There is a philological dispute about whether Jacobi was the first to use the word nihilism; but there is no dispute that Jacobi was the first to introduce the word into modern philosophy, in his letter to Fichte renouncing the identity of the I and Not-I that, he thought, was the result towards which Fichte was taking transcendental philosophy. Jacobi’s letter to Fichte is full of images that have long careers ahead of them. When Jacobi points to the the fearful essence of transcendental idealism – that totalitarianism of thought that, as Jacobi puts it, has the chemical quality of eating through everything - which is its leveling quality. It launches the equations that level the I and the not-I as the two categories that divide up the world as a sort of philosophical side show encoding the dream of a fully humanized earth, one wholly grasped by universal history. That history is, of course, the global market place. How does one ward off the universal solvent? Here, too, Jacobi is pre
“I’m so bored. I hate my life.” - Britney Spears
Das Langweilige ist interessant geworden, weil das Interessante angefangen hat langweilig zu werden. – Thomas Mann
"Never for money/always for love" - The Talking Heads