July | 2009 | Objet petit a

Hegel is at the origin of everything great in philosophy for the last century.

–Maurice Merleau-Ponty

My new book, which I coedited with Clayton Crockett and Slavoj Zizek has been submitted to Columbia University Press. The basic thesis of this volume is that Hegel is finally the thinker of the 21st century. There are many reasons for this but we maintain that Hegel’s thinking (esp. his ontological structure in his
Science of Logic and the Phenomenology of Spirit ) was marginalized by much of French philosophy (and totally misunderstood by American analytic philosophy) in the 20th century to such a degree that he eventually becomes a formless scarecrow who represents the zenith of violence of the entire western tradition. This fake Hegel can be seen in Levinas’ critique in Totality and Infinity, Jacques Derrida from the mid 60s to the late 80s (until his student and my friend Catherine Malabou convinces Jacques about Hegel’s infinite potential that is not enclosed within the domain of Identity or the In-Itself), and even Gilles Deleuze (see esp. Difference and Repetition where the latter’s charge is very similar to Derrida’s that hovers around the idea of “contradition”). So this volume argues, among many things, that Hegel needs to be reclaimed in order to breakout of the deadlock of our political situation. As you can see from our Table of Contents we have some of the best scholars of Hegel alive today (some of whom finally reject Hegel, but not without a real lifelong bout with him).

Here is our Table of Contents:

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface: Slavoj Zizek

Hegel’s Century

Introduction: Clayton Crockett & Creston Davis