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Introduction to Antiphilosophy. By Boris Groys. Verso, 272pp, Pounds 16.99. ISBN 9781844677566. Published 30 April 2012
At one point in Emir Kusturica's 1995 film Underground, the viewer comes across a vast network of tunnels mysteriously interconnecting the whole of Europe. While above ground the Cold War is getting colder and the Iron Curtain divides the Continent, down there an intense, unperturbed traffic takes place: cars and tanks, people and merchandise, drunken monkeys and holy fools move freely from East to West, from North to South. In a sense, Introduction to Antiphilosophy is to philosophy what Underground is to Russian tanks and Yugoslavian mafiosi. For one of Boris Groys' chief accomplishments is to have given us access to an ample network of subterraneous pathways and communication channels interconnecting a wide range of schools of thought and movements of ideas from St Petersburg to Berlin, from Paris to Copenhagen. Above ground everything is nicely labelled and clearly divided into Western philosophy, Russian philosophy, atheism, theology and...