In the seemingly never-ending year of 2020, almost all of us can agree that there’s a lot in the world to be pessimistic about. A worldwide pandemic that shows no signs of slowing, the dissolution of democratic norms in the United States, rising waves of fascism gaining footholds throughout the Western world, and impending climate crises that threaten the human species are all causes of deep anxiety and despair. Accordingly, in the face of such incessant tragedies and anxieties, pessimism seems to be a wholly reasonable response. Yet, what if, in our search for meaning, our response to such a negative view of the world is not to reject it in favor of naive optimism, but rather to press further into this pessimism? 

In the second volume of his Horror of Philosophy trilogy, titled Starry Speculative Corpse, philosopher Eugene Thacker seeks to “misread” the history of philosophy as though it were horror literature. Diving deep into the philosophical ideas of Kant, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Meister Eckhart, Heidegger, the Kyoto School, and many more, Thacker continues in his nihilistic project to think beyond the limits of the human, as he seeks to uncover the eventual futility and self-destruction of all philosophical thought. 

Overview: 

The book is divided into five main chapters, each seeking to “read works of philosophy as works of horror.” Tackling ideas ranging from Dionysius the Areopagite’s mystical negative theology to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche’s nihilism, Thacker centers these discourses around the common themes of darkness, nothingness, and negation. By doing so, Thacker attempts to reveal the cracks and fissures within various philosophical projects, all of which reflect the impossible undercurrent that runs throughout the act of thinking in itself. Embracing a form of cosmic pessimism, Thacker asserts that philosophy is predicated on its failure and futility. Yet, far from making the discipline irrelevant and pointless, Thacker argues that this futility is a central driving force for philosophical inquiry. 

The book picks up where In the Dust of this Planet leaves off and develops those ideas further. In the first chapter, Thacker gives the reader the basic framework that will shape the rest of the book, utilizing Descartes’s demon, Kant’s depression, and Nietzsche’s fragmentary writing as springboards for exploring the precipice of the abyss, and how we fail to jump into doubt and the meaninglessness of an uncaring universe. Chapter Two consists of an investigation of darkness via Dionysius the Areopagite, St. John of the Cross, Angela of Foligno, and other medieval mystics. He also ties their concepts of darkness and blackness to art and color theory, arguing that there is a retinal pessimism (blackness as present/absence, fullness/emptiness, nothing/something) that underlines the concept of blackness in the works of Fludd, Goethe, and Schopenhauer, and Caravaggio. 

Chapter Three explores the way that nothingness (or non-being) haunts the Western philosophical project. Thacker first considers the question “why is there something rather than nothing” through the work of Heidegger, Sartre, and Badiou. He then examines the role of nothingness within the mystical theology of Meister Eckhart and his four interpretations of nothingness in Acts 9:8 (“Paul rose from the ground and with open eyes saw nothing”) and its implications for the Nothingness of the Divine within apophatic theology. Finally, he then connects these concepts with the work of the Japanese Buddhists in the Kyoto School and their articulation of the concept of Śūnyatā (Sanskrit: शून्यता), noting its unique reconciliation of Mahāyāna Buddhism and German Idealism (namely, Heidegger). 

Chapter Four dives headfirst into the work of Schopenhauer and his divergence from the German Idealists that he despised. Against the work of the German Idealists such as Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, Thacker argues that Schopenhauer’s philosophy of negation can help us to construct a kind of cosmic pessimism that decenters the human from philosophy and forces us to consider the world-without-us. Finally, in the final chapter, Thacker provides a brief sketch of the history of Western philosophy, recounting how they fail to posit pessimism as an alternative mode of philosophical thinking and ethics. 

Commendations:  

First of all, when compared to the first volume in Thacker’s trilogy, Starry Speculative Corpse has a few improvements. In the Dust of this Planet had some avenues that led to dead ends without much of a payoff. In contrast, Starry Speculative Corpse is much more focused in its content and scope. This book, while difficult and sometimes dense, rewards the reader for sticking with it, offering the reader a better payoff and making it a more enjoyable reading experience. 

Also, Thacker does a commendable job in summarizing an incredible array of philosophical schools of thought across the Western canon (and even introduces some Eastern philosophy via the Kyoto School). Thacker covers an expansive amount of territory in relatively few pages, and is, for the most part, relatively accessible. I found the first few chapters to be particularly engaging and insightful, and Thacker clearly and succinctly defines the parameters of his argument before proceeding and provides his readers with several connecting threads between various schools of philosophy and theology. I found his explanation of Meister Eckhart’s work to be particularly insightful, and it was immensely satisfying to see him elaborate and dig deeper into several of his points introduced in In the Dust of This Planet. Yet, while this philosophical rigor is greatly appreciated, it also leads to one of the central criticisms of this text. 

Critique: 

While Thacker dives headfirst into philosophy and deftly summarizes certain aspects of complex schools of thought, this work is also philosophically dense for the average reader, especially in the third chapter. While the first few chapters are clear and concise, it starts to slow down and lose its vibrancy when discussing Schopenhauer and his opposition to German Idealism. Even for me, who is intimately familiar with German Idealism (particularly Hegel), it was rather difficult to follow Thacker’s train of thought. Thacker rather uncritically takes Schopenhauer’s side when it comes to his distaste of Hegel, and I found Thacker’s summary of the German Idealists to be rather one-dimensional (particularly regarding Hegel).

Accordingly, I’m not entirely convinced of Thacker’s conclusions regarding the utility of pessimistic ethics (admittedly, I am much more attached to Hegel and Kierkegaard than Thacker), and his reliance and admiration toward the curmudgeonly Schopenhauer and Nietzche remind me of edgy wanna-be freshmen philosophy majors who think nihilism is the answer to the entirety of philosophy. It’s not convincing when it comes from them, and despite Thacker’s philosophical rigor, his conclusions are likewise rather uninspiring and tepid (though, to be fair, perhaps it’s meant to be so). I do find it interesting that, despite the animosity between Schopenhauer and Hegel, there seems to be a common convergence between their thought in the works of their acolytes, such Thacker and Todd McGowan respectively. This emphasis on negation acting as a driving force in thought and philosophy comes through in both of their philosophical positions, although they arrive there in radically different ways (Thacker via Nietzche and Schopenhauer and McGowan via Freud, Lacan, and Hegel). This aspect of Hegel’s thought is not explored in depth by Thacker, who lumps him in with the rest of the German Idealists, which was slightly disappointing.

Furthermore, the book’s structure, while more focused than In the Dust of this Planet, also can lead to a bit of confusion. Thacker tends to summarize the authors he’s been discussing at the end of the chapter after the reader has already struggled through complex ideas and terminology. He even summarizes the entirety of Western philosophy in the final chapter (although rather simplistically). Moving these summaries to the beginning of each chapter (or the final chapter toward the beginning) would most likely help readers along, especially if they have little to no familiarity with the history of philosophy. Several chapters can also begin to feel repetitive after several pages, and there are also a few nearly cut-and-pasted sections in the fourth chapter (ie. pages 114-115 are almost word-for-word carbon copies of paragraphs he just previously wrote on pages 111 and 112). The book could have benefitted from a bit more editing to both reduce repetition and increase the clarity of thought. 

This points to one of the largest criticisms of this work, which is its tenuous connection to the horror genre. While Thacker claims that this book attempts to read philosophy in the register of horror, much of this supposed connection to horror is lost along the way. This is much more of a history of philosophy than an exploration of horror, and many of Thacker’s “misreadings” of philosophy seem to be rather orthodox and perfectly in line with the authors’ intent. There’s also a distinct lack of connecting examples between philosophy and horror. Accordingly, there are not many examples of horror onto which Thacker can ground these abstract concepts, which can lead to a bewildering and frustrating read. Many byways are taken that don’t end up paying off, while other potential avenues for inquiry (such as the opportunity to connect the Western treatment of blackness and darkness to the category of race and its relation to the horror genre) are bypassed entirely. Thacker cannot be expected to cover everything in such a small volume, but these omissions make for a dense read that is not the most accessible to non-specialists. 

Conclusion: 

Overall, Starry Speculative Corpse is a deep dive into the canon of Western philosophy that highlights how it’s failures and fissures point toward the futility of philosophy, and what this might mean for constructing a philosophy beyond the human. While it is a remarkably dense read when compared to its predecessor and leaves the reader without a coherent or optimistic alternative, it also does a commendable job in digging deeper into the ideas first introduced there. Like In the Dust of this Planet, if you’re looking for a tightly constructed argument, you may be a bit frustrated by this read. But if you have the patience and want to explore the connections between philosophy, nihilism, negative theology, and the ethics of pessimism, then this book is well worth your time. Time will only tell how Thacker develops these ideas (and hopefully returns to the realm of horror) in the third final installment of his trilogy, Tentacles Longer than Night.