L’ennui, du tout au néant

In this paper, I propose an understanding of existential boredom as the limit-experience of loss, absence and emptiness. From this point of view, I show that the borders to which we are pushed by this triple limit-experience bring into play two opposed and extreme forms of thought: that of nothingness, certainly, but also that of the whole, nothingness being essentially connected with the whole. In so doing, I attempt to bring into light a synthetic manner of interpreting existential boredom. On this basis, I conclude by proposing an ethics of boredom.