“Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, infsofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing.”

— Slavoj Žižek

Source: Less Than Nothing (2012), Chapter One (The Drink Before), Vacillating The Semblances
Context: The implicit lesson of Plato is not that everything is appearance, that it is not possible to draw a clear line of separation between appearance and reality (that would have meant the victory of Sophism), but that essence is "appearance as appearance,"that essence appears in contrast to appearance within appearance; that the distinction between appearance and essence has to be inscribed into appearance itself. Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, infsofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Slavoj Žižek 99

Slovene philosopher 1949

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“Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, infsofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing.”

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Slavoj Žižek 99

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