I accepted and surrendered myself to the night, being alone I felt absolute incomprehension; despair and hopelessness sheltered me, and like a deep dark veil a raw pessimism gnawed at my bones. …

I. The beast par excellence: man In his essay, first published in 1983 and then as a paperback in 1985, Horstmann develops the basic pattern of what he calls “anthropofugal thinking”. The beginning of the book immediately sets the ironic, sarcastic tone of this philosophizing: The apocalypse is imminent. We…

There is hardly any pleasure in life that doesn’t come at the cost of pain/suffering or deprivation of others (remember “deprivation” is also a kind of suffering because wishing/wanting/desiring something yet not getting it brings frustration/disappointment/sadness). Almost all pleasures cause suffering to others. Let’s see a few examples. Both A…

Abu l’Ala al-Ma’arri (973–1058) is an exceptional figure in classical Arabic literature. He is worlds apart from those uncounted poets of whom the Arabs are so proud to this day, believing to find in their poetry an echo of their past greatness and the traces of the way of life…

Para empezar a hablar sobre este tema hay que tener en cuenta lo siguiente: "En la medida en que los enunciados científicos se refieren al mundo de la experiencia, deben ser refutables; y, en la medida en que son irrefutables, no se refieren al mundo de la experiencia" (Karl Popper)…

What’s the point? Why do we live? And what the heck are we doing here anyway? Only a fool waits for an answer! And yet: It is one of the most important questions of life, because it is the question about our life. …

The novel opens with the sudden arrest of Joseph K. in his room on the morning of his birthday. Two guards inform him without explaining the charges against him. Despite his arrest, K. is free to go to work at the bank. In the absence of news from the judicial…

The uniqueness of dying by one’s own hand, was raised by Michel Foucault in a brief interview in 1979. In the transcript, published as “The Simplest of Pleasures,” Foucault argues for the exceptional value of death. While opposing (moral) condemnation of suicide, he argues that recognition of the unique aspect…

The parable “Homecoming” by Franz Kafka was published in 1936. The title of the text comes from Max Brod, the friend and editor of Franz Kafka’s works, who first published the text in 1936 in the book “Description of a Struggle” (expanded editions of it in 1946 and 1954). The…