Joseph Carew

In Ontological Catastrophe, Joseph Carew takes up the central question guiding Slavoj ≈Ωi≈æek philosophy: How could something like phenomenal reality emerge out of the meaninglessness of the Real? Carefully reconstructing and expanding upon his controversial reactualization of German Idealism, Carew argues that ≈Ωi≈æek offers us an original, but perhaps terrifying, response: experience is possible only if we presuppose a prior moment of breakdown as the ontogenetic basis of subjectivity. Drawing upon resources found in ≈Ωi≈æek, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Kantian philosophy, Carew thus develops a new critical metaphysics‚Äîa metaphysics which is a variation upon the late German Idealist theme of balancing system and freedom, realism and idealism, in a single, self-reflexive theoretical construct‚Äîthat challenges our understanding of nature, culture, and the ultimate structure of reality.

Ontological Catastrophe: ≈Ωi≈æek and the Paradoxical Metaphysics of German Idealism

Joseph Carew

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