How philosophy got lost | Slavoj Žižek interview
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- Globally renowned philosopher and cultural critic, Slavoj Žižek provides a Hegelian insight into historical and current political crises.
Do you see contemporary philosophy living up to Hegel's philosophy? What is the subject and how is it influenced by psychoanalysis? Are we witnessing the return of nature, with climate change and the impact nature is going to have on us, and how is that going to manifest in philosophy? Is philosophy like "falling in love"?
00:00 Introduction
01:58 On Hegel's quote: "Philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought"
08:40 How is the analytic tradition impacting philosophy nowdays?
15:48 Is contemporary philosophy confined to individualism and reductionism?
21:57 What did you mean by: "I'm a naturalist, not an idealist"?
28:36 Can naturalism see the ontological state of reality and the subject?
31:04 Is philosophy like "falling in love"?
Watch Salvoj Žižek debate with intellectual Yuval Noah Harari whether nature is friend or foe at iai.tv/video/nature-friend-or...
The dialectical repetition of history is not inevitable, and the recent trend away from continental 'transcendental historicism' will allow the continental tradition to shed new light on the world. Slavoj takes us on a whirlwind tour of continental philosophy from the pandemic to how philosophy is like falling in love.
#SlavojZizekInterview #HegelPhilosophy #ContinentalHistoricism
Slavoj Žižek is a globally renowned philosopher and cultural critic. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy. He is the author of several books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View, Living in the End Times and Heaven in Disorder.
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To watch Slavoj Zizek debate the fundamental nature of morailty, click here: iai.tv/video/moral-facts-and-moral-fantasy?CZcams&+comment&
Just post it on YT.
Slavoy, you must've studied End of Finitude. It has flaws, but the line of though is correct until he appears mega close to combinatorial answers that, well, produce everything and all appearances! I have codes and visualizations, there are actual discoveries (what skeletal forms we'll have on other planets up to why we have cheeks and nose of presisely these sizes), I'm a very cool man that has connections. And I doubt anyone would react to this comment (for whatever reason they have), but it's all 100% true, once again. I'D GET IN TOUCH WITH ME.
@queerdo All debaters on morality who are not both atheist and moral objectivist can mostly be considered as (more or less) Art modernity idealists. With half a leg on the ground at best. Here Sam Harris' Moral landscape and his TED talks included is rather uniquely clever, but he sometimes spends more words than necessary, and sometimes is too suburbian middleclass-polite with his critics or opponents. Morals can never be defined by the seagull or the lunatic. As simple as that.
The medieval "morality" he is mentioning had nothing to do with civilized or rational morality ,so it was not objectivism. The medieval leaderships built on the claim to power by "god", and the way it was enforced was through severe brutality, although the worst brutality was in the 1600s and early 1700s. Why? Wasnt that the renaissance. Well.. When the beast is cornered....He is at his worst. In some parts of the world, development went backwards though. Iran, Afghanistan the last decades. The depart of capitalism away from those countries became a disaster for women and sciences.
OMG Slavoj Žižek is a deluded old communist, a tool of the banking 'elites' - yet he calls it 'philosophy'. Its a PSY-OP.
0:32 Reporter: Welcome Mr. Zizek
Zizek: “Thanks very much, although immediately as a Hegelian I must correct you SNIFF”
We must protect this man at all costs
Omg I should've known someone would've already beaten me to this comment, haha, the opening is so funny 🤣
That was one big sniff, one of his better ones I contend
The philosophies are hidden in his nostrils 🤣
Lolled hard
- Hello, Slavoj
- Yes. However, immediately, as a Hegelian, i must correct you...
hahahahhahaha XDD
Perhaps that's why Marx was so popular at parties - one in particular...
@@thstroyur Groucho was a party guy.
LMAO I saw and liked this comment thinking this was an unrelated slavoj meme, but when the interview started he literally did that DSKSDKSK I CAN'T
*sniff*
"True love is not idealization.. you expect all the small imperfections and you love the person even more." I love Zizek's hand gestures. Only a philosopher gets this animated about ideas.
And he says he doesn't dance.
There are so many Nietzsche quotes about philosophers and dancing that I can't succinctly choose one.
You have to understand and know enough slavic-speaking groups' genetics and culture + ADHD ,in order to understand why his arms behave like that. (Sorry for being truthfully direct) Bursting with energy is a good start for becoming an intellectual of course, but in his case, he has not learned how to control the downside of it. So it becomes a kind of semi-Tourettes. That is not meant as a critical remark, only a functional information text.
Ever met an italian?
@@KibyNykraft cute pasta
Man if this guy had access to tissues he would be literally unstoppable
Or a smaller tongue perhaps
Someone who pretends to be interested in philosophy shouldn’t make such shallow comments. It has been explained 100 times, he is not sick, there are no buggers, it’s a nervous tick that he’s done for over 30 years now. He’s anxious so he’s developed a nervous tick to cope with speaking in public platforms.
@@alb0zfinest Why do you expect others to cope with his nervous tick if even he can't overcome it? And you accept that he genuinely can't overcome it right?
It seems acknowledging it's existence and accepting others reaction to his tick is preferable no? Or does pretending it doesn't exist and then patronizing him and condscending others seem like the mature response?
I don't th-th-think so. If he can live with a lifetime of their reactions I'm pretty sure you can survive one, assuming you actually look up to him and aren't using your moral outrage to garner attention for your fragile ego.
Love of philosophy and and asking the right questions goes two ways. Master yourself before you worry about c-c-controlling others, yes?
hahaha
No, that would be a closure of the portal in the wardrobe, my dear.
Watching Žižek always makes me very nervous. There seems to be more energy inside his mind than a human body can bear, and I'm fearing his body may explode anytime. But he is brilliant.
Just don't go near him
He gives me a headache
Well, he is a madman
This man seems to be brilliant, but it is painful to watch him. Shut your eyes and all you are left with is a speech defect and a brilliant mind - it's easier to listen to him.
What is "brilliant" about this clown exactly?
These new episodes of Between Two Ferns are just getting better and better, and nice to see Galifianakis is doing well.
Well done.
😂
"True love is not idealization. You accept all imperfections and for that you love even more."
"Philosophy is like falling in love."
~ Slavoj Žižek
Can't agree more.
Its kind of encoded in the name so I didn't find that very enlightening. Philosophy means Love of Wisdom
14:28 "I dont expect from philosphers solutions... but to enable us to ask the right questions" This is an important point and a good starting place for understanding what philosophy can do in the contemporary world.
So in other words the point of philosophy is to understand the world not to change it?
@@jeremyponcy7311 That itself is a philosophical question. Socrates tried to understand, people thought he was trying to change things and he was killed because of it. Plato's attempt to "guide" the world failed also. (He was sold into slavery.) Marx is a great example of world-changing "philosophy" that was a disaster. One might conclude that understanding alone should be the goal. There is a philosopher's dream however, that philosophy can uncover truths that will be universally accepted and this will be the beginning of changing the world for the better. Among these truths are the enlightenment ideals of the equality of persons, Kant's idea that the only thing good in itself is a good will, and his Categorical Imperative.
@@tbirch55 the difference is that, generally speaking, before Marx the philosopher's job was to philosophize and the change was to happen organically in the concrete world with all it's manifoldness. After Marx, the onus was on philosophers to change the world. The obvious issue here is that philosopher's deal almost purely in abstraction. What Hegel got wrong was that abstraction could meet concrete purely through negation which Marx preceeded to abstract. The result: everything becomes abstract, everything becomes detached and the concrete is left behind. Everything real is lost to pure idealism, the dialectic is broken and all that is concrete suffers.
@@jeremyponcy7311 Philosophical ideas from Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Smith, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Rawls, and many others have greatly influenced the development of the political, moral, and social structures of the world. But in the teaching of philosophy, I have never heard a philosopher say "our objective here is to change the world." Rather, the emphasis is on understanding ideas and their implications and searching for answers to questions. And this is why I thought Zizek's remark about the nature of philosophy was correct.
@@thotslayer9914 Well, it might, in the final analysis somewhat depend on biases, but the purpose of philosophy is actually to avoid biases and arrive at a clear picture.
God I hope he's taking care of himself. We need Zizek around for a long time.
I would be happy to contribute towards specialist centre for him - filled with pirated films, dodgy Wi-Fi, idiots on tap, librarian porn archive, a canned laughter button… Whatever he needs.
@@Anabsurdsuggestion 😂
Yes we need his head in a Jar.
I pray he has community of physicians
So go buy him a box of Sudafed if you care so much. Pseudoephidrine. Won't kill you.
It pains me to see Zizek going old, someone introduced him to me when I was quite younger and it's like a part of what people shared with me is going away slowly. I wish him health and a long life.
It pains me to see this waste of oxigen alive.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 Forester.
Food for thought remains.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 cant even spell it right
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 it pains me to know there are people like you
30:03 needed this badly rn. Thanks a lot.
"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..... We have to live with this contradiction. "
I'm gonna have such a hard time taking this interview seriously when it's shot on the set of 'Between Two Ferns'.
"Reality is ontologically open, not fully constituted."
It's true. Look at observer states in physics
When I start to listen Žižek, I just can't stop
Incredible mind. And someone who courageously understands and exposes the very core of Hegelian philosophy. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest living philosophers (despite wether you like or not his manners and ways of talking about Philosophy)
How is he an incredible mind besides speculating on top of speculations people before him did...how is human collective consciousness evolves and grows based upon the perspective of his?...I mean he has a sharp mind because he is capable to break down his subjective reality better than most people but one thing is for sure...he doesn't know how to integrate it back to putting all the pieces together because he is trapped in his own intellectual ignorance.....it takes a lot of brain speed to get this unfortunately but most important..FUNDAMENTALS.
Where Slavoj Zizek impresses me the most is when he talks about true love, cause it's a feeling I haven't been able to feel for at least a decade and I almost forget that it exists. Zizek always manages to remind me of what I've lost.
How does it feel I have never felt it
@@iforget6940 same I wanna know too
I agree, on his political ideology, he losses me at times. I'm a student of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. A mix of all 3 with a sparkle of Karl. Hagel.....come on. To adapt to the system and hope for the best is like praying to God to heal you. Anyways.
Love, God, he's so right. Funny enough, in the right wing, people want to keep their culture and the idea of a family. Yet, in those ideas they get rid of the imperfections of the person for the ones they want and in the process they design the perfect set of humans.(non-existent). On the left side of love, where, he talks about having multiple partners, they're blind to emotionally connect and accept it on a level that could potentially change their point of view on love.
Why do you have trouble feeling true love? Don't you have a sibling, parents? Even if you might not have a partner right now that you truly love, your family also counts as true love.
@@EugeniaLoli romantic love is completely different
This was great. Thank you very much!
WOW that was amazing thank you for this amazing interview
Sufferin Succotash, Slavoj landing Immanuel's last name repeatedly within the opening minutes made me grab the popcorn. Something tells me this will be a marvelous rollercoaster ride. It's got a bit of everything in it. Onward!
Zizek comes off as your grandpa that goes on about anything and everything you say but in the best way. Love him so dearly
Gran entrevista, de las mejores que se le hicieron a Zizek
We accept those who fit in…and we isolate those who don’t…that is not love.
Pandemic is a great example in that regard.
How we raise our children is another great example.
On his top right now. Mega genius.
Why not ultra genius
@@radscorpion8 I don't know but mega is like industrial-scale
why not ultramegasized?
@@dioni5988 in a sense some can't handle 10 minutes? 😂
I’ve admired Zizek’s lectures for years now although there have been times I’ve thought him a bit of a crank. This lecture brought me back into the admired. No one talked to me about Hegel like he does. Is that love or not?
I remember having spent three months reading and rereading Hegel's Phenomenology Of The Spirit, that was the best philosophical experience I've ever had in my entire life.
the disgusting snivelling hack doesnt even know the difference between congress and the capitol...
claims bannon is like lenin...
claims the right wanted to overhaul the constitution when its COMPLETELY proven that is what the left both wants, and ACTIVELY did in breaking it in many states over the 2020 election, which provenly changed the course of the election...
this guy is beyond a fraud
Well thats the greatness of Zizek. He will tease out an idea to the point that you think you're listening to a homeless crackhead but then he ties it all together in a succinct manner to see the brilliance.
What a wonderfull interview. Thank you very much!! Saludos desde Argentina 🇦🇷.
As a psychology student, I apreciate the recognisment he made to Argentina.
A person of his calibre commenting on my country would make an impression on me and I’m fine with that. Furthermore a comment on some psychological aspect of the country is insightful in a way that isn’t easy to find elsewhere, other than interesting and “impressive”.
A brilliant interview! I learned so much!
what did you learn?
@@radscorpion8 I don't fucking know 🤷♂️
Wildly speculative towards the end. Zizek performs a greater service when he stays with the stresses of our times - the political tensions and blockages in our thinking - rather than drifting off into metaphysics, which can be accepted or sceptically rejected with a shrug of the shoulders.
I like this guy - he makes a lot of sense
Sometimes, but I also hear that he is somewhat lost in clichés of the early 1900s that there is no realistic reason to still hold on to. I like his energy for having and voicing an opinion, although I feel he could need a "pill" at times to calm down :) :) :)
@@KibyNykraft ew psychiatry
@@KibyNykraft He's mostly talking about Hegel so 1700s but not like it matters we still content with BC philosophers. It's a very "modern" sort of ignorance that leads one to assume that philosophy moves on some progressive telos of "oh look more years passed its 2023 so we're 180 years more right tha Hegel was!".
He is praising the same philisophy hitler and stalin did.
@@SatanIsTheLord 😭😭 what philosophy would that be?
“Anyone who doesn’t take love as a starting point will never understand the nature of philosophy”.
~Plato
Yes
That same Plato said that poets should be deported and 'noble lies' used to manipulate people, especially youth. Pure Machiavelianism.
and everyday less and less people are starting any sort of philosophy.
Source please ? I want to know if Plato actually wrote that.
@@DipayanPyne94 Nope, he didnt.
did Plato say “Anyone who doesn’t take love as a starting point will never understand the nature of philosophy”
ChatGPT:
No, Plato did not explicitly state the quote, "Anyone who doesn't take love as a starting point will never understand the nature of philosophy." While Plato extensively discussed the concept of love, particularly in his work "Symposium," he did not express this specific sentiment in those terms.
In "Symposium," Plato presents a series of speeches about love, with various characters sharing their views on its nature and significance. The speeches explore different aspects of love, such as its connection to beauty, desire, and the pursuit of knowledge. However, Plato's emphasis in "Symposium" is not on love as a starting point for understanding philosophy, but rather on the nature of love itself and its relation to the search for wisdom and beauty.
Plato's philosophy covers a wide range of topics, including metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and politics. While he considered the pursuit of wisdom (philosophy) as a fundamental endeavor, he did not explicitly tie it solely to love as a starting point in the manner described in the quote you provided.
Great interview
i dont know my english is to poor to understand him atleast you guys do that is great 👍
Although I'm not entirely sure what he's talking about the whole video, Slavoj seems like a pretty interesting person. The way he talks and conducts himself is so entertaining and I find it very so whilst I'm watching and listening. Hegelianism is a new concept to me, but I've been really getting onto Philosophy lately and I want to learn more about it from this man. Thank you for this wonderful content!
There's absolutely no one on earth that could REALLY occupy Zizek's place and do what he does the way he does. He is absolutely idiosyncratic - a dialectical subject to an absolutely maddening degree. I've been studying him for over 11 years now and can confidently say that we'll never see another. Once the man starts talking, everyone else becomes a listener, a student. It is as if he knows everything and has ingenious insights for everything he knows. His knowledge and insight are without par.
That is the same thing religious people said about people they worship for thousands of years.
Because he speaks some flavour of truth
Žižek is one of the most well-informed and knowledgeable philosophers I've got to know. The insight he has regarding philosophy and history is so eye-opening.
Slavoj 🖤
Terrific conversation.
More Zizek!!! Yay
One of the absolute best.
Reminds me of Walter Russel.
Got a good idea of the contours of the man's mind from this. Thanks.
Thank you for sharing this interview. Zizek is always insightful in a thought provoking way. There's no one right answer, just many wrong answers( like deep ecology and so on). The only way is to object these wrong answers, and reformulate the questions.
Right and wrong are RELATIVE. 😉
@@TheVeganVicar I am sure that superstition fits in the *vegan* world... Good luck with your teeth and after some decades your body health. You'll need that luck.
@@KibyNykraft, good and bad are RELATIVE. 😉
Incidentally, Slave, thanks for wishing me good LUCK, but I don’t believe in luck.
The term “luck” implies some degree of randomness and I know for a fact that NOTHING happens purely by chance. 😇
que chingados paso con este pequeño hilo de comentarios lmao
great questions
Thank you Slavoj for sharing your definition of love. Yes, we are taught to pray for guidance to define our own ideals in sex relations, but the exercise is meant to define what it is we dream we can be, not the characteristics of a partner. It is with this aspect of our lives that we are free to seek guidance on our own. Human opinions run to extremes, so we can take comfort by working with the Creator on this problem by ourselves, but my concern has shifted to the study of working with identity on machines instead.
"there are many theories like neo-feudalism, corporate authoritarianism, but something new is emerging, we don't really know what is happening"
When he speaks, he looks so young, so full of anticipation
Actually, I kind of see what you mean. Good point. Anyway, you know, he's a Hegelian, so he's an eternal optimist--forever believing history is forward motion into an ever brighter, better future.
Žižek enlightened. The world is the Light out of the Night.
I am a physicist and I will explain why our scientific knowledge refutes the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). My arguments prove the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit.
Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but I will discuss two arguments that prove that this hypothesis implies logical contradictions and is disproved by our scientific knowledge of the microscopic physical processes that take place in the brain. (With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams).
1) All the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or subjective/arbitrary classifications of underlying physical processes or properties, which are described DIRECTLY by the fundamental laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. What physically exists are the underlying physical processes and not the emergent properties (=subjective classifications or approximate descriptions). This means that emergent properties do not refer to reality itself but to an arbitrary abstract concept (the approximate conceptual model of reality). Since consciousness is the precondition for the existence of concepts, approximations and arbitrariness/subjectivity, consciousness is a precondition for the existence of emergent properties.
Therefore, consciousness cannot itself be an emergent property.
The logical fallacy of materialists is that they try to explain the existence of consciousness by comparing consciousness to a concept that, if consciousness existed, a conscious mind could use to describe approximately a set of physical elements. Obviously this is a circular reasoning, since the existence of consciousness is implicitly assumed in an attempt to explain its existence.
2) An emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess. The point is that the concept of set refers to something that has an intrinsically conceptual and subjective nature and implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements (where one person sees a set of elements, another person can only see elements that are not related to each other in their individuality). In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is just an abstract idea, and not a physical entity and so are all its properties. Since consciousness is a precondition for the existence of subjectivity/arbitrariness and abstractions, consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property, and cannot itself be an emergent property.
Both arguments 1 and 2 are sufficient to prove that every emergent property requires a consciousness from which to be conceived. Therefore, that conceiving consciousness cannot be the emergent property itself. Conclusion: consciousness cannot be an emergent property; this is true for any property attributed to the neuron, the brain and any other system that can be broken down into smaller elements.
On a fundamental material level, there is no brain, or heart, or any higher level groups or sets, but just fundamental particles interacting. Emergence itself is just a category imposed by a mind and used to establish arbitrary classifications, so the mind can't itself be explained as an emergent phenomenon.
Obviously we must distinguish the concept of "something" from the "something" to which the concept refers. For example, the concept of consciousness is not the actual consciousness; the actual consciousness exists independently of the concept of consciousness since the actual consciousness is the precondition for the existence of the concept of consciousness itself. However, not all concepts refer to an actual entity and the question is whether a concept refers to an actual entity that can exist independently of consciousness or not. If a concept refers to "something" whose existence presupposes the existence of arbitrariness/subjectivity or is a property of an abstract object, such "something" is by its very nature abstract and cannot exist independently of a conscious mind, but it can only exist as an idea in a conscious mind. For example, consider the property of "beauty": beauty has an intrinsically subjective and conceptual nature and implies arbitrariness; therefore, beauty cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.
My arguments prove that emergent properties, as well as complexity, are of the same nature as beauty; they refer to something that is intrinsically subjective, abstract and arbitrary, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness cannot be an emergent property because consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property.
The "brain" doesn't objectively and physically exist as a single entity and the entity “brain” is only a conceptual model. We create the concept of the brain by arbitrarily "separating" it from everything else and by arbitrarily considering a bunch of quantum particles altogether as a whole; this separation is not done on the basis of the laws of physics, but using addictional arbitrary criteria, independent of the laws of physics. The property of being a brain, just like for example the property of being beautiiful, is just something you arbitrarily add in your mind to a bunch of quantum particles. Any set of elements is an arbitrary abstraction therefore any property attributed to the brain is an abstract idea that refers to another arbitrary abstract idea (the concept of brain).
Furthermore, brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a conceptual model used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes; interpreting these sequences as a unitary process or connection is an arbitrary act and such connections exist only in our imagination and not in physical reality. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole is an arbitrary abstract idea , and not to an actual physical entity.
For consciousness to be physical, first of all the brain as a whole (and brain processes as a whole) would have to physically exist, which means the laws of physics themselves would have to imply that the brain exists as a unitary entity and brain processes occur as a unitary process. However, this is false because according to the laws of physics, the brain is not a unitary entity but only an arbitrarily (and approximately) defined set of quantum particles involved in billions of parallel sequences of elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. This is sufficient to prove that consciousness is not physical since it is not reducible to the laws of physics, whereas brain processes are. According to the laws of physics, brain processes do not even have the prerequisites to be a possible cause of consciousness.
As discussed above, an emergent property is a concept that refers to an arbitrary abstract idea (the set) and not to an actual entity; this rule out the possibility that the emergent property can exist independently of consciousness. Conversely, if a concept refers to “something” whose existence does not imply the existence of arbitrariness or abstract ideas, then such “something” might exist independently of consciousness. An example of such a concept is the concept of “indivisible entity”. Contrary to emergent properties, the concept of indivisible entity refers to something that might exist independently of the concept itself and independently of our consciousness.
My arguments prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property implies a logical fallacy and an hypothesis that contains a logical contradiction is certainly wrong.
Consciousness cannot be an emergent property whatsoever because any set of elements is a subjective abstraction; since only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, consciousness can exist only as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity corresponds to what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience. Marco Biagini
Great comment. Science can only take us so far. A scientist when asked about what a pawn is for example will say that he doesn't know but they are making advancements on what it is. For example 20 years ago they didn't know that on its first move, a pawn can move 2 square instead of 1. The scientist will point to this achievement and say that they have made so many advancements on the pawn but in reality they have not. Instead they have described properties of the pawn which relate to other ultimately undefined substances. Science is a good predictive tool but to understand the fundamental state of reality, we nees to look elsewhere. We may know way more about the operations of the brain than we did 20 years ago, but you'd be mistaken if you thought that meant we were closer to discovering what consciousness is.
"Love is something else, it's not conditional."
Depends on what is meant with conditional, does it not? To a reasonable extent yes, but I wonder: from the one you had loved for so many years, what is the threshold level of abuse and hardship one should accept ?
did he just get back from a festival
So many folks relate and comprehend the way things work through analogies to the latest machines we have built. Not long ago the universe was a clockwork, today the universe is like a computer, even a video game with holograms. This is the thought-space strait jacket which forever limits so many of us and precludes the necessary freedom to identify real root causes and truly solve our problems. When you hear the universe is like our latest technology, you are being mislead.
I could listen to him for hours, he says things others are scared to say, which is very uncomfortable but truthful, he’s very passionate about his knowledge too, amazing man🤝🏼
Good for you, but I can’t understand a single word he says
Any examples? Of what people are scared to say?
@@off6848 not specifically this video but he brings up “strong” sexual examples a lot, which make sense for the topic ofc, but could also be uncomfortable to hear for some people, I think it gives a sense of security in his character
@@jillbill7752 read his books then, really interesting
@@mario_vdls I think its still the pervading wisdom that Love is something metaphysical/spiritual and no a relationship between objects (partners that use each other for mutual pleasure)
But I see you're point it is a popular view that Love is nothing more than the feel good chemicals that come from extracting pleasure.
Wish Zizek would engage with John Dewey, for whom Hegel was such an important figure on the way to a more thoroughgoing philosophic naturalism. Good stuff, thx.
just beautiful!🥲
I love this
My son introduced me to this guy 🔥
I like his description of real love.
Love is unconditional, anything else is not Love. We have lost sight of this and redefined it in a way that its foundation lies in codependency. People are looking for partners to meet their needs, while the partner is looking to meet their own needs as well, so both are left unsatisfied, not aligned - or not meeting each other in the middle - creating a ground for unhappiness and an endless quest for something that can only be found in oneself. It is when you find your needs met by your own self that you can experience true Love as you will not feel the need to find it in a web of conditions, but like he says, find it in the imperfections, and that's true Love. Really interesting conversation, enjoyed listening to his points of view and the ones he referenced.
Philosophy is all about ideas, but you have to deal with its intensity.
Interesting how Philosophy of Right is always present on his talks
The primary focus of Zizek's philosophical project is Politics which is in Hegel's domain of Objective Spirit, primarily talked about in his _Philosophy of Right._ So it would definitely be immediately relevant.
"I believe, as a good Hegelian, in total contingency."
I love listening to the insights and contemplating the ideas and constantly challenging myself to evaluate and then reevaluate those ideas....
We live in the spirit of our times. Philosophy can deliver us from this spirit, and introduce us to the spirit of the depths.
Do you think it makes sense to interpret even the very closing remark on love as an analogy for attributes of philosophy?
Namely, that we do philosophy even more (intensely, properly, attentively, and in historical progression) - equted to loving even more - when discovering, expecting and living with its non-idealized imperfect characteristics of its nature and objects: the imperfect person we love. And love itself being imperfect, or experienced as such. In the sense that it is the vehicle of this imperfect way of a loving relationship.
Then what we philosophize about, rather than philosophy itself (exclusively), is the thing we are deeming imperfect.
So the world is imperfect, as is both love and philosophical thinking.
My parents say that instead of reading philosophy me and my girlfriend should make babies. Why?? For what??? I love philosophy 💝❤️
You.. your parents really said that? wtf.
If you're a good Hegelian, you can have it both ways!
@@Abysssmohey get drunk with beer and then say philosophy is for lozers 😢
@@tjamesfree, good and bad are RELATIVE. 😉
@@antib_reader
03. PHILOSOPHY & TRUTH:
PHILOSOPHY DEFINED:
Philosophy is the love of WISDOM, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or a decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgement. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. For example, “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.” Etymologically, the word originates from the Greek “philosophia” (meaning “love of wisdom”) and is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values/ethics, mind, and language. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 - c. 495 BC). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.
Philosophers generally divide their field into the two kingdoms, the Eastern branch, which covers the entire Asian continent, and the Western branch of philosophy, which mainly includes European, though in recent centuries, embraces American and Australian-born philosophers also.
GENUINE WISDOM:
Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside of ancient Indian philosophical traditions, it tacitly or implicitly refers to ideas and ideologies that are quite far-removed from genuine wisdom. For instance, the typical academic philosopher, especially in the Western tradition, is not a lover of actual wisdom, but a believer in, or at least a practitioner of, adharma, which is the ANTITHESIS of genuine wisdom. Many Western academic (so-called) “philosophers” are notorious for using either laborious sophistry, abstruse semantics, gobbledygook, and/or pseudo-intellectual word-play, in an attempt to justify their blatantly-immoral ideologies and practices, and in many cases, fooling the ignorant layman into accepting the most horrendous crimes as not only normal and natural, but holy and righteous!
In “The Republic” the ancient Greek philosopher Aristocles (commonly known as Plato) quotes his mentor Socrates as asserting that the “best” philosophers are, in actual fact, naught but useless, utter rogues, in stark contrast to “true” philosophers, who are lovers of wisdom and truth.
An ideal philosopher, on the other hand, is one who is sufficiently intelligent to understand that morality is, of necessity, based on the law of non-violence (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and sufficiently wise to live his or her life in such a harmless manner. See Chapter 12 regarding morality.
THE REPOSITORY OF WISDOM:
One of the greatest misunderstandings of modern times is the belief that philosophers (and psychologists, especially) are, effectively, the substitutes for the priesthood of old. It is perhaps understandable that this misconception has arisen in the popular mind, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon, compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained collegiate doctorates in philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, et cetera. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only a miniscule percentage of all those who claim to be spiritual teachers are ACTUAL “brāhmaṇa” (as defined in Chapter 20). Therefore, the wisest philosophers of the present age are still those exceptionally rare members of the Holy Priesthood! Anyone who doubts this averment need do nothing more than to read the remaining chapters of this Holy Scripture in order to learn this blatantly-obvious fact.
POPULAR PHILOSOPHERS:
At the very moment these words of mine are being typed on my laptop computer, there are probably hundreds of essay papers, as well as books and articles, being composed by professional philosophers and Theologians, both within and without academia. None of these papers, and almost none of the papers written in the past, will have any noticeable impact on human society, at least not in the realm of morals and ethics, which is obviously the most vital component of civilization. And, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, since such “lovers-of-wisdom” are almost exclusively adharmic (irreligious and corrupt) it is indeed FORTUITOUS that this is the case. The only (so-called) philosophers who seem to have any perceptible influence in the public arena are “pop” or “armchair” philosophers, such as Mrs. Alisa “Alice” O’Connor (known more popularly by her pen name, Ayn Rand), and the British author, Mr. Clive Staples “C.S.” Lewis, almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or they have managed to promulgate their ideas via the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web.
ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHERS:
To proffer merely one example of literally tens of thousands, of the assertion made in the previous paragraph, the 1905 essay paper by the famed British mathematician/philosopher/logician, Bertrand Russell, entitled “On Denoting” was described by one of his most notable contemporaneous colleagues, Frank P. Ramsey, as “that paradigm of philosophy”. Notwithstanding the fact that less than one percent of the populace would be able to even comprehend the essay, it is littered with spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntactic errors, and contains at least a couple of flawed propositions. Even if the average person was able to grasp the principles presented in that paper, it would not make any tangible impact on the human condition. Currently, this planet of ours is doomed to devastation, due to moral decay and environmental degradation, and such overintellectualizing essay papers can no nothing to help to improve our deeply harrowing, frightful, and lamentable predicament, especially those papers that deal with exceedingly-trivial subject matters, as does Russell’s paper (an argument for an acutely-abstruse concept in semantics). The fact that Russell’s aforementioned essay paper falls under the category of Philosophy of Language, and the fact that he was a highly-educated peer of the House of Lords in the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, yet his own writings being composed using less-than-perfect English, serves only to prove my assertion that philosophy ought to be restricted to genuine members of the Holy Priesthood. Furthermore, that Bertrand was fully-intoxicated with adharmic (leftist) ideologies and practices, including sexual licentiousness and socialism (even supporting Herr Adolf Hitler’s Nazism, to some extent) indicates that he was no lover of ACTUAL wisdom.
The fact that, after THOUSANDS of years following the publication of Plato’s “Republic”, not a single nation or country on this planet has thought it wise to accept Plato’s advice to promote a philosopher-king (“rāja-ṛṣi”, in Sanskrit) as the head of its social structure, more than adequately proves my previous assertions. Unfortunately, however, both Plato and his student, Aristotle, were themselves hardly paragons of virtue, since the former was an advocate of infanticide, whilst the latter favoured carnism (even stating that animal slaughter was mandatory).
To my knowledge, the only philosopher in the Western academic tradition who was truly wise was the German, Arthur Schopenhauer, because he espoused a reasonably accurate metaphysical position, and he adhered to the law (that is, the one and only law, known as “dharma” in Bhārata) to a larger degree than most other Westerners. Hopefully, someday, I will discover another philosopher without India to join Arthur!
Saying all that he said, the name of this video should not be that philosophy is lost, but is needed. That is, we need to fall in love more with philosophy in these times.
I say we live in dark ages of philosophy. Christianity was burning books to stop literacy. Capitalism is burning Logic to stop philosophy :(
31:30 - great definition of freedom.
After wrestling with Hegel’s incomprehensible philosophy for many years, finally I have understood it! Thank you, Mr. Zizek! All I had to do was to touch my nose every 5 minutes!!!
seconds
Lol
This philosopher is most insightful when he says we need to know how to ask, or formulate, the right question.
We have generally forgotten how to think. Theory, in contrast, is not about thinking, but about confirming predictions, which is "only" science. We need to get back to something like an unhampered and humbling speculation, since the status of philosophy is no longer influential: it cannot offer insight into what is least understood (even if indispensable) within science generally -- how is the working theory even possible?
The ancient philosophers were not confused: whatever it is we mean when we posit a psychology, they should merely point to the evidence of nature, a cosmos, as proper object; conversely with our definition of a physical world, our modeling of its reality, they should not find it strange that we are able to ask questions about what are only too obviously the numerous subjects of busy, fruitful minds.
Far from the rupture of a mind/body illusion, it is no feat of imagination to understand that the human species has yet neither suffered its burden, nor regretted its absence.
We can never return to such a condition of pure wonder with the world, ourselves.
We can try, though, to happily investigate our chronic ignorance, so loving knowledge.
It is my theory that the apple is rotten if it has been lying on the ground for a week. There is no necessity for extra thinking about it. We only need to check it ,and once we confirm it, we will start asking the next question, why did the apple rot? Etc. That is science. It is not in contradiction to philosophy, only in contradiction to subjectivism. The real philosopher is the one always skeptically challenging claims of those who have never studied the apple yet, and those who have avoided to show the details of the apple's chemistry to the public.
He's a brilliant mind, no doubt. His work speaks for itself. He's just too intense for me as a speaker. It's like he's always on the verge of exploding out of his body and it stresses me out. 😆
I exactly love this about him
As for the question "are philosophers still useful today" i put it like this: when people from a distant future will want to understand us and the way we used to think who are they gonna read? They can read literature, sure but that is not a deep enugh insight on our mind, and they wouldn't find in science either, only in philosophy they're gonna find what they need to really understand us, to know the questions we deeply asked, the fears and desires, our way of appoaching problems and the true depth of our thoughts. We need philosophy now to understant who we are and what we want to be.
Amazing interview! Very interesting!
I just love Slavoj Žižek so much common sense these days. I do feel bad for Slavic and his nervous ticks. Since I have nervous ticks myself I really can Identify. I continually chew my nails and the Calliss off my fingers. Partly because I like to keep my fingers smooth for my lover and it calms me. So I can imagine what is going through his mind but more important. How did his sole get to be Slavic and what did he do in his past lives to turn him in to what we see today. I often think of that more and more each day. What have we become and what will we become. There's nothing in this universe but us chickens.
dude what are you yapping about
Love actually love of wisdom, philosophy.
Zizek meant to reference Carlo Rovelli around the 23:00 mark, for unsuspecting viewers. I guess Marco sounds like Carlo
You are god mr. Slavoj and i am a believer of you...
Philosophy, that dear delight!
-PLATO
"Freedom is not contingency. Freedom is free decision."
All decisions depend on (are a part of) a *relativistic* chain of events. There is no freedom, no cause and effect, and no randomness. (There is only variable interactivity between energy localities and their aggregates)
@@KibyNykraft And how do "errors" emerge in this deterministic truth-making virtuality?
@@orothienbecause errors must occur before success is met, when in comes to everything, humans make the wrong choices all the time, we are the best at it when we have so much to perceive and thereby so much to choose from but such little capacity to actually do, this is what society is for, more to interpret and thereby more accuracy, everything was stronger in a collective while the machines weren't feeding the population
There is no free decision, not ever, for anyone or anything. Everything can be traced back to either social phenomena and environment (culture/cultures) or the instinctual, this is not a bad thing, like ever, we are not orbs floating in a vacuum with the gift of self-awareness (which isn't happening without some genetic coding haha), and the only thing that can be considered YOU is what's sometimes being aware of what your subconscious is doing, the power of this YOU is horribly weak, but when gathered through coalition becomes an indomitable spirit. The only thing that could constitute freedom in my view is not being robbed from basic necessities of survival by the gratist few, reciprocation between members of society is freedom
I think there is more important question.. Why Slavoj Žižek looks so sick? What's going on with his health?.. I wish him quick recovery!
He is getting old like everyone else.
he's inspirational
zizek is a bearing a torch for us in these confused times
1:29 Reminds me of Raymond Chandler in one of his noir novels: "Her eyes were like waterholes in the desert, where strange animals come to drink at night"
My boi gets even smarter with years unbelievable
The Hegelian warning that just when you think you've reached 'nirvana' (mixing metaphors) you're in for a surprise is similar to recent comparisons with AI as the Molloch (a.l.a. Allen Ginsberg's poem): a force created by humans in hopes it will be beneficial but has the power to damage or even destroy societies, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, CZcams...
add nuclear power
A force created by humans with the intent to erode and dissolve society, human civilization and human cognition itself and break it down to nothing, and fulfilling its intended purpose with surprising efficiency - the various marxist offshoots, post modernists faiths, the feminist church at al and the army of woke and queer karens.
Interesting
OMG this man Slavoj Žižek is a deluded old communist, a tool of the banking 'elites' - yet he calls it 'philosophy'. Its a PSY-OP.
I'd rather a nuclear plant in my backyard than a coal plant (the latter emits more radioactive material into the environment)
At 20:42 there is an edit that cut out what Zizek was describing as how free will is currently conceived (multiple unconscious processes) but didn’t let him say his conclusion
I love him more now that he says that he takes Buddhism very seriously🌸💕🪷
Also I just barely got around to reading Marcuse (I guess I must be "continental"...), but he did a really great critique of analytic philosophy, in which he still admits it has potential, because, for example, the ordinary language school (at Oxford?) based on.. Ryle's interpretation of Wittgenstein, right? Ignores the factors behind the facts.
Basically if it would stop ignoring "factors" it could be genuinely therapeutic
Filosofi is mother of all science,more like this pleas
As contemporary beings part company with coherent language they keep coming up with words like broken and lost - as if the love of wisdom could get lost or someone can put it down somewhere forget exactly where
Žižek performs the most sophisticated, evocative Stand-Up! It is reminiscent, in its way, to W. H. Auden's curly-cues.
StephenKMackSD
Brilliant
Hegel and as if the speaking in tongues of Ferenzci; Marx through Feurerbach ~ see Maria Pierri on Occultism in the origins of Freud and Ferenzci. The dialogue between the two are held at the Freud Mueseum, London.
Zizek really hits me with his notion that reality is not yet fully constituted, and the question is why there are disturbances (in non-existence as I understood it) that created the reality (space-time, matter, etc). That goes along with my view of reality as a big catastrophe that exploded, and from then it tries to nullify itself and get back to 0 disturbances - maximum entropy, heat death, and decay of all matter, in which Penrose said all the notions of space-time metrics collapse, creating a new universe.
It stopped making sense once you said "getting back to 0 disturbances". Why would it want to do that? It also doesn't explain where motion, heat expansion and contraction comes from. It's not obvious to me that those phenomenon would just suddenly exist along side matter and cause some sort of explosion. Idk idealism makes more sense to me Zizek should go back to it
@@off6848 Well Heat death of universe literally means 0 disturbances. I just look at it like that, it’s pure speculation
Penrose?????? Wtf are you saying?
after 1 hour the reporter says: 'sorry, i just said hello to welcome you'
Zizek is rightfully hopeful about philosophy. Philosophy is the study of concepts i.e. analytic philosophy. Political philosophy is derived and on the periphery of philosophy.
What is the interplay between individualism and social structures in shaping our understanding of subjectivity, and how does philosophy, guided by naturalistic principles, contribute to unraveling the complexities of the human experience, including the nature of the subject and the role of love?
Subjectivity comes from our own personal experiences, beliefs and values. The way we see things is influenced by the society we live in. The rules and expectations of society can affect our ability to think deeply about life. So if someone wants to truly think philosophically, they need to let go of what society expects. Love is a very strong feeling that can shape why we do things and how we see the world. Since love is a driving force of humanity, it's important to think about what love really means before asking questions about it. If your understanding of love is different from what is true, your conclusions will be very different too
@@mr-xoxoxomka6614 love this.
philosophy is the way we see the world, the reason why we make the decisions we make, it is based on the traditional knowledge, academical knowledge, social knowledge etc... we all make philosophy everyday, how do you inow something is bad? how do you know is good? how do you follow a goal? the only difference I may say is that we are split between Active philosophy and passive philosophy. The former is when we just go with the flow, perhaps ignorant of why we act the way we act, or we do know but we just do not give it any importance. the latter is when we learn for every point of view, from the people around us and by studying philosophy and then, we search for this thought emancipation where we grab this knowledge and build our very own philosophy and we live our lives witj it,and if we deem it worthy, we teach, helping the cycle of emancipation.
26:26 I've been asking a hindu (advaita) youtuber and a christian friend this same question. "if god/ishvara is whole/divine/perfect/peace/bliss/love ect. why did they create the world/universe?
the ontological question is "why is there something rather than nothing" I answered it myself : if there was "nothing" it could not be "known" without a "knower" so only "something" can exist. (nothing is just an abstract concept of the opposite of something and hence can't exist)
Vacuum is not actually empty space, there is no such entity beyond it's counterpart which is IS.
Nothingness has always my attention as concept, it's so paradoxical. Nothingness is not nothing in itself as it is indeed something called nothing. Negative statement, as something being absent.
But what about an hole, is it the "nothing" part exactly which defines this entity named a hole or that the hole part is actually part of its edges..
It has amuzed me from young age when people respond to question what are you doing with "nothing". I insisted that they were doing something and that statement could be just the way we group things.
I may not know what I'm saying, just to say.
Or ask: 'Why is there something rather than nothing - for us?" Is there something beyond our comprehension (neumenon)? Can we discuss only things available to us (phenomenon)? But we cannot use the language of reason (logical reasoning) to discuss what belongs in mytho-poetic realm (art, religion) (Wittgenstein). These are two different worlds. Religion is about belief and showing, with certain things never to be questioned.
The problem with your answer is a category mistake: you're conflating metaphysics with epistemology. As for your question, the answer is simple but unappealing to many: because God exists. The existence of anything is contingent on God - so no God, no anything. That's really what the word 'God' means, we don't need to go full-blown mystical just to define our terms. Whatever the divine attributes might be - well, that's a different conversation we can have...
Gênio!
At 22:00 I wish the interviewer did not interrupt him mid-argument just to reinstate a false sense of control. Now I will never now the point he was trying to make. Zizek is at his best when interlocutors don’t try to pull him down to their own levels
The total importance, brightness, wisdom, and even savvy and smart articulated Philosopher and a wise Hegel's follower people, readers and audience can believe to find in Zizek comes out from a constant citation and quoting Lacan fragments and really robust erudition. All what Zizek mention and looks like genuine genius is already in Lacan's Seminars and "Écrits". Not only from Lacan but mostly from him. Also from different structuralists and post structuralist such as Althusser, Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida. Basically the most recurrent references used by Zizek are elaborate thoughts delivered years ago during 50's, 60's and 70's by Jacques Lacan. Zizek usually mention in his books, lectures and interviews the most strong ideas and thoughts advanced by Lacan and Zizek's references are Lacan's references: Hegel, Heidegger, Lévi-Strauss, Saussure, Jacobson, Derrida, even though mystic thinker Jacob Bohem. However, his thought is very important to out time in the way he has given us an updated Lacan ready to be consumed by his current followers who not knowing Zizek's ideas are already Lacan's.