Simon Critchley. ABC of Impossibility. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2015. [Book Review]

It is difficult to begin an assessment of a text like ABC of Impossibility. Billed as a “para-philosophy” that deals with a series of concepts, physical locations, moods, and people to name only a few topics, the text is as disparate as it is confronting. Central to this undertaking is a focus on fragmentary writing and thinking, which may account for some of the complexity involved in assessing this project. Simon Critchley’s numerous philosophical publications prior to the ABC of Impossibility offer some guidance, yet the text’s predominant parting effect is a sense of something being withheld, not offered.