The Absolute not only as Substance, but also as Subject

Abstract

This article intends to argue that Zizek’s dialectics is far from a vulgar progressive sublation of all reality in Concept but a systematic acknowledgement of its radical impossibility. Firstly, the fundamental point of Zizek’s dialectics is not the notion of the sublation of all immediate-material reality but a “sublation of sublation”. The conclusive of moment of a dialectical circle is the immanent act of abrogation or releasing. Then, through the elementary triad structure of the Hegelian notion of reflection (positing, external, determinate reflection), the ultimate secret of Zizek’s dialectical process consists in a “determinate reflection” or a necessary redoubling reflection. The two quintessential examples of this redoubling reflection are the paradoxical monarch and God’s reincarnation. Once his dialectic movement is elaborated, the esoteric definition of subject and subjectivity, as well as the mysterious Hegelian thesis “Substance as Subject” will become rather straightforward.