The Ticklish Subject

Žižek, S. (1999) The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology, London and New York: Verso.

      Hailed by some critics as Žižek's most important work to date, it

is - judging by the number of articles it has spawned - certainly one of his most comprehensive monographs. Its central thesis is that the nursery tale' of the cogito which has dominated modern thought (in its guise as the self transparent thinking subject) is, in fact, a misnomer that fails to acknowledge the cogito's constitutive moment of madness. Structured in three parts, the book takes to task critics of Cartesian subjectivity in the fields of German Idealism, French political philos- ophy and Anglo-American cultural studies, directing blame for contem- porary scientific and technological catastrophes away from the cogito and laying it squarely at the door of capitalism. While the overall philo- sophical argument is enjoyable in itself, Žižek also delivers a series of fascinating local insights which range across all aspects of political, cultural and social life. While parts of the book are very demanding

 - and to that end I would not recommend it to a first-time Žižek

reader it does reward your patience.