Simon Critchley

A genial exercise in public philosophy (Kirkus, starred review) from one of the world's best-known popular philosophers. Simon Critchley is an international treasure—that rare and real philosopher who embraces Rousseau’s ‘feeling of existence,’ David Bowie’s vision of love, and Philip K. Dick’s genius with genuine wrestling and a soulful smile! —Cornel West, Harvard University The moderator of the New York...

We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but which still make us who we are. It articulates the conflicts and contradictions that we need to address in order to better understand the world...

“There is a common fallacy that is oddly and sadly even more widespread amongst non-philosophers than philosophers, that art is somehow explained by philosophy. It is not.” The philosopher Simon Critchley has long been drawn to the distinctive questions raised by tragedy. In this major new work, conceived as a sequel to his Tragedy, the Greeks and Us (2019), he...

A French philosopher dies during a savage summer heat wave. Boxes carrying his unpublished miscellany mysteriously appear in Simon Critchley's office. Rooting through piles of papers, Critchley discovers a brilliant text on the ancient art of memory and a cache of astrological charts predicting the deaths of various philosophers. Among them is a chart for Critchley himself, laying out in...

Mysticism is about existential ecstasy—an experience of heightening one's senses and self into a sheer feeling of aliveness. Mystical experiences offer us a practical way to open our thoughts and deepen the sense of our lives, whether through a mainstream connection to God or by taking part in mind-altering experiences. Here, Simon Critchley explores the history and practice of mysticism,...

What made Bowie special? What made him the cultural icon he is today? And what made millions of people around the world tune into his peculiar wavelength and find exactly what they'd been looking for all along? These are the questions asked by Simon Critchley in this keen-eyed, moving, and textured tribute to Bowie. Each of the two dozen deceptively...