Nihilism a Philosophical Essay

261 Pages·1969·9.06 MB·english

by  Stanley Rosen

NIHILISM:
A Philosophical Essay

NIHILISM:
A Philosophical Essay
by Stanley Rosen
New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1969
Copyright © 1969 by Yale University.
All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form
(except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Library of Congress catalog card number: 70-81428
Designed by Marvin Howard Simmons,
set in Times Roman type,
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The Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y.
Distributed in Great Britain, Europe, Asia, and
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Canada by McGill University Press, Montreal; and
in Latin America by Centro Interamericano de Libros
Academicos, Mexico City.
This book is dedicated to
Fran~oise and Nicholas

Acknowledgments
Shortly after completing this manuscript, I learned of the un
timely death of my friend and teacher, Alexandre Kojeve. The
present essay is a consequence of long reflections which were
decisively influenced by that extraordinary man, whose memory
I cherish, and whose absence cannot be replaced. I am equally
indebted to another great teacher, Leo Strauss, who first set me
on the longer way.
Once again it is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of
Mrs. Jane Isay of the Yale University Press. The final version of
this essay was written during a sabbatical granted by the Penn
sylvania State University, and I am grateful to those who made
this possible. Portions of Chapter 4 were published previously,
in different form, in Social Research (Summer 1968), under the
title "Philosophy and Ideology." In writing Chapter 6, I have
adapted material first printed in the Review of Metaphysics
(December 1962), under the title "Wisdom," and in Man and
World (February 1968), under the title "Reflections on
Nihilism." My thanks to the editors of these journals for per
mission to reprint.

Contents
Preface xiii
1. Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language 1
2. From Ordinary Language to Ontology 28
3. History and Nihilism 56
4. Historicity and Political Nihilism 94
5. The Good 140
6. Wisdom 198
Index 237