The Fundamental Tendency of Our Time

Reviews / Votes

Emanuele Severino was one of the most lucid and radical thinkers of the twentieth century. He advocated the eternity of every being, denouncing as 'folly' the belief that anything could originate from or return to nothingness. Yet he saw the entire history of the West as deeply immersed in this very folly. In The Fundamental Tendency of Our Time, Severino explores some of the most concrete manifestations of this belief, which he calls 'nihilism'. He analyzes the nature of technology and the development of history, offering a new-and for many, shocking-vision of where we come from, where we are, and where we are headed. * Dr Andrea Sangiacomo, Associate Professor Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen * A philosophical excavation into the roots of Western technology, which, from a simple tool, has become a way of life with its own, all-encompassing goals. A sharp and ruthless analysis, but also an urgent call to action for an alternative future. * Silvia Mazzini, Philosopher, Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (Portland) * Moving beyond Heidegger's view of technology, Severino reveals the fundamental error the West has spread globally: that our faith in the power to transform the world is the utter folly of a nihilistic tendency-an impersonal will to transform and dominate what cannot be transformed nor dominated. * Andrea Righi, Monash University *