Nihilism

Nihilism PDF Author: Nolen Gertz
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262537176
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
An examination of the meaning of meaninglessness: why it matters that nothing matters. When someone is labeled a nihilist, it's not usually meant as a compliment. Most of us associate nihilism with destructiveness and violence. Nihilism means, literally, “an ideology of nothing. “ Is nihilism, then, believing in nothing? Or is it the belief that life is nothing? Or the belief that the beliefs we have amount to nothing? If we can learn to recognize the many varieties of nihilism, Nolen Gertz writes, then we can learn to distinguish what is meaningful from what is meaningless. In this addition to the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Gertz traces the history of nihilism in Western philosophy from Socrates through Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. Although the term “nihilism” was first used by Friedrich Jacobi to criticize the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Gertz shows that the concept can illuminate the thinking of Socrates, Descartes, and others. It is Nietzsche, however, who is most associated with nihilism, and Gertz focuses on Nietzsche's thought. Gertz goes on to consider what is not nihilism—pessimism, cynicism, and apathy—and why; he explores theories of nihilism, including those associated with Existentialism and Postmodernism; he considers nihilism as a way of understanding aspects of everyday life, calling on Adorno, Arendt, Marx, and prestige television, among other sources; and he reflects on the future of nihilism. We need to understand nihilism not only from an individual perspective, Gertz tells us, but also from a political one.

Technology and the Canadian Mind

Technology and the Canadian Mind PDF Author: Arthur Kroker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
The Canadian discourse - Technological dependency: George Grant as the Nietzsche of the New World - Technological humanism : the processed World of Marshall McLuhan - Technological realism : Harold Innis' empire of communications.

The Essence of Nihilism

The Essence of Nihilism PDF Author: Emanuele Severino
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784786128
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
In 1969, Emanuele Severino underwent a Vatican trial for the 'fundamental incompatibility' between his thought and the Christian doctrine, and was removed from his position as professor of philosophy at the Catholic University in Milan. The Essence of Nihilism published in 1972, was the first book to follow his expulsion, and to firmly establish Severino's preeminent position within the constellation of contemporary philosophy. In this groundbreaking book, Severino reinterprets the history of Western philosophy as the unfolding of 'the greatest folly', that is, of the belief that 'things come out of nothing and fall back into nothing'. According to Severino, such a typically Western understanding of reality has produced a belief in the radical 'nothingness' of things. This, in turn has justified the treatment of the world as an object of exploitation, degradation and destruction. To move beyond Western nihilism, suggests Severino, we must first of all 'return to Parmenides'. Joining forces with the most venerable of Greek philosophers, Severino confutes the 'path of night' of nihilism, and develops a new philosophy grounded on the principle of the eternity of reality and of every single existent.

Nihilism, Art, Technology

Nihilism, Art, Technology PDF Author: Sven-Olov Wallenstein
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789186883010
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Book Description
Beginning in an analysis of three paradigmatic instances of the encounter between art and technology in modernism, this work analyzes three philosophical responses to the question of nihilism--those of Walter Benjamin, Ernst Jnger, and Martin Heidegger--all of which are characterized by an avant-garde sensibility that looks to art as a way to counter the crisis of modernity.

Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology

Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology PDF Author: Vincent Blok
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351733621
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Book Description
This book examines the work of Jünger and its effect on the development of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. It offers a unique treatment of Jünger’s philosophy and his conception of the age of technology, in which both world and man appear in terms of their functionality and efficiency. It demonstrates Jünger’s influence on Heidegger’s conceptions of will, work and gestalt at the beginning of the 1930s. At the same time, Blok evaluates Heidegger’s criticism of Jünger and provides a novel interpretation of the Jünger-Heidegger connection: that Jünger’s work in fact testifies to a transformation of our relationship to language and conceptualizes the future in terms of the Anthropocene.

Medical Nihilism

Medical Nihilism PDF Author: Jacob Stegenga
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198747047
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
Medical nihilism is the view that we should have little confidence in the effectiveness of medical interventions. Jacob Stegenga argues persuasively that this is how we should see modern medicine, and suggests that medical research must be modified, clinical practice should be less aggressive, and regulatory standards should be enhanced.

The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger

The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger PDF Author: Charles Guignon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521385978
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
This volume contains both overviews of Heidegger's life and works and analysis of his most important work, Being and Time.

Ontology of Construction

Ontology of Construction PDF Author: Gevork Hartoonian
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521586450
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Book Description
Ontology of Construction explores theories of construction in modern architecture, focusing on the relationship between nihilism of technology and architecture. The essays articulate the implications of technology in works by such architects as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies Van der Rohe. Hartoonian also examines Gottfried Semper's discourse on the tectonic and the relationship between architecture and other crafts. Emphasizing "fabrication" as a critical theme for contemporary architectural theory and practice, Ontology of Construction is a provocative contribution to the current debate in these areas.

Positive Nihilism

Positive Nihilism PDF Author: Hartmut Lange
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262534266
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Book Description
A German writer's aphoristic, poetic, and difficult reflections on Heidegger's Being and Time. There is a beyond of reason and unreason. It is the human psyche. —Positive Nihilism Like many German intellectuals, Hartmut Lange has long grappled with Heidegger. Positive Nihilism is the result of a lifetime of reading Being and Time and offers a series of reflections that are aphoristic, poetic, and (appropriately, considering his object of study) difficult. Lange begins with an abyss (“There is an abyss of the finite. It is temporality”) and proceeds almost immediately to extremity: “The twentieth century was governed by psychopaths. They collapsed the boundaries of moral reason and refuted Kant's analysis of consciousness.” He reflects further: “But who shall punish whom? One man's virtue is another man's crime. Thus Hitler could feel unwaveringly, as he wiped out entire populations, the starry sky above him and the moral law within him, as stipulated by Kant.” He considers the concept of civilization (“misleading”; “how should one oppose the remedies of civilization to the egomania, the murderous appetites of such outright psychopaths as Stalin or Pol Pot?”), the act of thinking (a fata morgana), the psyche, and Heidegger's Dasein. Positive Nihilism can be considered a pocket companion to Being and Time. “Heidegger's understanding of Being is nihilistic,” Lange writes, and then explains his assertion. He draws on Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Shakespeare's Othello for supporting arguments and illustrations. “Everyone is possessed of the courage to have angst about death. The question is whether this courage necessarily secures those vital advantages Heidegger alleges”–that “self-understanding [is] the mental anticipation of death.” Lange wrestles with Heidegger's position, calling on Tolstoy, Georg Trakl, Herman Bang, and Heinrich von Kleist to argue against it.
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