Simon Critchley

The book of dead philosophers

Gavin

List of little biographies, ends and attitudes to endings. Plenty of good anecdotes – Avicenna’s raging horn, Nietzsche’s supposed 'lethal masturbation', Ayer vs Tyson – but Critchley’s argument (“my constant concern in these seemingly morbid pages is the meaning and possibility of happiness”) is lost in the plurality of attitudes on display. 

In a weird way he is building a new canon, including Mohists and Daoists, Christian saints, John Toland, women. A good toilet book, or introduction to (continental) philosophy.

The book of dead philosophers

Reviews