/lit/ - Literature

Johnston is one of the most widely followed philosophers writing today. Influenced by Žižek and his readings of German idealism, Johnston’s work has gained many readers among those making the materialist and realist turns in Continental philosophy.[2] Johnston’s books are guided by his “transcendental materialism,” which in sum calls for a materialist ontology that nevertheless does not reduce away the gap or figure that is human subjectivity. Johnston argues for retooling Freud and Lacan after the success of the natural sciences in recent decades, but argues that both Freud and Lacan presaged a lot of these successes. Critical of the thinkers of immanence whom he believes, following Hegel, can only give us subjectless substance, Johnston’s work has brought Lacanianism into the 21st century when many wrongly claimed it dead long before the end of the last.[2]