The End of the World: Contemporary Philosophy and Art

Omnipresent in popular culture, especially in film and literature, the theme of the ‘end of the world’ is often rejected from contemporary philosophy as hysterical apocalyptism. This volume attempts to show that, on the contrary, it is vital that we address the motif of the ‘end’ in contemporary world - but that this cannot be done without thinking it anew.

The ‘end of the world’ opens up philosophical questions concerning the very notion of the world, which is a fundamental element of all existential, phenomenological and hermeneutical philosophy. Is the ‘end of the world’ for us rather ‘somebody’s’ death (the end of ‘being-in-the-world’) or the extinction of many or of all (the end of the world itself)? Is the erosion of the ‘world’ a phenomenon that does not in fact affect the notion of the world as a fundamental feature of all existential-ontological inquiry? Or is there on the contrary an inherent negativity in the very notion of the world which is only now really becoming a question ? Can the world really ‘end’? What would it mean? Or should one rather speak about an ‘unworlding’ of the world in order to bring about an interrogation or maybe even a deconstruction of the notion of the world?

This volume demonstrates the origins and the present state of these concerns, in philosophy, film and literature. The book opens with a philosophical hermeneutics of the present state of the world by showing how the end of the world takes place in the world itself. It goes on to show how different arts have ventured to express the end of the world while asking if a consequent expression of the end of the world is also an end of its expression. Finally the book explores how philosophy copes with the problematic of the end of the world today.