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Customer Reviews (6)

God becomes Man, Man becomes Insane
This is an extremely impressive entry into the (seemingly) never-ending contest to come up with the most coherent 'story of modernity'. As such it should be read alongside not only the accounts of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger but also those of philosophical historians of modernity like Hans Blumenberg, Karl Lowith, Alasdair MacIntyre and Bernard Yack.

The story that our author wants to tell begins with the rejection of the rationalism (i.e., Aristotelianism) of the falasifa (i.e., al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes), Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas by the Latin Theologians. Today, we tend to think of Latin Scholasticism as a monolithic structure with Aquinas somehow serving as both foundation and capstone. But this is only a confession that one hasn't read the medievals at all. Indeed, the (now infamous) Condemnation of 1277 was in fact aimed not only at exponents of 'radical Averroism' like Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia but also Aquinas himself. In the wake of this ill-conceived condemnation the thought of (most of the) significant subsequent thinkers in the Latin West (i.e., Duns Scotus, Ockham) turned ever more decisively to the God of Absolute Will and His nominalistic World, i.e., the via moderna. Even thinkers who consciously thought of themselves as Thomists (Suarez, for instance) in fact turned away from crucial aspects of Thomistic thought.I should add that we do not even know if the Papacy had a hand in the Great Condemnation or if the Bishop of Paris, Tempier, acted on his own because much ofthe documentation seems to have been 'conveniently' lost.

But I have gotten ahead of myself! At first blush comparing the present study to those of Blumenberg, Lowith and MacIntyre might seem quite a stretch. One might think that this book is a very focused study of an extremely narrow aspect of the relentless march to modernity. But Gillespie doesn't see it that way and I agree. For instance. in contrast to Blumenberg ('Legitimacy of the Modern World') Gillespie argues that the modern concept of Will is but the secularized version of the Will of the God of (nothing but) Divine Omnipotence. This medievalconception of God originates in the wake of the Great Condemnation and, in its rejection of the limits that Reason imposes on Omnipotence, is (I think) but the Latin form of Arabic Kalam (i.e., speculative theology). Gillespie also maintains, against Blumenberg, that the modern conception of Will (self-assertion to Blumenberg) leads, thanks to the rejection of rationalism it inherits from the medieval divines, to the de-legitimacy of modernity.Indeed, arguing against Yack ('The Longing for Total Revolution), Gillespie points out that the problem with modernity isn't perpetual longing for goals but rather the "repeated rejection of all attained goals as limitations on human freedom". ...Moderns can thus never be satisfied; and this would indeed be nihilism. A caveat though: Gillespie doesn't think this understanding exhausts the possibilities of modernity; indeed, he holds out the hope that a chastened liberalism can yet learn to 'muddle through' and stand up to the various supermen (whether reactionary, revolutionary or postmodern) that want to ever "create the world anew through the application of infinite will." ...Good luck Mr. Gillespie!

Now back to our story. As we have seen, nihilism (contra Nietzsche) did not rise due to the 'death of God' but, according to our author, rose thanks to the inception of an entirely new way of understanding (the Omnipotence of) God by the late medieval nominalists and their followers. For Scotus, "who asserted that de potentia absoluta God could do everything that was not contradictory, concluded that even if God did act inordinata, it would entail the immediate creation of a new order." But for Ockham, even this isn't enough. "Indeed, Ockham even maintains that God can change the past if he so desires." Thus there is no longer any (necessary) Order to God's Power. It is this God, whose Will is indescribably 'free', that ends up as the deceiving god of Descartes. However, after his 'conquest' of doubt, Descartes takes this unmoored Will, freed by God's reduction (thanks to the Cogito) to the role of Guarantor of Science, and ties it to the Human Project of the Conquest of Nature. Thus Divine Omnipotence became an anthropological category. ...But what of Reason? "To think, for Descartes, however, is ultimately to will." ...And what of the Cartesian God? Gillespie will say that, "[H]e cannot deceive us and as a result is irrelevant for science." In the end one can perhaps then best understand the scientific project as the declaration of war against God: Where God was Man shall be.

Of course, Gillespie doesn't simply maintain that all this is Descartes position. "While this potentiality was latent in the thought of Descartes, it was counterbalanced by the rational element in his thought." The next major philosopher that Gillespie discusses in detail is Fichte. Naturally Gillespie begins this discussion with Kant. "For Kant the fundamental philosophical problem is the antinomy of freedom and natural causality." Kant 'solves' this, to almost no ones satisfaction, by positing the phenomenal and (unreachable) noumenal realms. "For Fichte, the I is all." By this Gillespie means the "absolute I of the general will or practical reason." This I is limited by the phenomenal realm of nature. "The I is thus alienated from itself." First through reason (theory) and then through Will the absolute I will attempt to overcome this alienation.But, as we see in most dialectical thought, one term is sacrificed to the other. "The I is thus the source of the objective world. This recognition that the not-I is only a moment of the I, however, does not produce reconciliation and perfect freedom." At first blush one might think this anarchistic egotism. Not so! We all participate in the absolute I, and thus 'experience' perfect freedom and absolute power, through the "feelings and emotions of the people"! Thus the Absolute I attains a most pedestrian view.

At the beginning of modernity Descartes struggles against omnipotent Divine Will (the deceiver god) but Fichte's absolute I embodies, to a frightening degree, this all-powerful caprice. This refusal to recognize anything beyond itself is what Jacobi called nihilism. In the space that Amazon provides it is impossible to go into more detail about this book. Suffice it to say that, for Gillespie, Nietzsche doesn't overthrow modernity; he exaggerates its most dubious component - the Will. He takes the omnipotent irrational Will of his predecessors and offers it to anyone Willing to take it. It would now seem that nihilism is not the death of God - but rather the Nietzschean Overman's irrational Imitatio Dei (Imitation of God).

I have given, in this review, perhaps undue space to the beginning of Gillespie's story because most people today entirely ignore medieval philosophy and I wanted to show its importance. Gillespie divides up his book neatly into three sections: Descartes, Fichte and Nietzsche. Suffice it to say that in a brief review like this one cannot even hope to bring out the rich detail of Gillespie's argument. I found the section on Fichte especially eye-opening. This is a superb book, four and a half stars!

Dark Night of the Noumenal I
This work challenges Nietzsche's claim on the term and concept of 'nihilism'.
Hegel's notion of the history of philosophy in relation to a philosophy of history seems as obscure as the core of (his)philosophy itself, yet the history of philosophy is closely cousin to the dynamics of the modern, and we see Hegel's point better than he in the strange way the rise of modernity transforms a complex series of thoughts, streaming in from the medieval, evoked and tuned by Descartes, climaxing in the period of Kant,and his successors, the relation of Fichte to Kant being crucial, yet with an echo of Descartes. It is all too arcane, and proceeds in disguises. Like particles in an atom smasher the breakdown products stream across the nineteenth century and beyond. The point is that anything succeeding the period of early transformation has a poor chance of escaping the comprehensive nature of the 'history' as 'philosophy'.
Nietzsche cries out to be seen as entirely original, progressing beyond this peak,in some ways he is, yet we should wonder at his place in this sequence. Sure enough, as this work shows, the connection is direct. The relation to Schopenhauer is the obvious clue, but in this fascinating and quite compelling account Gillespie digs deeper to find the direct relationship to Fichte, and his response to the achievement of Kant. Fichte is the fall guy, forever excoriated, yet the man who is the key to what comes later. Here the words 'will', 'absolute I', and 'god' are the verbal chimeras of Fichte's entry into the noumenal realm, a venture denounced with his last breath by Kant. From there the explanation is suddenly clear, almost too clear perhaps, and proceeds through the Romantics, Hegel, the Left Hegelians, the Russian nihilists, and finally Nietzsche and his Dionysus.
Nietzscheans should tighten their seatbelts here, but the ride is worth it. Fascinating piece.

Gillespie, Just Like God is Allowed, So Are Semantics!
In Nihilism Before Nietzsche, Michael Allen Gillespie argues that Nietzsche ripped off his entire philosophy from Schopenhauer, Kant, and Fichte.His "Will to Power" concept, says Gillespie, that Nietzsche says it is in all things, is proof that Nietzsche believes in the absolute.That Nietzsche even developed the Will to Power is due to his early influence and later rejection of Schopenhauer's "Will to Life."That Kant and Fichte worked with concerns for the noemena or "Beyond" is where Nietzsche becomes able to have his phenomenal world boundaries, says Gillespie.Nietzsche's concept of Nihilism comes not from the great analytic tradition where the absolute nothing of the Beyond is deified, but rather from active Russian Nihilism, he says.His Dionysus concept that sprung Nietzsche's Overman comes from Wagner and indicates "the radically free will not bound by past actions, [where] change is the result not of determinate negation but of absolute negation" (252).This capricious transrational will was common to the nominalist notion of God, he says.Therefore, Nietzsche is not novel, but has simply reinvented Christianity under a new guise.

Gillespie's point against the novelty or originality of Nietzsche's working conditions is flatly outside of the realm of philosophy.He clearly has not taken into consideration Nietzsche's meaning, which is Nietzsche's epistemological work-ethic in action.Rather, the case for Gillespie is to see who came up with what first.What consolation this ultimatum of novelty has one can only guess.Certainly, the boundaries and concepts Nietzsche works with come from his exposure to his milieu.What is the point of that?Certainly he would not quarrel over such trifles in action, although he certainly thought himself to be novel.That he was novel does not fall, however, simply because of the claims Gillespie raises.The man discovered things against his backdrop; we are being-there-with-others.How does the coincidental discovery of working concepts by someone after another say anything for the meaning of their philosophy?And as far as the claim of the "Will to Power" as evidence of Nietzsche's absolute is concerned, clearly no acknowledgment of Nietzsche's meaning has been made whatsoever here.What the Will to Power is resides in the human, but is encroached by the structures wielding the herd instinct.That is where Nietzsche is working, as we have seen, and that has nothing to do with a Beyond or any absolute.Rather, it is dealing within the now.There is no "omnipotent will" in Nietzsche, particularly because his prime motivation was the fear that Christianity and its universalist bastard offshoots would write the individual out of existence all together.Nietzsche's refusal to throw out any human system, contrary to the cultural philistine and, really, contemporary self-professed post-modern "radicals," clearly shows that his last resort, "The Last Man" no less, is one that maintains the system of Christianity as such before doing away with it.This is out of respect, the most profound respect in this writer's opinion, for the human being, the individual, self-with-other, known because there is the other.To get rid of that is indeed to extirpate willing altogether - a very real Angst residing in the eminent probability that nothing is absolute.Nietzsche, therefore, remains in a continuously willed positivistic phenomenology.The popular willing the belief in a rational ghost of will that is behind all things Nietzsche saw as leading to the creation of conditions allowing the end of the individual's willing.Christianity as a system to Nietzsche was a willing nothing, but not an absense of willing.That absense of any willing at all is Nietzsche's understanding of Nihilism, be it semantically different from apologists of idealism like Gillespie or not.And that the Christian's detriment to the individual's willing logically brings the prospect of no willing whatsoever, this cancels out any and all absolutes.This Nihilism is possible, and Nietzsche continues to hail as the most Anti-Nihilist philosopher thus far.Gillespie is sorely off the mark; too much time in the hollows of academia.Should one want anything to do with Nietzshe's philosophy, this book is a waste of time and could even be called a bag of utterly pompous namedroppings from the rotting epochs of the obfuscation of truth we can only respect insofar as our reaction to them has plunged us on.Whether that "on" is progress, however, is up to the individual to decide.Quibbling about semantics and what self-acclaimed, anachronistic "philosophers" INTENDED universally, rather than what their actions indicate, is all this book ammounts to.And thereto, it is very close to not willing anything but a bullet in the foot, that is, if any philosophy was to be done.Rather, read some R.J. Hollingdale on Nietzsche.Or, perhaps, read me on my geocities website.

Thorough and Entertaining
Gillespie makes clear his understanding of nihilism the book takes an almost history of Nihilisam approach to create a new idea of the often confused philosophy found in Nihilism.The book is well written and a sweet read.

Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?
In this work, Michael Gillespie attempts to find the roots of nihilism in European thought.Unlike Nietzsche who argues that nihilism arises from the death of God, Gillespie contends that nihilism in fact comes from a new understanding of God, as omnipotent will.Where does this new understanding come from?Gillespie contends that it originated in the middle ages in the realist versus nominalist debates.The medievals drew a distinction between God's power as "potentia absoluta" (absolute power) and "potentia ordinata" (ordered power).The scholastics on the side of the realists contended that God would not supersede his potentia ordinata; however those who sided with the nominalists, such as William of Ockham, contended that God was indeed omnipotent so He could do as he pleased.This debate came to a head, and was played out during the Reformation.Thus, the nominalists presented a new understanding of God, and it is precisely here where nihilism originated.

Gillespie argues that in the thought of Descartes (and in his near omnipotent "evil genius", deceiver God) modern philosophy began and nominalism triumphed.However, the omnipotent God of will was too frightening for Descartes so he created a bastion (based on "I think therefore I am") for reason and man's freedom.Gillespie traces this development through time as it arrives in the hands of Fichte and his absolute I.Fichte was attacked as a nihilist by Jacobi because his philosophy was one of appearances ("and therefore of nothing").Nihilism then was developed by the German Romantics.Gillespie uses Blake's poem "Tyger" and the Romantic heroes Manfred and Faust to illustrate the rise of "the demonic", the omnipotent God of will.Gillespie then considers the thought of Hegel and it's development by the Left Hegelians.Next, Gillespie turns his attention to the Russian nihilists, and their political revolution (an overturning of values).Finally, Gillespie considers Nietzsche himself, his concept of the Dionysian (as opposed to the "Crucified"), his relationship to Schopenhauer and thereby Fichte (as Gillespie states, "his reversal of Schopenhauer was a reversal of Schopenhauer's reversal of Fichte that brought him full circle back to Fichte").Finally, Gillespie considers the importance of understanding nihilism for the modern world.

Overall this is a very well written and profound book, which takes a seriously look at the history of nihilism and how that history has played out in the modern world.I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject. ... Read more

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Most significant problems of contemporary life have their origins in nihilism and its paradoxical logic, which is simultaneously destructive to and constitutive of society. Yet, in social theory, nihilism is a surprisingly under-researched topic.

This book develops a systematic account of nihilism in its four main forms: escapism, radical nihilism, passive nihilism and 'perfect nihilism.' It focuses especially on the disjunctive synthesis between passive nihilism (the negation of the will) and radical nihilism (the will to negation), between the hedonism/disorientation that characterizes the contemporary post-political culture and the emerging forms of despair and violence as a reaction to it.

The book deals with nihilism at three levels. First, it addresses the genealogy and consequences of nihilism, which is followed by an excursus through film analysis. Then the book focuses on the 'social,' relating nihilism to capitalism, post-politics and terrorism. Another excursus fleshes out the theoretical argumens by focusing on Houellebecq's fiction. Finally, the possibilities of overcoming nihilism are considered by emphasizing the significance of concepts such as event, agonism and antagonism in this context.

Customer Reviews (2)

Brilliant
This is the best exposition and criticism of nihilism that I have read.Donald Crosby does a masterful job of shedding new light on each tenet of the philosophy.The most interesting part, to me, is that Crosby shows how the roots of nihilism are actually to be found in Western religious traditions, which initially seems counter-intuitive.

Some background in philosophy would be helpful before reading this book, but it doesn't take an academic to understand the content and the discussions.Dr. Crosby has done a great service by writing this book; as the previous reviewer stated, it truly does deserve to be read by a wide audience.

A masterful book on a critical subject
This book is very well written, and Crosby has a very solid grasp of all the issues.All the major arguments for nihilism are described in an eloquent way that makes their appeal clear.But the errors at the basis of nihilism are uncovered, and nihilism is shown to be philosophically untenable.This is one of the very best works of philosophy of the last 20 years.It deserves to be widely read.This society badly needs to reflect on its nihilism rather than just drown in an adolescent culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Applied Kojeve
If nihilism is silence, that fits Kojeve's definition of silence as the only alternative to complete wisdom. Kojeve plots every philosophy in a little chart, and along one axis is time and the other axis is truth, and every philosopher can be understood as occupying one spot in the grid. So what Rosen does is present a history of nihilism that fits the precursors of contemporary nihilism in one spot or another on the grid. The origin of modern nihilism, as Rosen presents it, in very Nietzschean fashion, is Christianity. By locating the good in some distant beyond, Christianity broke from paganism by separating the good from the useful, and thereby separated reason from application to this world. Thus Kant's distinction between reason and understanding is an unwitting repetition of Christianity, which is exactly Kojeve's version of Kant as the typical Christian philosopher. Of course, Rosen is not a Hegelian but a Straussian, and the historical exercise is conducted in the name of a return to the classical political rationalism of Plato and Aristotle. An excellent book, Rosen at his most candid and clear.

Good !
Stanley Rosen says nihilism is the position that obtains when all speech becomes like silence- once all values become justifiable they also become meaningless.Wittgenstein and Heidegger represent the two movements in modern philosophy that Rosen accuses of rejecting the authority of words.

The first part of the book brings out the similarities between fundamental ontology and ordinary language philosophy.Rosen shows that common to both is the misguided attempted to create themselves ex-nihilo while the major difference lies in their use of tools - one group uses sledgehammers while the other makes due with a nail file. Rosen then goes on to defend classical philosophy against Heidegger's charge that Plato dehumanized and devalued human existence- thus bring nihilism to the west.

Stanley Rosen does a exceedingly good job of showing how existentialism reduces to the very thing it tries to escape -- in the end the master becomes defined by his slave--

Rosen out of his mind
Rosen says at one point that he set out to fill the gaping hole in Strauss's platonism, the entire absence of an ontology, or as Rosen calls, a technical philosophical doctrine. If for Strauss the ideas are"fantastic, not to say incredible," Rosen rejoins: and nothingyou say changes that. Rosen is thus determined recover a true Plato, thephilosophical plato, and with the help of Heidegger's Wiederholung of thegigantomachia, but explicitly against Heidegger. The project is thus tosave Strauss from Heidegger by using Heidegger against himself to fill inthe esoteric but hollow core of Straussian platonism. Capisce? That is theproject of Nihilism, and Rosen never shys away from confronting Heideggerhead-on. Yet Rosen, to his detriment, never learned one important lessonfrom Strauss: the depths are contained in the surface, and only in thesurface, of things. For Strauss that meant, to my mind, that philosophy isalways political because it can never be technical. Rosen's 'ordinarylanguage metaphysics' is sensible enough, but Rosen himself (despite whathe says) is deeply impatient with politics (and philosophy) preciselybecause he fails to see that politics is the surface that contains thedepths. ... Read more

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This book explores the idea of nihilism, emphasized by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, through its appearance in modern popular culture. The author defines and reflects upon nihilism, then explores its manifestation in films and television shows.

Among the subjects examined are the award-winning television series The Sopranos and the film noir genre that preceded and influenced it. Films probed include Orson Welles’s masterpiece Citizen Kane, the films of Stanley Kubrick, Neil Jordan’s controversial The Crying Game and Richard Linklater’s unconventional Waking Life.

Finally, the author considers nihilism in terms of the decay of traditional values in the genre of westerns, mostly through works of filmmaker John Ford. In the concluding chapter the author broadens the lessons gleaned from these studies, maintaining that the situated and embodied nature of human life must be understood and appreciated before people can overcome the life-negating effects of nihilism. ... Read more

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This volume brings together essays by different generations of Italian thinkers which address, whether in affirmative, problematizing or genealogical registers, the entanglement of philosophical speculation and political proposition within recent Italian thought. Nihilism and biopolitics, two concepts that have played a very prominent role in theoretical discussions in Italy, serve as the thematic foci around which the collection orbits, as it seeks to define the historical and geographical particularity of these notions as well their continuing impact on an international debate. The volume also covers the debate around 'weak thought' (pensiero debole), the feminist thinking of sexual difference, the re-emergence of political anthropology and the question of communism. The contributors provide contrasting narratives of the development of post-war Italian thought and trace paths out of the theoretical and political impasses of the present-against what Negri, in the text from which the volume takes its name, calls 'the Italian desert'. ... Read more

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A highly critical account of analytic philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A vibrant antidote to the numbing austerity of analytic philosophy
This isn't your typical philosophy book.In fact, part of Wilshire's aim is to help us fathom what's wrong with the typical philosophy book.I think he can succeed for most readers who aren't already too far gone.

Via nine essays covering a range of interrelated topics, Wilshire uses his very personal writing style to try to jar us out of the numbingly austere technical mentality which is endemic to analytic philosophy.The hope is that we will wake up and thereby embrace our actual lived experience more fully, in all its dimensions, depths, and contours.To accomplish this, Wilshire pluralistically draws on pragmatism, phenomenology, existentialism, and Native American worldviews, thereby revealing the fundamental concordance among these worldviews.I think that much of Eastern philosophy also fits in here, but he doesn't really go into that.

The earlier essays tend to be reasonably straightforward, with parts that are even easy and fun.As we progress through the book, the essays become denser and take on an increasingly spiritual bent.In the final essay, Wilshire discusses the life and death of his daughter, and I was moved to tears ...

This is a powerful book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who turns to philosophy to help grapple with difficult and important existential matters, rather than just using philosophy as yet another distraction (albeit a highbrow intellectual one).

Disorganized, poorly written
This book gives the impression of a hastily thrown together undergraduate essay, full of incoherent arguments, non-sequiturs, and emotional invective.

Sometimes it even degenerates into flaky "new-age" sounding statements ("the full sustaining and regenerating flow of the universe through our resonating bodies").

This is a shame, because in my opinion the thesis of the book, spelled out somewhat articulately in the preface, seems to me to have some merit. Wilshire's claim is that analytic philosophy, in which the speaking subject is always absent and replaced by an artificial "mood of detachment," tends to "unwittingly impoverish" the philosopher's conception of himself. The resulting arid speculation fails to deal with the real substantive problems of philosophy.

A much better essay, which presents a similar claim, but much more articulately and persuasively, is a paper by Babette Babich titled "On the Analytic-Continental Divide in Philosophy: Nietzsche's Lying Truth, Heidegger's Speaking Language, and Philosophy," reprinted in C. G. Prado, ed., A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Amherst, NY: Prometheus/Humanity Books. 2003, pp. 63-103.

A Timely Critique of Analytical Philosophy
I found this book of considerable value for understanding the philosophical situation in America today. It demonstrates very convincingly the deep differences between analytical and continental/American approaches to the field, and this is already quite informative. But it goes on from here to show that analytical philosophy is unable to assume the responsibility of pursuing a genuinely humanistic and humane thought -- and thus is unable to address the great issues of our day. At its core, it is a nihilistic enterprise that is absorbed in the play and interplay of linguistic and conceptual systems, thereby sealing itself off from the most profound ethical and political issues of the contemporary world. Despite its remarkable logical power, it becomes a self-inhibiting and self-defeating way of doing philosophy. Something else is called for, and the author points to this other direction -- inspired by American and continental philosophy -- eloquently and forcefully.

many ways of knowing
Professor Wilshire calls for, and admirably practices, self-reflection, as he critiques the commercialization/professionalization and dehistoricizing trend of analytic philosophy.He celebrates freedom and ecstasy in a spiritual, passionate inquiry committed to pursuing difficult questions, wherever they may lead.

He takes risks, not least of which is deliberately remembering, even that which is most painful.

Someone who has survived academia without being tainted by it,
he is also one of the very few men who can truly appreciate the radical feminist theology/thealogy of Mary Daly.

What's not to love?

A Passionate Thinker
This book is a "must read" for anyone interested in the recent history of philosophy in America, or who cares about its future. Wilshire takes sure aim at a philosophy that"mangle[s] the roots of our thinking-feeling-evaluating selves." Analytical philosophy,an approach to consciousnessand self that wedsphilosophy to the style ofnatural sciences, can disable self-conceptions, leaving us with nihilism. It canall too easily reduce flesh or body to lifeless matter, morph minds and imaginationsinto chemicals and `wiring,' and deflate sacred ceremony and mythto no more than childish mimicry and fable. Whatever happened to Socratic "care for the soul"?These elegantly crafted essays are a treat to read.Wilshire nurtures an affirmative celebration ofthe passion of philosophy. No one will want to miss his account-- the best I've seen -- of the battle in the late `70's between mainstream analysts andmarginalized American phenomenologists andexistentialists forrecognition in the American Philosophical Association.Later chapters rethink Native Americanthought,considerHenry Bugbee, a neglected American "philosopher of intimacy,"andrevisit William James' concern for`the spiritual.'Wilshire ends with a elegiac meditation on his daughter's deaththatbears out his philosophical spirit-- such proof as can be given that nihilism does not speak the final word. ... Read more

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This is an original collection of essays that aims to grasp Nietzsche's prescience through Heidegger's critique of his understanding of nihilism. When Nietzsche announced 'the advent of nihilism' in 1887/88, he argued that he was sketching 'the history of the next two centuries': 'For some time now', he wrote, 'our whole European culture has been moving as toward catastrophe [...]: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that want to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect'. Can we gain a ground for reflection upon our own condition? Can we heed Nietzsche's warning? Can we respond to the challenge? In this book, eleven newly commissioned essays from leading scholars offer an attempt to grasp Nietzsche's prescience through Heidegger's critique of it, and so by attempting to think through the philosophical consequences of the last century in reading the signs of our own condition. The book also provides a fascinating and unique discussion of some of the lesser-known texts of the later Heidegger. "Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in the field of modern European thought.The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the discipline. ... Read more

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This book introduces the writings of one of the most influential social philosophers in Italy today to an English-speaking audience. Massimo Cacciari studies the relation between philosophy and modern architecture and applies the thinking of avant-garde architects, artists, and writers to the social and political problems raised by technological society. ... Read more

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A Companion to Nietzsche provides a comprehensive guide to all the main aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, profiling the most recent research and trends in scholarship.

• Brings together an international roster of both rising stars and established scholars, including many of the leading commentators and interpreters of Nietzsche.
  
• Showcases the latest trends in Nietzsche scholarship, such as the renewed focus on Nietzsche’s philosophy of time, of nature, and of life.
  
• Includes clearly organized sections on Art, Nature, and Individuation; Nietzsche's New Philosophy of the Future; Eternal Recurrence, the Overhuman, and Nihilism; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy and Genealogy; Ethics; Politics; Aesthetics; Evolution and Life.
  
• Features fresh treatments of Nietzsche’s core and enigmatic doctrines.

Customer Reviews (1)

I've found companionship in the Blackwell Companion to Nietzsche
As a senior undergraduate English/Philosophy major, this book has been invaluable to my studies. I am about to finish an independent study focusing on N's relationship with Gothic literature, and I've used eight articles just from this book to help pin down and express his theories (those interested in N, I also suggest "What Nietzsche Really Said" by Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins (who are also published in the Blackwell Companion), which has been an extremely informative and down to earth read... but I digress). Anyway, I would suggest this book to anyone who has had some preliminary study in N's theories, or who has read a few of his books and is looking for some more specific tailoring of his ideas. I wouldn't start off with it though, as some of the essays are pretty complex, and require a fair amount of exposure to N. ... Read more

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Professor Thielicke's lectures on nihilism deal with the experience of nothingness in Europe after World War II, and trace the development of the "ism" which attempts to interpret that experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Extremely Insighful Look at the Nihilist-Christian View
An excellent addition to any library due to its extraordinary look at life seen through the eyes of Nihilism.Very interesting points, even though I did not agree with all of them.Nonetheless, this book challenged my thinking and made me approach the Bible with fresh eyes and renewed faith.

An extraordinary look at nihilism
This is one of the most stimulating (and damning)
investigations into what Thielicke calls
"the lonely ism", nihilism.

Avoiding a cold rationalist approach, Thielicke
instead investigates the "fruits" of nihilism,
arguing that there are only two possibilities
of belief, namely theism and nihilism.
Thielicke then goes to great lengths to
demonstrate that true nihilism is itself not
possible in action.

This is truly a classic work of apologetics, written
by a master theologian with a brilliant
and perceptive mind.A "must read" for theists,
philosophers, and theologians, but still
accessible to the layman. ... Read more

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This study investigates the loss of religion's traditional power in a culture characterized by a "normal nihilism" - a situation in which one's commitment to a set of values is all one has and traditional religion is just a means of interpretation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A work that makes you slap your head and yell "YES!"
I was introduced to this text in a class taught by Richard Rorty from whom James Edwards draws much of his discourse.The book was almost revelatory in its effect on me.It eloquently (though sometimes difficultly) expressed feelings and thoughts I'd had my entire life but could never fully express.He writes to "End of Century Western Intellectuals" which refers to all those who have intuitvely searched for some sort of "meaning" or "truth" but who have likely found most ostensible sources of such meaning to be hollow and weak.You will not find truth here either but you might find the explanation as to why that might be OK.

My obdurate hankering for the ineffable is gone !
Before reading James C. Edwards new book, the closest I had come to "Fear and Trembling" was some occasional fear and loathing. Okay, a lifetime of fear and loathing. Then halfway through "The Plain Senseof Things" I realized that I knew more about country music than I didSoren Kierkegarde. So off I went to the public library, where no one hadeven heard of Soren Kierkegarde. Somehow, we figured out how to spell hisname. So I checked out "Fear and Trembling." No wonder I hadnever read this book! In summary, any book that can make somebody go to thepublic library, knowing full well that he or she will end up paying someridiculous fine because they are constitutionally incapable of returningthe book on time, to check out and actually try to read something by SorenKierkegarde, and I'm not talking about "the light side of SorenKierkegarde" either, is one hell of a provocative read !

Exquisite
A rare, relevant, perhaps even urgent, achievement.Edwards skillfully and lucidly negotiates the complexities of, elicits the subtle kinships amongst, several philosophical diagnosticians of western culture, amongwhom Nietzsche, Heidegger and Kierkegaard figure most prominently. Edwards' ambition and ability far exceeds the merely expository.He weavesa compelling tale, drawn from various threads of the West's philosophicalheritage, of how we -- a powerfully invitational 'we' whose reach proves tobe remarkably broad -- came to our present state of reflective malaisewhich seems to aggravate our obdurate hankering for the ineffable, underthe shadow of which stands much of contemporary "unbelief,"however robust.With canny persistence, Edwards pursues several importantconsequences of this situation, exposes their risks, and elegantlyconjures, from what he has gleaned from his philosophical forebears, avision of rigor, of the piety that inspires rigor, divested of thosecommitments which no longer survive the imperatives of truthfulness.

Serious inquiry into meaning; accessible
This book was written by my professor and advisor in Philosophy.He is an amazing teacher, and muchthis comes across in this book.The subject of the book is a relevant one, and the perspective he offers is refreshing. His book largely deals with the question, "How do we give our livesmeaning in an age where religion has lost its POWER?"He examines howthis loss of power has come about in broad terms, and sees our society asone in which beliefs about the world are all devalued and convenient,available to anyone to pick and choose like clothes in a shopping mall. Dr. Edwards does not put up with philosophical talk that does not have realmeaning or relevance to one's life.He speaks plainly, and he will makeyou think. ... Read more

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This book features an important collection of essays examining Nietzsche's response to contemporary nihilism. "Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Philosophy of the Future" examines Nietzsche's analysis of and response to contemporary nihilism, the sense that nothing has value or meaning. Eleven newly-commissioned essays from an influential team of contributors illustrate the richness and complexity of Nietzsche's thought by bringing together a diverse collection of perspectives on Nietzsche. Nietzsche's engagement with nihilism has been relatively neglected by recent scholarship, despite the fact that Nietzsche himself regarded it as one of the most original and important aspect of his thought. This book addresses that gap in the literature by exploring this central and compelling area of Nietzsche's thought. The essays concentrate on Nietzsche's philosophical analysis of nihilism, the cultural politics of his reaction to nihilism, and the rhetorical dimensions and intricacies of his texts. "Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in the field of modern European thought.The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the discipline. ... Read more

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Conor Cunningham's elaborate and sophisticated theology, spanning the disciplines of philosophy, science and popular culture, permits us to see not simply how modernity has formulated its philosophies of nothing, but how these philosophies might be transfigures by the crucial difference theology makes, and so be reconcilable with life, and the living - with the very gift which being is. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Meh
I am no professional philosopher of any kind but I am an amateur study. I think they did a good job in this book of explaining nihilistic philosophies in ways but the whole refutation is simply a baseless assertion in belief to "imagine" one's self out of the valid issues that nihilistic philosophers bring up. The authors bring up the UTILITY of comfort that the belief in Christ and absolute value through God, but they do not really establish the solidity of such a thing. It is a placeholder, a fragile bridge over the chasm of meaninglessness that could never span the full breadth of reality. But the utility of it is indeed there nontheless.The effect of believing in God is the effect of believing in God, not the effect ofGod.

Ultimately only useful to people who still have Christian faith. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

Getting out of our respective ghettoes
A very important book in the Radical Orthdoxy series, and probably my favourite of those I've read so far. Conor Cunningham does a wonderful job not only in tracing back through the history of modern nihilism, but also of making sense of all the philosophical writings of the many key figures he surveys as he shows that the main feature of nihilism is the "nothing as something."

Cunningham begins with going back to Plotinus, showing that his theory of the One is very much a pagan one, drawing directly from Hesiod's Theogony which is a pagan myth of the creation of the world. From there he makes moves to Avicenna, Henry of Ghent, William of Ockham, and then, of course, to John Duns Scotus, the first Christian thinker to incorporate Plotinian and Avicennian ideas into his thought. Scotus to Spinoza, to Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida.

Contrary to Milbank's Theology & Social Theory, after reading each section I could think to myself, "I understand Scotus," "I understand Spinoza," or "I understand Hegel"; in Milbank's magnum opus, I often found myself lost in his murky language and his assumptions that I've read as much as he has. Cunningham does not fall back on this assumption and provides an overview with the understanding that readers may not have necessarily read each philosopher. He endnotes every section heavily, working through each philospher's thought, re-explaining it, and then each time offering an even further clarifying "in other words" to illuminate each philosopher's thought in light of his thesis of the nothing as something.

In the second half of the book called "The difference of Theology," he provides a final survey of nihilism, showing that it tries to make everything the same, creating an indifference to all difference. In so doing, he shows that modernity can no longer speak meaningfully, especially in the observation that it often cannot see any difference between a holocaust and an ice cream cone. On the other hand, Cunningham shows that theology does not want to get rid of difference but affirm it in love, making a very Trinitarian move.

The final chapter ties everything together beautifully, making two points. The first point is that the meontotheological logic of nihilism's nothing as something is actually very similar to theology's creation ex nihilo. Cunningham admits to stumbling upon this similarity not intentionally. The second point, based upon the first, emphases that as the gift of creation we are to be co-creators with God in the giving and receiving of the Church, we are to find and be love where there is hatred, find form in the formless, and therefore create something where there is nothing.This "co-creation" is not articulated in the sense that God needs us to be his "co-pilot", but in the sense that God is so indescribably loving that God creates (creation and thus humans as a part of that creation) and desires us to participate in that divine gift of love that gives.

This is an absolutely amazing book that is often overlooked in the Radical Orthodoxy series. I highly recommend it.

Difficult, demanding -and truly brilliant!
This is a difficult book, but truly superb - hence the difficulty! I had my doubts about "Radical Orthodoxy" but this book has removed many of them. ... Read more

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Nietzsche and Heidegger saw in modernity a time endangered by nihilism. Starting out from this interpretation, David Levin links the nihilism raging today in Western society and culture to our concrete historical experience with vision. ... Read more

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