KMT 2016 nr 3 Download PDF

Bartosz Wieczorek

The Road to the Absolute through Nothingness in the Works of Emil Cioran.

Cite: Bartosz Wieczorek, Droga do Absolutu przez nicość w twórczości Emila Ciorana, "Kultura - Media - Teologia", 2016( 26) nr 3, s. 128-137.

DOI: 10.21697/kmt.26.7

The article have been analyzed the views of a Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran related to the problem of existence and knowledge of the Absolute. From the first of his works, Cioran paid a lot of attention to problems of God, seeing in it a key priority for human existence. The article summarizes his path to the Absolute through nothingness, negation of all definitions of the Absolute of a negative theology represented in Christianity by Dionysius the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa. For these authors, the highest form of knowledge of God is ignorance. A similar scheme of considerations about God can be found in Cioran’s works, even though he rejects the faith in God. However, he uses the method of negative theology in order to show that the concept of God and nothingness are synonymous. God goes beyond all human cognitive categories. The article presents the thesis that Cioran’s attitude oscillated between two extremes – one time he seems to opt to the thesis that through nothingness we reach the Absolute, and in other situation he is closer to found that while searching the Absolute, we finally discover nothingness.

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Bartosz Wieczorek

ORCID: 0000-0001-7724-5821