Another weird aspect of this book is the author’s irregular adoption of a Medieval strategic framework of approach. Along the way, Thacker ventures into examples from literature and film ( Faustus, The Devil Rides Out, Black Easter, Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, the work of H.

Thacker does premise this work by letting us know not to expect the logical rigour of Aristotle or Kant. In it, Thacker explores the idea of the "unthinkable world" as represented in the horror fiction genre, in philosophies of pessimism and nihilism, and in the philosophies of apophatic ("darkness") mysticism. When I finished this book, I must admit I was a bit disappointed, since I was eager to see how Thacker’s ideas could be used in novel ways (especially in the realm of the political). Toward the end, I didn’t come away with a better understanding of how such a dark mysticism could be useful in reconfiguring our notions regarding our climate, and the political implications of his thesis are left rather vague and fuzzy. Thacker's most widely read book is In the Dust of This Planet, part of his Horror of Philosophy trilogy.

But even the Earth is simply a designation that we’ve given to something that has revealed itself or made itself available to the gathering of samples, the generating of data, the production of models, and the disputes over policy. I especially enjoyed the “Excursus on Mists and Ooze,” which notes the role played by these slippery, slimy and amorphous entities in a number of horror stories and films.

Many of the ideas are often disconnected between sections, and his use of the Quaestio in the first chapter can be a bit unnecessarily confusing and unhelpful.Far from a simplistic or one-dimensional work on the virtues of nihilism, In the Dust of this Planet is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration into the relationship between horror and philosophy. This “hideous” and horrific truth makes present to us the idea that our own human world exists alongside another sort of world, indifferent and closed off to us, implying that we are not the center of the universe.

However, this relationship between philosophy and horror should not be taken to mean the philosophy of horror, in which horror as a literary or film genre is presented as a rigorous formal system.

The exposition is often so loose and lightly shaded that it's difficult to know how he has arrived at his claim, or even what his claim is. In the opening of the book the authors ask "Does everything that exists, exist to be presented and represented, to be mediated and remediated, to be communicated and translated? This is the world in some inaccessible, already-given state, which we then turn into the world-for-us. This entry was posted in Film and Philosophy, Uncategorized and tagged Eugene Thacker, existentialism, film and philosophy, Horror, horror of philosophy, In the Dust of This Planet, meaning of life, nihilism, philosophy, philosophy of horror.