Ontological Catastrophe

In Ontological Catastrophe, Joseph Carew takes up the central question guiding Slavoj iek's philosophy: How could something like phenomenal reality emerge out of the meaninglessness of the Real? Carefully reconstructing and expanding upon his controversial reactualization of German Idealism, Carew argues that iek offers us an original, but perhaps terrifying, response: experience is possible only if we presuppose a prior moment of breakdown as the ontogenetic basis of subjectivity. Drawing upon resources found in iek, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Kantian philosophy, Carew thus develops a new critical metaphysicsa metaphysics which is a variation upon the late German Idealist theme of balancing system and freedom, realism and idealism, in a single, self-reflexive theoretical constructthat challenges our understanding of nature, culture, and the ultimate structure of reality.