Very Little ... Almost Nothing puts the question of the meaning of life back at the centre of intellectual debate. Its central concern is how we can find a meaning to human finitude without recourse to anything that transcends that finitude. A profound but secular meditation on the theme of death, Critchley traces the idea of nihilism through Blanchot, Levinas, Jena Romanticism and Cavell, culminating in a reading of Beckett, in many ways the hero of the book.
In this second edition, Simon Critchley has added a revealing and extended new preface, and a new chapter on Wallace Stevens which reflects on the idea of poetry as philosophy.

Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy in the Graduate Faculty, New School University, New York and at the University of Essex. He is author and editor of many books including The Ethics of Deconstruction and On Humour(also published by Routledge).

Abbreviations, Preface to Second Edition: As my father, I have already died, Preamble: Travels in Nihilon, Lecture 1: Il y a, Lecture 2: Unworking romanticism, Lecture 3: Know happiness - on Beckett, Lecture 4: The philosophical significance of a poem - on Wallace Stevens, Notes, Acknowledgements, Index