Nihilism and Metaphysics

Vittorio Possent is Professor of Political Philosophy at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice in Italy and the author of many other books. Daniel B. Gallagher is an Official in the Latin Section of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

• ForewordTranslator’s Introduction and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Question of Nihilism and the Knowledge of Being2. Metaphysical Knowledge of Existence3. Being, Intellect, and Abstractive Intuition4. The Status of First Principles5. Speculative Nihilism: Nietzsche and Gentile6. Heidegger7. Eight Theses on Postmetaphysical Thinking: Jürgen Habermas8. The Two Roads of Hermeneutics9. Logical Empiricism and Analytic Philosophy10. Consequences of Nihilism11. Toward the Determination of Practical Nihilism12. Progress in Philosophy?13. The Third Voyage14. Ontological Humanism and the Person15. Between the Present and the FutureAppendix 1: Antirealism and the Schism between Man and RealityAppendix 2: Texts of Thomas Aquinas without CommentAppendix 3: Intellectual Intuition, "Anticipation," and Judgment in Karl RahnerAppendix 4: More on Intellectual IntuitionAppendix 5: The Appeal to the Experience of Self as a Type of Natural MysticismAppendix 6: The Critique of Onto-theologyAppendix 7: What Is Nihilism? A Look at the Encyclical Fides et RatioNotesIndex

"…offers the reader a bold thrust to the heart of theoretical nihilism from the standpoint of Thomism, perceived as the bulwark of the perennial philosophy of being." — Maritain Studies