Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction [Hardcover]

This book pushes nihilism to its ultimate conclusion by linking revisionary naturalism in Anglo-American philosophy with anti-phenomenological realism in French philosophy. Contrary to the 'post-analytic' consensus uniting Heidegger and Wittgenstein against scientism and scepticism, this book links eliminative materialism and speculative realism.Preface PART I: DESTROYING THE MANIFEST IMAGE The Apoptosis of Belief The Thanatosis of Enlightenment The Enigma of Realism PART II: THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION Unbinding the Void Being-Nothing PART III: THE END OF TIME The Pure and Empty Form of Death The Truth of Extinction Notes Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects

'[A] powerfully original work which determinedly sets in motion profound and searching questions about philosophy in its relation to the universe described by scientific thought, and to human ends [...] Forcibly disabusing use of the assumption that we have somehow dealt with the problem of nihilism, this book reawakens, and even intensifies the toubling, disruptive power for thought that it once heralded.' - Robin Mackay, Parallax

'Nihil Unbound makes good on many of its promises, chief among them providing the reader a rare experience: actual philosophical discovery [...] Brassier's [...] work provides stunning evidence of at least one of Adorno's contentions: Thought honors itself by defending what is damned as nihilism. ' - Knox Peden, Continental Philosophy Review

'Alain Badiou and Slavoj i ek are the most renowned incarnation of a contemporary European philosophy finally in the process of stepping out from under the shadow of Kantian transcendental idealism and its complex, two-hundred-year aftermath [...] Ray Brassier too is one of the thinkers at the forefront of these exciting new developments.' Adrian Johnston, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology