ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |34 pages

Preamble: Travels in Nihilon

chapter |64 pages

Lecture 1: Il y a

chapter |66 pages

Lecture 2: Unworking romanticism

chapter |50 pages

Lecture 3: Know happiness – on Beckett

chapter |33 pages

Notes 270

chapter |2 pages

Acknowledgements