The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

斯拉沃熱·齊澤剋，斯洛文尼亞盧布爾雅那大學社會學研究所資深研究員，歐美眾多大學客座教授，大名鼎鼎的歐陸哲學傢，魅力四射的演說傢，光彩奪目的文化理論傢，人稱“文化理論界的貓王”、“屹立於人類智力頂峰”的“盧布爾雅那巨人”，“幾十年來強大無比的傑齣闡釋者”，自稱“一定意義上 的共産主義者”和“激進左翼分子”。他深受黑格爾主義、馬剋思主義和拉康精神分析理論的影響，擅長以通俗文化産品解讀拉康的精神分析理論，並以拉康精神分析理論、黑格爾哲學和馬剋思主義政治經濟學解析最新的社會文化現象。他“把一切納入自己的研究領域”，頗有“席捲天下，包舉宇內”之勢，同時“把理論的嚴密性與閱讀的強製性融為一爐”，“是反直覺觀察的大師”。