appearances the problem is precisely precisely how can from something flat stupid just reality out their appearances emerge and I'm going to the end and I claim but they told me that some Tibetan Buddhists have an idea of him that it's not just Nirvana

and then false appearances that there is a deeper tension in the void in Nirvana itself it's somehow in an infinite self-contradiction so it's a beautiful Theory which finds way in I love them with modern European uh Mystique by modern I mean in the old-fashioned sense uh Meister Ecker and then Jacob who said that isn't this a beautiful answer you know why God created the world to avoid his own Madness it was kind of a work therapy you know so I'm looking for me the ultimate answer is not provided by Buddhism this eternal peace or whatever

but some kind of a radical almost pre-ontological Gap disturbance that's what comes really first and I try to elaborate this and then my idea is that in human subjectivity this primordial Rift Gap somehow re-emerts but it's very speculative so in some way your naturalism as it were sees the primordial ontological state of reality finding its way all the way to the human subject yes yes yes this and I'm not saying that it can find its way only in human subjectivity I am not in this sense anthropocentric as if you know the whole of the world

was this kantian position too that the world was really created Consciousness somewhere reality was created so that we can fight our moral struggles in it no but in some sense count is right you know only in what sense that we always read the past from our present and from our human experience we just should never forget that this was a total contingency like I believe it's a good hegelian in total contingency like who knows are we aware I said this yesterday people don't like to hear it that we humans emerge out of double triple catastrophes

can you imagine what must have happened on our Earth millions of years ago for us to have deposits of coal and oil can you even imagine this catastrophes we now know today that the asteroid which kills dinosaurs created the conditions for Humanity so the art for me is to be totally open towards the future in the sense of things happen contingently but nonetheless not to forget that every present moment at least in our human universe retroactively interprets the past in a teleological way somehow you know it's like falling in love again I'm sorry you walk

on the street sorry for the tasteless example but not vulgar you you sleep on a banana peel a lady helps you to get up maybe you discover it's the love of your life so although you know well it was a pure contingency but the way you experience it all the your life if you're a romantic like I am you are waiting for that moment we have to live with this contradiction so philosophy is like Falling in Love absolutely absolutely I think philosophy is falling in love in the sense that it's uh you know what Harari

I would have many things to debate with him but that I sincerely agreed with him where he said freedom is freedom is is uh never a conclusive State now I am free freedom is the very Eternal doubt am I free or not and so on and I think it's the same with love the moment you don't doubt your love the moment you think you know why you are in love it's finished so they both have this this uh this uh Retro Retro activity and what I find it so sad today I hate it my friend

friend Allen but you pointed this out in English and in French and in some other languages not in all the verb a very correct one which uses to fall in love and one should give to the verb fall all this radicality you go all of a sudden boom you fall what I hate so much I don't believe it I'm here all with this idea but I have different needs maybe poly Armory works you are good for this you are good for that no sorry this is not love this is your different Niche and so on

love is something else it's much more non-conditional and what I fear is that you know when I was young there was a more conservative erotic pedagogy to be to have multiple partners was considered pathological even psychoanalysts were usually anal what are you why are you running if you're a man sorry for the male chauvinist and heterosexual why are you running from one woman to another what are you escaping from your mother or what now in Argentina maybe the most psychoanalyzed country in the world when I was there they told me and I finally said the

decadence that it's the opposite if you jump from one woman to the other for women also if you change Partners it's considered normal if you are faithful to your partner they say oh my God this is pathological fixation we have to analyze it and so on I think beneath this it's not just Liberation no it's a sad redefinition of love in the term of your needs maybe you need more dish more of that and then maybe only different people can do it this is not love I don't make a compromise here I want this passionate

love but not you know where I'm not romanticist I I understand uh Orpheus and eurydice you may don't know it but the German cultural critique is now old 30 years ago Klaus devilite provided a wonderful interpretation of why does bringing her up from Underworld why does Orpheus look back it's not that because he was very eurydice I made some sounds he was worried the idea is that when while she was following Kim and he was prohibited to look at her back when she was following him up by divine grace he started to have serious question

like okay this is my ideal but wait a minute to live with this woman who will wash the dishes all that stuff what if I get disappointed isn't it better to get rid of her and I retain her as an ideal I write poems but I can do what I want with other women so she looked he looked back bye bye I will celebrate you all my life but I will be rid of you that's not true love true love is that true love the consciously somewhere doesn't idealize the partner true love is not idealization

you expect all the small imperfections and you love the person even more because of this thank you very much [Music] debates courses and articles visit the Institute of Art and ideas click the link on screen now to IAI dot TV