Blanchot at the Limits of Nihilism

This paper seeks to explain Blanchot’s original and compelling, but frequently overlooked, interpretation of nihilism. It focuses on the philosophical, rather than the literary which has had primary focus in previous commentaries. It focuses on two dimensions – the personal, examined through Blanchot’s writings on finitude and death, and the general, examined through his confrontation with Nietzsche’s notions of the overman and the eternal return. Blanchot problematises the possibility of overcoming nihilism through a pure affirmation of life, seeing the problem of meaning in life as ultimately intractable. The paper positions Blanchot’s engagement with nihilism as one of a number in the historical tradition that have questioned the viability of overcoming nihilism. Its unique significance, however, lies in Blanchot’s suggestion of a more oblique response which might mitigate nihilism without overcoming it.