The Ticklish Subject the absent centre of political ontology SLAVOJ ZIZEKWO ES WAR A series from Verso edited by Slavoj Zizek Wo es war, soll ich werden — Where it was, I shall come into being — is Freud's version of the Enlightenment goal of knowledge that is in itself an act of liberation. Is it still possible to pursue this goal today, in the conditions of late capitalism? If ‘it’ today is the twin rule of pragmatic-relativist New Sophists and New Age obscurantists, what ‘shall come into being’ in its place? The premiss of the series is that the explosive combination of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist tradition detonates a dynamic free- dom that enables us to question the very presuppositions of the circuit of Capital, In the same series Slavoj Zizek, The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Woman and Causality Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings. Edited and introduced by Miran Boiovié Slavoj Zizek, The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters Alain Grosrichard, The Sultan's Court: European Fantasies of the East. Trans- lated by Liz Heron and introduced by Mladen Dolar Slavoj Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies Renata Salecl, (Per)Versions of Love and Hate Forthcoming: Alenka Zupandié, Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan Alain Badiou, Ethics The Ticklish Subject The Absent Centre of Political Ontology —__ SLAVOJ ZIZEK v VERSO London « New YorkFirst published! by Verso 1999 © Slavoj Zizek 1999 Paperback edition fist published by Verso 2000 © Slavoj Zizek 2000 Al rights reserved The moral rights of the author have been asserted ‘Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, Lonclow WIV 3HR US: 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014-4606 Verso is the imprint of New Left Books Library of Congress € A catalog record for this book is aloging-in- Publication Data wailable from the Library of Congress Typeset by SexSystems Ltd, Saffron Walden, Printed by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn, Contents Introduction: A Spectre Is Haunting Western Academia Part The ‘Night of the World’ 1 a The Deailtock of Transcendental Imagination, or, Martin Heidegger aas a Reader of Kant Heideggerian Political (Dis)Engagement ~ Why Did Being and Time Re Imagination ~ The Passage through Madness - The Violence of Imagination ~ The Monstrous ~ Kant with David Lynch — Kant’s Acosmism_ The Hegelian Ticklish Subject What Is ‘Negation of Negation’? - The Dialectical Anamorphosis ~ 3, 4, and Subject ~ The Hegelian Forced Choice - ‘Concrete U versality’ ~ ‘Rather than want nothing...” ~ "Include me out!’ ~ Towards a Materialist Theory of Grace Part Il The Split Universality 3 The Politics of Truth, or, Alain Badion as a Reader of St Paul The Truth-Event ...~... and [ts Undecidabili Ideology — St Paul with Badiou — Between the Two Deaths ~ The Lacanian Subject - The Master or the Analyst? ain Unfinished? ~ The Trouble with Transcendental - The Specuiative Identity of Substance - Truth and 70