Very Little ... Almost Nothing
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £12.00
Trade in Very Little ... Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy and Literature (Warwick Studies in European Philosophy) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £12.00, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"This is a very brave book ... it makes philosophical conversation possible again after two decades of pragmatist intolerance."
-Roger Poole, Parallax
"(T)his is an often beautifully written philosophical act of mourning ... It also commands respect because it obliges one to examine the fictions one employs to avoid really doing philosophy. Critchley's steadfastly post-Kantian rejection of theological answers to the questions he asks is very welcome."
-Andrew Bowie, Radical Philosophy
..."manages with some aplomb, to pull off the extraordinarily difficult task of saying something new and interesting about Beckett and Blanchot."
-Martin McQuillan, New Formations
"Critchley keeps his writings for the most part powerful and elegant, wide-ranging but well-focussed. The book is at all times sibylline, moving, insightful, explorative."
-Colin Davis, French Studies
"Simon Critchley's readings of Schlegel, Blanchot and Beckett are remarkably nuanced and perceptive. Much more than an excellent companion to the study of the intertwinings of philosophy and literature, it is an admirable meditation on the ubiquity of finitude and its ungraspability."
-Jacques Taminiaux, Boston College
-Roger Poole, Parallax
"(T)his is an often beautifully written philosophical act of mourning ... It also commands respect because it obliges one to examine the fictions one employs to avoid really doing philosophy. Critchley's steadfastly post-Kantian rejection of theological answers to the questions he asks is very welcome."
-Andrew Bowie, Radical Philosophy
..."manages with some aplomb, to pull off the extraordinarily difficult task of saying something new and interesting about Beckett and Blanchot."
-Martin McQuillan, New Formations
"Critchley keeps his writings for the most part powerful and elegant, wide-ranging but well-focussed. The book is at all times sibylline, moving, insightful, explorative."
-Colin Davis, French Studies
"Simon Critchley's readings of Schlegel, Blanchot and Beckett are remarkably nuanced and perceptive. Much more than an excellent companion to the study of the intertwinings of philosophy and literature, it is an admirable meditation on the ubiquity of finitude and its ungraspability."
-Jacques Taminiaux, Boston College
Product Description
Very Little ... Almost Nothing puts the question of the meaning of life back at the centre of intellectual debate. Its central concern is how we can find a meaning to human finitude without recourse to anything that transcends that finitude. A profound but secular meditation on the theme of death, Critchley traces the idea of nihilism through Blanchot, Levinas, Jena Romanticism and Cavell, culminating in a reading of Beckett, in many ways the hero of the book.
In this second edition, Simon Critchley has added a revealing and extended new preface, and a new chapter on Wallace Stevens which reflects on the idea of poetry as philosophy.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Reading Blanchot is, in a sense, the easiest of tasks. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Reading Blanchot is, in a sense, the easiest of tasks. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An analysis of how mankind's finitude can lead to meaning.,
By
This review is from: Very Little...Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature (Warwick Studies in European Philosophy) (Paperback)
This is a brilliant book which covers a lot of the most profound continental thought over the last 100 or so years. Critchley works through the concept of nihilism and the 'death of God'via an analysis of several thinkers - Nietzsche, Heidegger, Beckett, Blanchot, Levinas - trying to demonstrate how such finitude, with a study literature, can be an optimistic and positive thing.The book is important for any philosopher and in addition for those interested in continental thought and literary theory.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life as the Meaning of Life,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Very Little...Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature (Warwick Studies in European Philosophy) (Paperback)
Very Little, Almost Nothing is a remarkable response to nihilism in our age, the age of the "Death of God." What, Critchley asks, is the meaning of human life faced with death and the impossibility of religious salvation? With poignantly perceptive and erudite analyses he counteracts the two most dominant and dangerous responses to nihilism: apathy and the desire to overcome nihilism with some other form of transcendance. For Critchley, the appropriate response to nihilism lies not in establishing a meaning for life outside of life but in revisioning the everyday existence we all must lead. The true merit and deepest insights of this book lie in its ability to open the reader, at once, to the beauty and frightfulness of radically finite existence.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most crucial philosophical pieces of the 20th cen,
By Stephen Smith - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Very Little...Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature (Warwick Studies in European Philosophy) (Paperback)
Critchley portrays an honest and straight-foreward picture of man's nihilistic state in a harsh and uncertain reality. The book begins with an intro to give the reader some background and justification for our meaningless existence in a world absent of God. He then moves on to present the reader three sections/lectures in which he analyzes specific aspects of literature, philosophy, and death in order to set the stage for his synthesis in the end of the third section. The first lecture focuses on Blanchot and Levinas's concept of the impossibility of death. The second discusses the failure of romanticism (and indirectly transhumanism)through analyzing authors such as Emerson and Cavell. The third lecture, and perhaps my favorite, addresses Beckett's abstractions of the ungraspable; that of our own finitude and innevitable death. I was somewhat dismayed by the author's neglect to translate a number of French and some German quotes into English, leaving the reader on his own to look up what it meant if he wasnt fortunate to already know. I sometimes found myself lost at first, having no background information on some of the philosophers that Critchley critiqued (Blanchot, Cavell, etc.). Yet I must insist that the reader push on regardless, because the final synthesis that is presented is overwhelmingly important and original. The author explains to us the failure of religion and of life-affirming existentialisms (via the will to power (Nietzsche) or simply the will (Camus, et al)) and offers what is left, a minimalistic condition, to grab on to in the face of the abyss. This concept earned it my 5-star review - don't let the bookcover make you pass this one up.
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
