The Death of Transcendence: Reflections on Jean Améry’s “At the Mind’s Limits”

The Death of Transcendence presents a clear and compelling close reading and interpretation of the five essays included in Jean Améry’s At the Mind’s Limits, describing them as one continuous and progressing argument on the possibility of human society in the wake of the Holocaust. Through the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Iris Murdoch, J.M. Bernstein and, Charles Taylor, Ashkenazy uncovers the importance and significance of such concepts as transcendence, lose, self, other, love, and home for establishing and maintaining a human life and world, and recovering it, should it be lost. Written with both clarity and academic rigour, this book offers novel ideas, firmly grounded in existing philosophical literature, and is intended for both professional scholars and general readers of Améry.