The specter of the absurd : sources and criticisms of modern nihilism
Donald A. Crosby (Author)
This book is our century's most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains
Print Book, English, ©1988
State University of New York Press, Albany, ©1988
viii, 456 pages ; 24 cm.
9780887067198, 9780887067204, 0887067190, 0887067204
16467564
Part one : introduction
Experiencing the absurd
Types of nihilism
Part two : arguments for nihilism
Arguments about God, nature, suffering, and time
Arguments about reason, will, and other persons
Part three : a critical look at religious sources of nihilism
Anthropocentrism, externality of value, and religion as theism
God's all seeing eye, search for certainty, and deprecation of the world
Part four : a critical look at philosophical sources of nihilism
Correspondence-substance and the hegemony of science
Truth through method and seeds of nihilism in the thought of Descartes
The subjectivist turn in epistemology, philosophy of language, and ethics
Social-political individualism, fact-value dichotomy, and primacy of will
Part five : final appraisal
The case again nihilism : lessons of refutations
Includes indexes