Very Little ... Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy and Literature

Very Little ... Almost Nothingputs the question of the meaning of life back at the center 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. For 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.

Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York and at the University of Essex, and Directeur de Programme, College International de Philosophie, Paris. He is author and editor of many books