This book explores how the myth of Narcissus, which is at once about self-love and self-destruction, desire and death, beauty and pain, became an ambivalent symbol of humanistic endeavour, and articulated the conflicts of early modern authorship. In early modern literature, there were expressions of humanistic self-congratulation that sometimes verged on narcissism, and at the same time expressions of self-doubt and anxiety that verged on nihilism. The themes of self-love and self-negation had a long history in western thought, and this book shows how the medieval treatments of the themes developed into something distinctive in the sixteenth century. The two themes, either individually or combined, encompass such topics as poverty, unrequited love, transgressive sexuality, sexual violence, suicidality, self-worth, authorship, religious penitence, martyrdom, courtly ambition and tyranny. Archdeacon uses over 100 texts from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to show how the early modern writer existed in a culture of contrary forces pulling towards either self-affirmation or self-erasure. Writers attempted to negotiate between the polarised extremes of self-love and self-negation, realising that they are fundamental to how we respond to each other, our selves and the world.

This is the A5 sized version of this print book. This is a self-help book and follow up to my other self-help book "Remarks On Existential Therapy." If you liked that book you will like this book. This set of remarks on the subject of Existential Nihilism and Existential Sociology discusses numerous topics. Labels, Narcissism and Conformity are all made reference to. It makes reference as to how society influences who we are. It discusses both Existential Psychology, Philosophy, Social Psychology, Buddhism and Stoicism. It also discuses methods to improve ones life and it serves as a guide to obtain Existential Maturity. The theory is based on the works of Erving Goffman, RD Laing, Irvin Yalom and Rollo May. It is approximately a 150 pages long and is written in the form of easy to understand remarks. This is the fourth edition of these notes.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book offers a philosophical defence of nihilism. The authors argue that the concept of nihilism has been employed pejoratively by almost all philosophers and religious leaders to indicate a widespread cultural crisis of truth, meaning, or morals. Many religious believers think atheism leads to moral chaos (because it leads to nihilism), and atheists typically insist that we can make life meaningful through our own actions (thereby avoiding nihilism). In this way, both sides conflate the cosmic sense of meaning at stake with a social sense of meaning. This book charts a third course between extremist and alarmist views of nihilism. It casts doubt on the assumption that nihilism is something to fear, or a problem which human culture should overcome by way of seeking, discovering, or making meaning. In this way, the authors believe that a revised understanding of nihilism can help remove a significant barrier of misunderstanding between religious believers and atheists. A Defence of Nihilism will be of interest to scholars and students in philosophy, religion, and other disciplines who are interested in questions surrounding the meaning of life.

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.

This volume aims to inspire a return to the energetics of Nietzsche's prose and the critical intensity of his approach to nihilism and to give back to the future its rightful futurity. For too long contemporary thought has been dominated by a depressed 'what is to be done?'. All is regarded to be in vain, nothing is deemed real, there is nothing new seen under the sun. Such a 'postmodern' lament is easily confounded with an apathetic reluctance to think engagedly. Hence our contributors draw on the variety of topical issues: the future of life, the nature of life-forms, the techno-sciences, the body, religion...as a way of tackling the question of nihilism's pertinence to us now.

Translation of an important work by the contemporary Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani.

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.

A dual biography crafted around the famous encounter between the French philosopher who wrote about power and the Russian empress who wielded it with great aplomb. In October 1773, after a grueling trek from Paris, the aged and ailing Denis Diderot stumbled from a carriage in wintery St. Petersburg. The century’s most subversive thinker, Diderot arrived as the guest of its most ambitious and admired ruler, Empress Catherine of Russia. What followed was unprecedented: more than forty private meetings, stretching over nearly four months, between these two extraordinary figures. Diderot had come from Paris in order to guide—or so he thought—the woman who had become the continent’s last great hope for an enlightened ruler. But as it soon became clear, Catherine had a very different understanding not just of her role but of his as well. Philosophers, she claimed, had the luxury of writing on unfeeling paper. Rulers had the task of writing on human skin, sensitive to the slightest touch. Diderot and Catherine’s series of meetings, held in her private chambers at the Hermitage, captured the imagination of their contemporaries. While heads of state like Frederick of Prussia feared the consequences of these conversations, intellectuals like Voltaire hoped they would further the goals of the Enlightenment. In Catherine & Diderot, Robert Zaretsky traces the lives of these two remarkable figures, inviting us to reflect on the fraught relationship between politics and philosophy, and between a man of thought and a woman of action.