diff --git a/book/src/SUMMARY.md b/book/src/SUMMARY.md index 0a700f5..9d3da7c 100644 --- a/book/src/SUMMARY.md +++ b/book/src/SUMMARY.md @@ -7,3 +7,6 @@ - [Chapter 1](./chapter_1.md) + + +- [Предисловие](./preface.md) diff --git a/book/src/preface.md b/book/src/preface.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9911032 --- /dev/null +++ b/book/src/preface.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +The term ‘nihilism’ has a hackneyed quality. Too much has been written on +the topic, and any sense of urgency that the word might once have com- +municated has been dulled by overexposure. The result is a vocable tainted +by dreary over-familiarity and nebulous indeterminacy. Nevertheless, +few other topics of philosophical debate exert such an immediate grip on +people with little or no interest in the problems of philosophy as the +claim of nihilism in its most ‘naive’ acceptation: existence is worthless. +This book was spurred by the conviction that this apparently banal asser- +tion harbours hidden depths which have yet to be sounded by philoso- +phers, despite the plethora of learned books and articles on the topic. +Although the philosophical literature on nihilism is impressively vast, +comprising several important works from which I have learned much, the +rationale for writing this book was the conviction that something of fun- +damental philosophical importance remained unsaid and buried beneath +the learned disquisitions on the historical origins, contemporary ramifica- +tions, and long-term implications of nihilism. Indeed, these aspects of the +topic have been so thoroughly charted that the simplest way to clarify the +intent of this book is to explain what it does not do \ No newline at end of file