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Genealogy of Nihilism (Routledge Radical Orthodoxy) 1st Edition

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Conor Cunningham (Author)
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3.2 out of 5 stars 5 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0415276948
ISBN-10: 0415276942
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Product Details

  • Series: Routledge Radical Orthodoxy
  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 22, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0415276942
  • ISBN-13: 978-0415276948
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,725,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsGetting out of our respective ghettoes
By Eric Lee on January 9, 2006
Format: Paperback
A very important book in the Radical Orthdoxy series, and probably my favourite of those I've read so far. Conor Cunningham does a wonderful job not only in tracing back through the history of modern nihilism, but also of making sense of all the philosophical writings of the many key figures he surveys as he shows that the main feature of nihilism is the "nothing as something."

Cunningham begins with going back to Plotinus, showing that his theory of the One is very much a pagan one, drawing directly from Hesiod's Theogony which is a pagan myth of the creation of the world. From there he makes moves to Avicenna, Henry of Ghent, William of Ockham, and then, of course, to John Duns Scotus, the first Christian thinker to incorporate Plotinian and Avicennian ideas into his thought. Scotus to Spinoza, to Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida.

Contrary to Milbank's Theology & Social Theory, after reading each section I could think to myself, "I understand Scotus," "I understand Spinoza," or "I understand Hegel"; in Milbank's magnum opus, I often found myself lost in his murky language and his assumptions that I've read as much as he has. Cunningham does not fall back on this assumption and provides an overview with the understanding that readers may not have necessarily read each philosopher. He endnotes every section heavily, working through each philospher's thought, re-explaining it, and then each time offering an even further clarifying "in other words" to illuminate each philosopher's thought in light of his thesis of the nothing as something.

In the second half of the book called "The difference of Theology," he provides a final survey of nihilism, showing that it tries to make everything the same, creating an indifference to all difference.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsProvocative for all its problems
By Steiner on August 28, 2013
Format: Paperback
In Genealogy of Nihilism, Cunningham interrogates a plethora of thinkers--ranging from Plotinus to Badiou!--and their variegated involvements with a logic of nihilism. At the core of the book, is the claim that throughout the course of the history of philosophy, the logic of nihilism has posits a concept of the nothing, as something. This is to say, that philosophies of the nothing, on account of their attempt to render the nothing as something, betray their own proximity to theologies of creation ex nihilo. Moreover, the key continental philosophies of nihilism, e.g. Fichte, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, operate according to a dualistic logic that is ultimately grounded in a monism that generates their movement and generation. As Cunningham writes, "The aforementioned quandary [aporetic dualisms of finitude] can be seened throughout the history of philosophy. We pay witness to it in the dualisms employed to cope with this aporia. For example: Lacan and Deleuze ground sense in non-sense; Derrida grounds the Text in the Nothing, which is said to reside outside it; Heidegger grounds Being in das Nicht; Hegel, finitude in the infinite, Fichte, I in Non-I; Schopenhauer, representation in will; Kant, phenomenal in noumenal; Spinoza, Nature in God, and God in Nature."
As Cunningham proceeds with an impressive survey of medieval thought, detailing the Pagan aspects of Plotinus' emanation and moving through accomplished discussions of medieval nominalism in thinkers like Avicenna, Ghent, Scotus, and Ockham, we are treated with an impressive demonstration of nominalism's tendency to render the nothing as something.
However, Cunningham's treatment of early modern thinkers like Spinoza, as well as of 20th century continentalists like Heidegger and Derrida are just rife with confusion.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsDifficult, demanding -and truly brilliant!
By Robert Butler on August 3, 2003
Format: Paperback
This is a difficult book, but truly superb - hence the difficulty! I had my doubts about "Radical Orthodoxy" but this book has removed many of them.
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1.0 out of 5 starsbreaking news: god cures nihilism!
By Benjamin Norris on November 20, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I really did not enjoy this book. Cunningham identifies the "logic of nihilism" as a consequence of a univocity of a non-being that results from an un collapsible, dualistic aporia and reads this model into everyone from Plotinus to Badiou. According to Cunningham, the logic of nihilism cannot adequately "provide" (he develops a "technical" understanding of this term)a cosmological account. The solution to this problem? The trinity and the christian god.

The book is obscure, jargony and full of appeals to authority, most infuriatingly to the bible. It offers nothing new to the discourse on nihilism (like most contemporary books on the subject, excluding Brassier's work) and ultimately,unconvincingly and uninterestingly shows why nihilists (a category Cunningham reduces and abuses so heavily that it ends up applying to all philosophers who do not accept christ as god in person blah, blah, blah...) and theologians cannot agree: Philosophers who do not accept god cannot give a satisfactory theological account of creation. He completely neglects the fact that nihilism is, in the hands of many, a weapon to be used against this kind of reductive and childish christian ideology.

Ultimately, this book is of a very low quality and a high price. Do not buy it unless you've already drank the christian cool-aid.
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2.0 out of 5 starsMeh
By M. Barnett on December 11, 2009
Format: Paperback
I am no professional philosopher of any kind but I am an amateur study. I think they did a good job in this book of explaining nihilistic philosophies in ways but the whole refutation is simply a baseless assertion in belief to "imagine" one's self out of the valid issues that nihilistic philosophers bring up. The authors bring up the UTILITY of comfort that the belief in Christ and absolute value through God, but they do not really establish the solidity of such a thing. It is a placeholder, a fragile bridge over the chasm of meaninglessness that could never span the full breadth of reality. But the utility of it is indeed there nontheless. The effect of believing in God is the effect of believing in God, not the effect of God.

Ultimately only useful to people who still have Christian faith. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.
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