The Abyss of Freedom

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Žižek, S. and von Schelling, F.W.J. (1975) The Abyss of Freedom - Ages of the World, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Reprising much of the material from the first part of The Indivisible Remainder, this book combines Žižek's essay on Schelling's Ages of the World with the first ever English translation of the second draft of that title. Žižek argues that at the centre of the Ages of the World is the struggle to resolve the enigma of sufEcient reason. While most philoso- phers attempt to explain freedom, Schelling reverses the terms of the question and asks how we emerged from a state of freedom and became caught in a network of reason. Žižek's analysis of the answer to this question is often difEcult (as is Schelling's deceptively simple prose), but is, nevertheless, recognizably cognate with the discussions of Hegel and Lacan that he undertakes in other monographs.