Very Little ... Almost Nothing

<p><em>Very Little ... Almost Nothing </em>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. <br>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.</p> Abbreviations, Preface to Second Edition: As my father, I have already died, Preamble: Travels in Nihilon, Lecture 1: Il y a, Lecture 2: Unworking romanticism, Lecture 3: Know happiness – on Beckett, Lecture 4: The philosophical significance of a poem – on Wallace Stevens, Notes, Acknowledgements, Index