Abstract

In this paper I attempt to demonstrate both Hegel’s relevance and Žižek’s theoretical significance for contemporary philosophy and science. I first examine what is at stake in Hegel's metaphysical system, focusing on the status of the Hegelian categories - abstract concepts like being, essence, necessity, universality etc. I argue that Hegel’s “dialectical method” is a linguistic method enabling Hegel to grasp the linguistic relations between these unique concepts . I then attempt to establish that these categories constitute both the logical structure of thought and the metaphysical structure of physical reality. I argue that the dialectical method must consequently underpin not only the linguistic relations between concepts but equally physical reality as well. In order to substantiate this contention, I draw attention to Žižek’s recent work on quantum mechanics. I argue that in his examination of the wave function collapse Žižek has been able to exhibit the immediate relevance and applicability of Hegel’s dialectical method to the contemporary sciences by revealing the dialectical method to be implicitly operative within the modern physical theory of quantum decoherence