Hegelian-Lacanian Variations on Late Modernity

The current rise in new religions and the growing popularity of New Ageism is concomitant with an increasingly anti-philosophical sentiment marking our contemporary situation. More specifically, it is philosophical and psychoanalytic reason that has lost standing faced with the triumph of post-secular "spirituality". Combatting this trend, this treatise develops a theoretical apparatus based on Hegelian speculative reason and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

With the aid of this theoretical apparatus, the book argues how certain conceptual pairs appear opposed through an operation of misrecognition christened, following Hegel, as "diremption". The failure to reckon with identities-in-difference relegates the subject to more vicious contradictions that define central aspects of our contemporary predicament. The repeated thesis of the treatise is that the deadlocks marking our contemporary situation require renewed engagement with dialectical thinking beyond the impasses of common understanding. Only by embarking on this philosophical-psychoanalytic "path of despair" (Hegel) will we stand a chance of achieving "joyful wisdom" (Nietzsche).

Developing a unique dialectical theory based on readings of Hegel, Lacan and Žižek, in order to address various philosophical and psychoanalytic questions, this book will be of great interest to anyone interested in German idealism and/or psychoanalytic theory.

"Alireza Taheri's book?provides the ultimate proof that a combination of Hegel's dialectics and Lacan's psychoanalytic theory is the best instrument to analyse the madness of our late capitalist modernity. Spectre of Madness is not yet another book on Hegel and Lacan - it is simply a book for everyone who wants to understand how things could have gone so wrong after Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history." - Slavoj Žižek, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London

"Taheri clearly and perceptively retraces the?complexity of?modern Western philosophy from Kant?onward,?using the key concept of Diremption. This book is a precious tool for anyone?looking for an up-to-date examination of?psychoanalysis through philosophical reflection."?- Sergio Benvenuto, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council in Rome

"In?Hegelian-Lacanian Variations on Late Modernity: ?Spectre of Madness, Alireza Taheri creatively recasts the notion of negativity at the intersection of German idealism and psychoanalysis. ?On the basis of a Lacanian rendition of Hegelian contradiction, Taheri?s book meticulously and insightfully explores a series of irresolvable antinomies both organizing and unsettling human subjects. Kant famously asked ?What may I hope?? ?Taheri, on the basis of his wide-ranging assessment of the contradictions that make (and unmake) who we are, could be said to confront us with the equally important sobering question: ??For what may I not hope??" - Adrian Johnston, Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico