Introduction to antiphilosophy / Boris Groys ; translated by David Fernbach.

Translation of: Einführung in die anti-philosophie, 2009.

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sr̜en Kierkegaard -- Leo Shestov -- Martin Heidegger -- Jacques Derrida -- Walter Benjamin -- Theodor Lessing -- Ernst Jünger's technologies of immortality -- Three ends of history : Hegel, Solvyov, Kojv̈e -- Nietzsche's influence on the non-official culture of the 1930s -- A genealogy of participatory art -- Lessing, Greenberg, McLuhan.

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become skeptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in "universal thinking," so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism. In Introduction to Antiphilosophy, Boris Groys argues that modern "antiphilosophy" does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the universality of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences --angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or "profane illumination" --and he analyzes this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin. Ranging across the history of modern thought, Introduction to Antiphilosophy endeavors to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development. --Publisher.