Customer Reviews

Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida

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"For anyone desiring a challenging introduction to the philosophers who are--inescapably--the most significant heralds of Post-Modernism, Allan Megill's work is an essential text." T. Farrell



Four Philosketeers:
I wondered who are those mysterious Western intellectual innovators whose names are tied with postmodernism, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, and what do they have to do with Nietzche and Heidegger? Allan Megill facilitates within a compelling foursome introduction to these end of millennium musketeers of postmodern philosophy, wrapped in obscured evasive thesis of surreal thought that dominated postwar Europe.
How helpful to relate Foucault to Heidegger and Nietzsche, and Derrida is the anti visionary who follows in their wake, according to author's conclusion, even if he was not sure of the impact of Foucault and Derrida on the history of ideas. To Hegel's famous dicta, "the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk," Megill replies, "But Minerva's owl, that is philosophy, has repeatedly over the last three hundred years, played a morning role, preceding rather than following social and political history."

A historical note:
In the 1960's, the structuralist, a French movement, attempted to synthesize the ideas of Marx, Freud and Saussure, contesting the existentialists' claim stressing that the human essence is determined through life choices, so that each man is what he makes himself.
For the structuralist the individual is shaped by sociological, psychological and linguistic structures over which wo/man has no control, but which could be uncovered by using their methods of investigation. Michel Foucault came to be the main representative of the post-structuralist movement, he did not think that there were definite underlying structures that could explain the human condition and that it was impossible to step outside of discourse and survey the situation objectively. The 'anti visionary' Jacques Derrida developed deconstruction as a technique for uncovering the multiple interpretation of texts. Influenced by Heidegger and Nietzsche, Derrida suggests that all text has ambiguity and because of this the possibility of a final and complete interpretation is impossible.

Informed review:
"The reader of Prophets of Extremity will have no dearth of richly articulated issues to rethink along the lines suggested by Alan Megill...[who] provides his reader with stunning constellations of quoted material from his authors, so that, regardless of any debate [it] may arouse, the book is a splendid mixture of narrative and analysis, written to be read and critiqued by the student of modern thought." New Vico Studies

I think this is a great introduction for the more serious scholar of these four thinkers whose influence has been magnificent and still-growing. It is unwise today to live in ignorance of Nietzsche et al., and in many circles impossible.

I think the book well-researched and quite wealthy in information. Especially I appreciate the care with which Megill, one of the more prestigious contemporary intellectual historians, explicates some cumbersome ideas of the prophets. He lets them speak but clarifies their ideas. In addition, the close link between aesthetics/art and these thinkers is well-noted.

Perhaps the first, and certainly the most successful synthesis to date of these philosophers. Each section of analysis highlights the important contributions of each philosopher that influenced those later in the book. Allan Megill makes them understandable and speak for themselves through lucid commentary and extensive quotes. The reader of this book will walk away with a solid feeling for and extensive familiarity with each of the philosopher's works, and have an understanding of the rise and tenets of postmodernism.

The development of the book is natural and captivating. The breadth and depth of research alone is impressive, and accompanied by detailed explanations. Finer points are discussed and made clear in this book that are never mentioned elsewhere.

The analysis of Nietzsche in particular is among the best I have seen. The chapters on Heidegger, Faucoult, and Derrida are also well done.

After reading this book there should be little doubt why Prophets of Extremity should be considered the primary entry point for those interested in these philosophers.

Professor Megill does a good job with Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault, but less so with Derrida, I think. For the new reader this book is not their best introduction, but if you kind of know the stories already, the book is readable and pretty entertaining.

Stylistically, Megill uses many of the same words and phrases over and over (example: toward the end I was cringing every time I came across the word 'corpus'), and the author tends to come across as, perhaps, a bit to highbrow for my liking, but obviously he knows the material well.

I give him a lot of credit trying to deal with writers who tend to defy understanding.

You only have to read the first philospher under Megill's chopper--Nietzsche--to see how his philosophical skill collapses under the weight of Nietzsche's thought. Any book that proposes to lump philosophers on a scale of "extremity" should be immediately passed on the shelf. First, we are warned not to trust Walter Kaufmann's interpreation of Nietzsche as a critical thinker, and we given some quote or reference to some other work. Then, we are asked to believe that because Neitzshce thought that life should be understood as a work of art that he was making an ontological argument. This is not proved, but Megill with his usual vapidity, says this is how Heidegger approaches Nietzsche. It is some bizarre clownish argument to say Neitzsche was positing a separate realm of reality and then saying, we have no "correspondence" to this reality. How little wisdom it takes to be a "state" philospher like Megill. This is not at all what Nietzsche was saying, and this kind of dissimualtion follows every analysis of every thinker in the book. There is some sort of terrible empiricism behind a book that posits a mode of analysis based on "ordinary reality" as oppposed to "aesthetic" reality. This book is worse than bad, it is a sham. Megill would do better to try an write a poem or paint a picture and see what it means to work with reality as given and as it could be.

ONE OF THE WORST PIECES I HAVE READ. NOT A SENTENCE THAT SAYS ANYTHING IMPORTANT ABOUT ANYTHING - MOVE ON... NO EASY PATHS TO SOUNDING SMART