If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear … - Simon Critchley

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He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.

Simon Critchley

If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.

Acceptance, Death, Human, Make, Mean, Pride

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I have argued that philosophy doesn't begin in wonder or in the fact that things are, it begins in a realization that things are not what they might be. It begins with a sense of a lack, of something missing, and that provokes a series of questions.

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It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.

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Just to say "Well, God is dead" in one breath is to say, in another, that nothing means anything. This is the moment of nihilism. Nihilism is the affirmation of meaninglessness.

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In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a better world. But of course we can do better than just hope.

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It's complicated. On the one hand we're killer apes, and on the other hand we have this metaphysical longing.

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