Occultural Studies Column

Is black a colour, the absence of colour or a suspension of vision produced by a deprivation of light? Do we actually see black, and if so what do we see? In his eighth Occultural Studies column, Eugene Thacker considers the philosophical implications of blackness

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In Thomas Ligotti’s recent work of non-fiction, Eugene Thacker discovers a ‘concept horror’ innate to philosophy – the self-recognition of knowledge’s inevitable defeat

Objectively pessimistic or just plain grouchy? Schopenhauer’s ethics, which threw out positive conceptions of freedom and the human will, might put anyone in a bad mood. But, writes Eugene Thacker, standing on the brink of manifold disasters we ‘humans’ have much to learn from this dismal world view