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The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter
Humankind has a profound and complex relationship with the sea, a relationship that is extensively reflected in biology, psychology, religion, literature and poetry. The sea cradles and soothes us, we visit it often for solace and inspiration, it is familiar, being the place where life ultimately began. Yet the sea is also dark and mysterious and often spells catastrophe and death. The sea is a set of contradictions: kind, cruel, indifferent. She is a blind will that will 'have her way'. In exploring this most capricious of phenomena, David Farrell Krell engages the work of an array of thinkers and writers including, but not limited to, Homer, Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Hölderlin, Melville, Woolf, Whitman, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schelling, Ferenczi, Rank and Freud.
The Sea explores the significance in Western civilization of the catastrophic and generative power of the sea and what humankind's complex relationship with it reveals about the human condition, human consciousness, temporality, striving, anxiety, happiness and mortality.
The Sea explores the significance in Western civilization of the catastrophic and generative power of the sea and what humankind's complex relationship with it reveals about the human condition, human consciousness, temporality, striving, anxiety, happiness and mortality.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
Published December 27, 2018
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91 people want to read
About the author
David Farrell Krell
48 books7 followersDavid Farrell Krell is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at DePaul University, specializing in Continental Philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. from Duquesne University, where he focused on Heidegger and Nietzsche, two figures central to his scholarly work. Krell has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, contributing extensively to the study of German Idealism, Romanticism, and deconstruction.
He has authored numerous books, including Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy (1992), Infectious Nietzsche (1996), and The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God (2005), examining themes of mortality, time, and finitude. His work also explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, as seen in Lunar Voices (1995) and Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (1997). Krell has been a key translator of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche and edited Basic Writings (1977), a widely used collection of Heidegger’s essays.
Influenced by Jacques Derrida, Krell has engaged with deconstructive approaches to Nietzsche and Heidegger, shaping contemporary discussions on these thinkers. His later works, such as Ecstasy, Catastrophe (2015) and The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter (2018), continue his inquiries into existential and aesthetic themes, cementing his reputation as a major voice in modern Continental thought.
He has authored numerous books, including Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy (1992), Infectious Nietzsche (1996), and The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God (2005), examining themes of mortality, time, and finitude. His work also explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, as seen in Lunar Voices (1995) and Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (1997). Krell has been a key translator of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche and edited Basic Writings (1977), a widely used collection of Heidegger’s essays.
Influenced by Jacques Derrida, Krell has engaged with deconstructive approaches to Nietzsche and Heidegger, shaping contemporary discussions on these thinkers. His later works, such as Ecstasy, Catastrophe (2015) and The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter (2018), continue his inquiries into existential and aesthetic themes, cementing his reputation as a major voice in modern Continental thought.
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April 19, 2022
"In the course of this encounter we have learned that the human being is by no means 'alien' to the sea, and that we are precisely the sea's 'offspring.'"
"There is something 'indefinite' about water, something 'indeterminate,' something 'boundless,' without external boundaries or intrinsic limits, somewhat ἄπειρον. For Thales that word ̶ and it is his fellow citizen of Miletus, Anaximander who says the word ̶ perhaps means at least in part the vast expanse of the sea, which seems to spill over the horizon and into the sky, if not into the underworld."
As a deliberately meandering series of philosophical reflections, loosely threaded by the theme of the sea, Krell's book serves to create a thoughtful perspective on a vast array of themes concerning the watery world. By his own admission in the preface, the choices of authors and subjects he explores here seemingly without any coherent order, a strange itinerary that lurches between time periods and authors at the whim of the author. Thus, the book broadly goes from the work of the psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi and his utraquistic theories on the origins of life in the sea, to Greek philosophers (most especially Thales), to the works of Herman Melville, and finally, ending with reflections on Virginia Woolf's The Waves. This is all sprinkled with various bits from other philosophers, both ancient and modern, especially Nietzsche. The book does, nevertheless, succeed in its essential goal to provide lucid thoughts on such a philosophical encounter with an aspect of the environment.
Krell is especially strong when discussing the human experiences of and our relationship to the sea, noting at times the calamities of modern abuses of the marine world with examples like the emergence of "plastic islands." Perhaps, one of the most interest portions comes with the reflections on the psychological effects of humans as ultimately being a species derived from the sea itself. Discounting some of the now outdated ideas of Ferenczi, it is an interesting perspective to consider the larger ramifications of humans (and mammalian life in general) as descendants of the sea. Krell's book, then, serves primarily to illustrate a diversity of philosophical thought on the topic, going beyond just the all too common referencing of the sea in relation to ideas of the sublime or existential dread.
"There is something 'indefinite' about water, something 'indeterminate,' something 'boundless,' without external boundaries or intrinsic limits, somewhat ἄπειρον. For Thales that word ̶ and it is his fellow citizen of Miletus, Anaximander who says the word ̶ perhaps means at least in part the vast expanse of the sea, which seems to spill over the horizon and into the sky, if not into the underworld."
As a deliberately meandering series of philosophical reflections, loosely threaded by the theme of the sea, Krell's book serves to create a thoughtful perspective on a vast array of themes concerning the watery world. By his own admission in the preface, the choices of authors and subjects he explores here seemingly without any coherent order, a strange itinerary that lurches between time periods and authors at the whim of the author. Thus, the book broadly goes from the work of the psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi and his utraquistic theories on the origins of life in the sea, to Greek philosophers (most especially Thales), to the works of Herman Melville, and finally, ending with reflections on Virginia Woolf's The Waves. This is all sprinkled with various bits from other philosophers, both ancient and modern, especially Nietzsche. The book does, nevertheless, succeed in its essential goal to provide lucid thoughts on such a philosophical encounter with an aspect of the environment.
Krell is especially strong when discussing the human experiences of and our relationship to the sea, noting at times the calamities of modern abuses of the marine world with examples like the emergence of "plastic islands." Perhaps, one of the most interest portions comes with the reflections on the psychological effects of humans as ultimately being a species derived from the sea itself. Discounting some of the now outdated ideas of Ferenczi, it is an interesting perspective to consider the larger ramifications of humans (and mammalian life in general) as descendants of the sea. Krell's book, then, serves primarily to illustrate a diversity of philosophical thought on the topic, going beyond just the all too common referencing of the sea in relation to ideas of the sublime or existential dread.
Displaying 1 of 1 review