Very Little-- Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature

Front Cover
Routledge, 1997 - Death - 216 pages
The 'death of man', the 'end of history' and even philosophy are strong and troubling currents running through contemporary debates. Yet since Nietzsche's heralding of the 'death of god', philosophy has been unable to explain the question of finitude.
Very Little...Almost Nothing goes to the heart of this problem through an exploration of Blanchot's theory of literature, Stanley Cavell's interpretations of romanticism and the importance of death in the work of Samuel Beckett. Simon Critchley links these themes to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to present a powerful new picture of how we must approach the importance of death in philosophy.
A compelling reading of the convergence of literature and philosophy, Very Little...Almost Nothing opens up new ways of understanding finitude, modernity and the nature of the imagination.

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About the author (1997)

English philosopher Simon Critchley was born on February 27, 1960. He earned his BA (1985) and PhD (1988) from the University of Essex in England. Critchley received his M.Phil. from France's University of Nice in 1987. Critchley has held university fellow, lecturer, reader, and professor positions and was the Director of the Centre for Theoretical Studies at the University of Essex. Additionally, Critchley was President of the British Society for Phenomenology from 1994-1999, he held a Humboldt Research Fellowship in Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, and was Programme Director of the Collège International de Philosophie. Since 2004 Critchley has taught philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. Critchley's publications include "The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas," the collection of essays "Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity," "Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction," "On Humour," "Things Merely Are," "Infinitely Demanding," and the New York Times bestseller "The Book of Dead Philosophers".

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