Nihilism (; from Latin nihil, meaning 'nothing')
is the philosophical viewpoint that suggests
the denial or lack of belief towards the reputedly
meaningful aspects of life.
Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the
form of existential nihilism, which argues
that life is without objective meaning, purpose,
or intrinsic value.
Moral nihilists assert that there is no inherent
morality, and that accepted moral values are
abstractly contrived.
Nihilism may also take epistemological, ontological,
or metaphysical forms, meaning respectively
that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible,
or reality does not actually exist.
The term is sometimes used in association
with anomie to explain the general mood of
despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence
that one may develop upon realising there
are no necessary norms, rules, or laws.Nihilism
has also been described as conspicuous in
or constitutive of certain historical periods.
For example, Jean Baudrillard and others have
called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch and
some religious theologians and figures of
religious authority have asserted that postmodernity
and many aspects of modernity represent a
rejection of theism, and that such rejection
of theistic doctrine entails nihilism.
== Forms ==
Nihilism has many definitions, and thus can
describe multiple arguably independent philosophical
positions.
=== Metaphysical ===
Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical
theory that posits that concrete objects and
physical constructs might not exist in the
possible world, or that even if there exist
possible worlds that contain some concrete
objects, there is at least one that contains
only abstract objects.
Extreme metaphysical nihilism is commonly
defined as the belief that nothing exists
as a correspondent component of the self-efficient
world.
The American Heritage Medical Dictionary defines
one form of nihilism as "an extreme form of
skepticism that denies all existence."
A similar skepticism concerning the concrete
world can be found in solipsism.
However, despite the fact that both deny the
certainty of objects' true existence, the
nihilist would deny the existence of self
whereas the solipsist would affirm it.
Both these positions are considered forms
of anti-realism.
=== 
Epistemological ===
Epistemological nihilism is a form of skepticism
in which all knowledge is accepted as being
possibly untrue or as being impossible to
confirm as true.
=== Mereological ===
Mereological nihilism (also called compositional
nihilism) is the position that objects with
proper parts do not exist (not only objects
in space, but also objects existing in time
do not have any temporal parts), and only
basic building blocks without parts exist,
and thus the world we see and experience full
of objects with parts is a product of human
misperception (i.e., if we could see clearly,
we would not perceive compositive objects).
This interpretation of existence must be based
on resolution.
The resolution with which humans see and perceive
the "improper parts" of the world is not an
objective fact of reality, but is rather an
implicit trait that can only be qualitatively
explored and expressed.
Therefore, there is no arguable way to surmise
or measure the validity of mereological nihilism.
Example: An ant can get lost on a large cylindrical
object because the circumference of the object
is so large with respect to the ant that the
ant effectively feels as though the object
has no curvature.
Thus, the resolution with which the ant views
the world it exists "within" is a very important
determining factor in how the ant experiences
this "within the world" feeling.
=== Existential ===
Existential nihilism is the belief that life
has no intrinsic meaning or value.
With respect to the universe, existential
nihilism posits that a single human or even
the entire human species is insignificant,
without purpose and unlikely to change in
the totality of existence.
The meaninglessness of life is largely explored
in the philosophical school of existentialism.
=== Moral ===
Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism,
is the meta-ethical view that morality does
not exist as something inherent to objective
reality; therefore no action is necessarily
preferable to any other.
For example, a moral nihilist would say that
killing someone, for whatever reason, is not
inherently right or wrong.
Other nihilists may argue not that there is
no morality at all, but that if it does exist,
it is a human construction and thus artificial,
wherein any and all meaning is relative for
different possible outcomes.
As an example, if someone kills someone else,
such a nihilist might argue that killing is
not inherently a bad thing, or bad independently
from our moral beliefs, because of the way
morality is constructed as some rudimentary
dichotomy.
What is said to be a bad thing is given a
higher negative weighting than what is called
good: as a result, killing the individual
was bad because it did not let the individual
live, which was arbitrarily given a positive
weighting.
In this way a moral nihilist believes that
all moral claims are void of any truth value.
An alternative scholarly perspective is that
moral nihilism is a morality in itself.
Cooper writes, "In the widest sense of the
word 'morality', moral nihilism is a morality."
=== Political ===
Political nihilism follows the characteristic
nihilist's rejection of non-rationalized or
non-proven assertions; in this case the necessity
of the most fundamental social and political
structures, such as government, family, and
law.
An influential analysis of political nihilism
is presented by Leo Strauss.
==== Russian movement ====
The Russian Nihilist movement was a Russian
trend in the 1860s that rejected all authority.
After the assassination of Tsar Alexander
II in 1881, the Nihilists gained a reputation
throughout Europe as proponents of the use
of violence for political change.
The Nihilists expressed anger at what they
described as the abusive nature of the Eastern
Orthodox Church and of the tsarist monarchy,
and at the domination of the Russian economy
by the aristocracy.
Although the term Nihilism was coined by the
German theologian Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
(1743–1818), its widespread usage began
with the 1862 novel Fathers and Sons by the
Russian author Ivan Turgenev.
The main character of the novel, Eugene Bazarov,
who describes himself as a Nihilist, wants
to educate the people.
The "go to the people – be the people" campaign
reached its height in the 1870s, during which
underground groups such as the Circle of Tchaikovsky,
the People's Will, and Land and Liberty formed.
It became known as the Narodnik movement,
whose members believed that the newly freed
serfs were merely being sold into wage slavery
in the onset of the Industrial Revolution,
and that the middle and upper classes had
effectively replaced landowners.
The Russian state attempted to suppress the
nihilist movement.
In actions described by the Nihilists as propaganda
of the deed many government officials were
assassinated.
In 1881 Alexander II was killed on the very
day he had approved a proposal to call a representative
assembly to consider new reforms.
== History ==
=== Buddhism ===
The concept of nihilism was discussed by the
Buddha (563 B.C. to 483 B.C.), as recorded
in the Theravada and Mahayana Tripiṭaka.
The Tripiṭaka, originally written in Pali,
refers to nihilism as "natthikavāda" and
the nihilist view as "micchādiṭṭhi".
Various sutras within it describe a multiplicity
of views held by different sects of ascetics
while the Buddha was alive, some of which
were viewed by him to be morally nihilistic.
In the Doctrine of Nihilism in the Appannaka
Sutta, the Buddha describes moral nihilists
as holding the following views:
Giving produces no beneficial results
Good and bad actions produce no results
After death, beings are not reborn into the
present world or into another world
There is no one in the world who, through
direct knowledge, can confirm that beings
are reborn into this world or into another
worldThe Buddha then states that those who
hold these views will not see the danger in
misconduct and the blessings in good conduct
and will, therefore, avoid good bodily, verbal
and mental conduct; practicing misconduct
instead.
==== Nirvana and nihilism ====
The culmination of the path that the Buddha
taught was Nirvana, "a place of nothingness...
nonpossession and... non-attachment... [which
is] the total end of death and decay".
In an article Ajahn Amaro, a practicing Buddhist
monk of more than 30 years, observes that
in English 'nothingness' can sound like nihilism.
However the word could be emphasised in a
different way, so that it becomes 'no-thingness',
indicating that Nirvana is not a thing you
can find, but rather a place where you experience
the reality of non-grasping.
In the Alagaddupama Sutta, the Buddha describes
how some individuals feared his teaching because
they believe that their 'self' would be destroyed
if they followed it.
He describes this as an anxiety caused by
the false belief in an unchanging, everlasting
'self'.
All things are subject to change and taking
any impermanent phenomena to be a 'self' causes
suffering.
Nonetheless, his critics called him a nihilist
who teaches the annihilation and extermination
of an existing being.
The Buddha's response was that he only teaches
the cessation of suffering.
When an individual has given up craving and
the conceit of 'I am' their mind is liberated,
they no longer come into any state of 'being'
and are no longer born again.
The Aggivacchagotta Sutta records a conversation
between the Buddha and an individual named
Vaccha that further elaborates on this.
In it Vaccha asks the Buddha to confirm one
of the following, with respect to the existence
of the Buddha after death:
After death a Buddha reappears somewhere else
After death a Buddha does not reappear
After death a Buddha both does and does not
reappear
After death a Buddha neither does nor does
not reappearTo all four questions, the Buddha
answers that the terms 'appear', 'not appear',
'does and does not reappear' and 'neither
does nor does not reappear' do not apply.
When Vaccha expresses puzzlement, the Buddha
asks Vaccha a counter question to the effect
of: if a fire were to go out and someone were
to ask you whether the fire went north, south
east or west how would you reply?
Vaccha replies that the question does not
apply and that a fire gone out can only be
classified as 'out'.
Thanissaro Bikkhu elaborates on the classification
problem around the words 'reappear' etc. with
respect to the Buddha and Nirvana by stating
that a "person who has attained the goal [Nirvana]
is thus indescribable because [they have]
abandoned all things by which [they] could
be described".
The Suttas themselves describe the liberated
mind as 'untraceable' or as 'consciousness
without feature', making no distinction between
the mind of a liberated being that is alive
and the mind of one that is no longer alive.
Despite the Buddha's explanations to the contrary,
Buddhist practitioners may, at times, still
approach Buddhism in a nihilistic manner.
Ajahn Amaro illustrates this by retelling
the story of a Buddhist monk, Ajahn Sumedho,
who in his early years took a nihilistic approach
to Nirvana.
A distinct feature of Nirvana in Buddhism
is that an individual attaining it is no longer
subject to rebirth.
Ajahn Sumedho, during a conversation with
his teacher Ajahn Chah comments that he is
"determined above all things to fully realize
Nirvāna in this lifetime... deeply weary
of the human condition and... [is] determined
not to be born again".
To this Ajahn Chah replies "what about the
rest of us, Sumedho?
Don't you care about those who'll be left
behind?".
Ajahn Amaro comments that Ajahn Chah could
detect that his student had a nihilistic aversion
to life rather than true detachment.
With his response, Ajahn Chah chided Ajahn
Sumedho about the latter's narrowness and
opened his eyes to this attitude of self centred
nihilism.
=== 19th century ===
The term nihilism was first used by Friedrich
Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819).
Jacobi used the term to characterize rationalism
and in particular Immanuel Kant's "critical"
philosophy to carry out a reductio ad absurdum
according to which all rationalism (philosophy
as criticism) reduces to nihilism—and thus
it should be avoided and replaced with a return
to some type of faith and revelation.
Bret W. Davis writes, for example, "The first
philosophical development of the idea of nihilism
is generally ascribed to Friedrich Jacobi,
who in a famous letter criticized Fichte's
idealism as falling into nihilism.
According to Jacobi, Fichte's absolutization
of the ego (the 'absolute I' that posits the
'not-I') is an inflation of subjectivity that
denies the absolute transcendence of God."
A related but oppositional concept is fideism,
which sees reason as hostile and inferior
to faith.
With the popularizing of the word nihilism
by Ivan Turgenev, a new Russian political
movement called the Nihilist movement adopted
the term.
They supposedly called themselves nihilists
because nothing "that then existed found favor
in their eyes".
This movement was significant enough that,
even in the English speaking world, at the
turn of the 20th century the word nihilism
without qualification was almost exclusively
associated with this Russian revolutionary
sociopolitical movement .
=== Kierkegaard ===
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) posited an
early form of nihilism, which he referred
to as leveling.
He saw leveling as the process of suppressing
individuality to a point where an individual's
uniqueness becomes non-existent and nothing
meaningful in one's existence can be affirmed:
Levelling at its maximum is like the stillness
of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat,
a stillness like death, into which nothing
can penetrate, in which everything sinks,
powerless.
One person can head a rebellion, but one person
cannot head this levelling process, for that
would make him a leader and he would avoid
being levelled.
Each individual can in his little circle participate
in this levelling, but it is an abstract process,
and levelling is abstraction conquering individuality.
Kierkegaard, an advocate of a philosophy of
life, generally argued against levelling and
its nihilistic consequences, although he believed
it would be "genuinely educative to live in
the age of levelling [because] people will
be forced to face the judgement of [levelling]
alone."
George Cotkin asserts Kierkegaard was against
"the standardization and levelling of belief,
both spiritual and political, in the nineteenth
century," and that Kierkegaard "opposed tendencies
in mass culture to reduce the individual to
a cipher of conformity and deference to the
dominant opinion."
In his day, tabloids (like the Danish magazine
Corsaren) and apostate Christianity were instruments
of levelling and contributed to the "reflective
apathetic age" of 19th century Europe.
Kierkegaard argues that individuals who can
overcome the levelling process are stronger
for it, and that it represents a step in the
right direction towards "becoming a true self."
As we must overcome levelling, Hubert Dreyfus
and Jane Rubin argue that Kierkegaard's interest,
"in an increasingly nihilistic age, is in
how we can recover the sense that our lives
are meaningful".Note, however, that Kierkegaard's
meaning of "nihilism" differs from the modern
definition, in the sense that, for Kierkegaard,
levelling led to a life lacking meaning, purpose
or value, whereas the modern interpretation
of nihilism posits that there was never any
meaning, purpose or value to begin with.
=== Nietzsche ===
Nihilism is often associated with the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who provided
a detailed diagnosis of nihilism as a widespread
phenomenon of Western culture.
Though the notion appears frequently throughout
Nietzsche's work, he uses the term in a variety
of ways, with different meanings and connotations.
Karen Carr describes Nietzsche's characterization
of nihilism "as a condition of tension, as
a disproportion between what we want to value
(or need) and how the world appears to operate."
When we find out that the world does not possess
the objective value or meaning that we want
it to have or have long since believed it
to have, we find ourselves in a crisis.
Nietzsche asserts that with the decline of
Christianity and the rise of physiological
decadence, nihilism is in fact characteristic
of the modern age, though he implies that
the rise of nihilism is still incomplete and
that it has yet to be overcome.
Though the problem of nihilism becomes especially
explicit in Nietzsche's notebooks (published
posthumously), it is mentioned repeatedly
in his published works and is closely connected
to many of the problems mentioned there.
Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying
the world and especially human existence of
meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or
essential value.
This observation stems in part from Nietzsche's
perspectivism, or his notion that "knowledge"
is always by someone of some thing: it is
always bound by perspective, and it is never
mere fact.
Rather, there are interpretations through
which we understand the world and give it
meaning.
Interpreting is something we can not go without;
in fact, it is something we need.
One way of interpreting the world is through
morality, as one of the fundamental ways that
people make sense of the world, especially
in regard to their own thoughts and actions.
Nietzsche distinguishes a morality that is
strong or healthy, meaning that the person
in question is aware that he constructs it
himself, from weak morality, where the interpretation
is projected on to something external.
Nietzsche discusses Christianity, one of the
major topics in his work, at length in the
context of the problem of nihilism in his
notebooks, in a chapter entitled "European
Nihilism".
Here he states that the Christian moral doctrine
provides people with intrinsic value, belief
in God (which justifies the evil in the world)
and a basis for objective knowledge.
In this sense, in constructing a world where
objective knowledge is possible, Christianity
is an antidote against a primal form of nihilism,
against the despair of meaninglessness.
However, it is exactly the element of truthfulness
in Christian doctrine that is its undoing:
in its drive towards truth, Christianity eventually
finds itself to be a construct, which leads
to its own dissolution.
It is therefore that Nietzsche states that
we have outgrown Christianity "not because
we lived too far from it, rather because we
lived too close".
As such, the self-dissolution of Christianity
constitutes yet another form of nihilism.
Because Christianity was an interpretation
that posited itself as the interpretation,
Nietzsche states that this dissolution leads
beyond skepticism to a distrust of all meaning.Stanley
Rosen identifies Nietzsche's concept of nihilism
with a situation of meaninglessness, in which
"everything is permitted."
According to him, the loss of higher metaphysical
values that exist in contrast to the base
reality of the world, or merely human ideas,
gives rise to the idea that all human ideas
are therefore valueless.
Rejecting idealism thus results in nihilism,
because only similarly transcendent ideals
live up to the previous standards that the
nihilist still implicitly holds.
The inability for Christianity to serve as
a source of valuating the world is reflected
in Nietzsche's famous aphorism of the madman
in The Gay Science.
The death of God, in particular the statement
that "we killed him", is similar to the self-dissolution
of Christian doctrine: due to the advances
of the sciences, which for Nietzsche show
that man is the product of evolution, that
Earth has no special place among the stars
and that history is not progressive, the Christian
notion of God can no longer serve as a basis
for a morality.
One such reaction to the loss of meaning is
what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism, which
he recognises in the pessimistic philosophy
of Schopenhauer.
Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also
refers to as Western Buddhism, advocates a
separating of oneself from will and desires
in order to reduce suffering.
Nietzsche characterises this ascetic attitude
as a "will to nothingness", whereby life turns
away from itself, as there is nothing of value
to be found in the world.
This mowing away of all value in the world
is characteristic of the nihilist, although
in this, the nihilist appears inconsistent:
A nihilist is a man who judges of the world
as it is that it ought not to be, and of the
world as it ought to be that it does not exist.
According to this view, our existence (action,
suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning:
the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists'
pathos – at the same time, as pathos, an
inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.
Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism
is a complex one.
He approaches the problem of nihilism as deeply
personal, stating that this predicament of
the modern world is a problem that has "become
conscious" in him.
Furthermore, he emphasises both the danger
of nihilism and the possibilities it offers,
as seen in his statement that "I praise, I
do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival.
I believe it is one of the greatest crises,
a moment of the deepest self-reflection of
humanity.
Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes
master of this crisis, is a question of his
strength!"
According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism
is overcome that a culture can have a true
foundation upon which to thrive.
He wished to hasten its coming only so that
he could also hasten its ultimate departure.He
states that there is at least the possibility
of another type of nihilist in the wake of
Christianity's self-dissolution, one that
does not stop after the destruction of all
value and meaning and succumb to the following
nothingness.
This alternate, 'active' nihilism on the other
hand destroys to level the field for constructing
something new.
This form of nihilism is characterized by
Nietzsche as "a sign of strength," a willful
destruction of the old values to wipe the
slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs
and interpretations, contrary to the passive
nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition
of the old values.
This willful destruction of values and the
overcoming of the condition of nihilism by
the constructing of new meaning, this active
nihilism, could be related to what Nietzsche
elsewhere calls a 'free spirit' or the Übermensch
from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist,
the model of the strong individual who posits
his own values and lives his life as if it
were his own work of art.
It may be questioned, though, whether "active
nihilism" is indeed the correct term for this
stance, and some question whether Nietzsche
takes the problems nihilism poses seriously
enough.
=== Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche
===
Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche
influenced many postmodern thinkers who investigated
the problem of nihilism as put forward by
Nietzsche.
Only recently has Heidegger's influence on
Nietzschean nihilism research faded.
As early as the 1930s, Heidegger was giving
lectures on Nietzsche's thought.
Given the importance of Nietzsche's contribution
to the topic of nihilism, Heidegger's influential
interpretation of Nietzsche is important for
the historical development of the term nihilism.
Heidegger's method of researching and teaching
Nietzsche is explicitly his own.
He does not specifically try to present Nietzsche
as Nietzsche.
He rather tries to incorporate Nietzsche's
thoughts into his own philosophical system
of Being, Time and Dasein.
In his Nihilism as Determined by the History
of Being (1944–46), Heidegger tries to understand
Nietzsche's nihilism as trying to achieve
a victory through the devaluation of the,
until then, highest values.
The principle of this devaluation is, according
to Heidegger, the Will to Power.
The Will to Power is also the principle of
every earlier valuation of values.
How does this devaluation occur and why is
this nihilistic?
One of Heidegger's main critiques on philosophy
is that philosophy, and more specifically
metaphysics, has forgotten to discriminate
between investigating the notion of a being
(Seiende) and Being (Sein).
According to Heidegger, the history of Western
thought can be seen as the history of metaphysics.
And because metaphysics has forgotten to ask
about the notion of Being (what Heidegger
calls Seinsvergessenheit), it is a history
about the destruction of Being.
That is why Heidegger calls metaphysics nihilistic.
This makes Nietzsche's metaphysics not a victory
over nihilism, but a perfection of it.Heidegger,
in his interpretation of Nietzsche, has been
inspired by Ernst Jünger.
Many references to Jünger can be found in
Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche.
For example, in a letter to the rector of
Freiburg University of November 4, 1945, Heidegger,
inspired by Jünger, tries to explain the
notion of "God is dead" as the "reality of
the Will to Power."
Heidegger also praises Jünger for defending
Nietzsche against a too biological or anthropological
reading during the Nazi era.Heidegger's interpretation
of Nietzsche influenced a number of important
postmodernist thinkers.
Gianni Vattimo points at a back-and-forth
movement in European thought, between Nietzsche
and Heidegger.
During the 1960s, a Nietzschean 'renaissance'
began, culminating in the work of Mazzino
Montinari and Giorgio Colli.
They began work on a new and complete edition
of Nietzsche's collected works, making Nietzsche
more accessible for scholarly research.
Vattimo explains that with this new edition
of Colli and Montinari, a critical reception
of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche
began to take shape.
Like other contemporary French and Italian
philosophers, Vattimo does not want, or only
partially wants, to rely on Heidegger for
understanding Nietzsche.
On the other hand, Vattimo judges Heidegger's
intentions authentic enough to keep pursuing
them.
Philosophers who Vattimo exemplifies as a
part of this back and forth movement are French
philosophers Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida.
Italian philosophers of this same movement
are Cacciari, Severino and himself.
Jürgen Habermas, Jean-François Lyotard and
Richard Rorty are also philosophers who are
influenced by Heidegger's interpretation of
Nietzsche.
=== Postmodernism ===
Postmodern and poststructuralist thought has
questioned the very grounds on which Western
cultures have based their 'truths': absolute
knowledge and meaning, a 'decentralization'
of authorship, the accumulation of positive
knowledge, historical progress, and certain
ideals and practices of humanism and the Enlightenment.
==== Derrida ====
Jacques Derrida, whose deconstruction is perhaps
most commonly labeled nihilistic, did not
himself make the nihilistic move that others
have claimed.
Derridean deconstructionists argue that this
approach rather frees texts, individuals or
organizations from a restrictive truth, and
that deconstruction opens up the possibility
of other ways of being.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, for example, uses
deconstruction to create an ethics of opening
up Western scholarship to the voice of the
subaltern and to philosophies outside of the
canon of western texts.
Derrida himself built a philosophy based upon
a 'responsibility to the other'.
Deconstruction can thus be seen not as a denial
of truth, but as a denial of our ability to
know truth.
That is to say, it makes an epistemological
claim compared to nihilism's ontological claim).
==== Lyotard ====
Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on
an objective truth or method to prove their
claims, philosophers legitimize their truths
by reference to a story about the world that
can't be separated from the age and system
the stories belong to—referred to by Lyotard
as meta-narratives.
He then goes on to define the postmodern condition
as characterized by a rejection both of these
meta-narratives and of the process of legitimation
by meta-narratives.
In lieu of meta-narratives we have created
new language-games in order to legitimize
our claims which rely on changing relationships
and mutable truths, none of which is privileged
over the other to speak to ultimate truth.
This concept of the instability of truth and
meaning leads in the direction of nihilism,
though Lyotard stops short of embracing the
latter.
==== Baudrillard ====
Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote
briefly of nihilism from the postmodern viewpoint
in Simulacra and Simulation.
He stuck mainly to topics of interpretations
of the real world over the simulations of
which the real world is composed.
The uses of meaning were an important subject
in Baudrillard's discussion of nihilism:
The apocalypse is finished, today it is the
precession of the neutral, of forms of the
neutral and of indifference...all that remains,
is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent
forms, for the very operation of the system
that annihilates us.
Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction,
which was attached to appearances, and to
dialectical reason, which was attached to
meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence,
it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance.
We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance,
of our disappearance.
Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general
situation in an era of involuntary transparency.
=== Transcendental nihilism / methodological
naturalism ===
In Nihil Unbound: Extinction and Enlightenment,
Ray Brassier maintains that philosophy has
avoided the traumatic idea of extinction,
instead attempting to find meaning in a world
conditioned by the very idea of its own annihilation.
Thus Brassier critiques both the phenomenological
and hermeneutic strands of Continental philosophy
as well as the vitality of thinkers like Gilles
Deleuze, who work to ingrain meaning in the
world and stave off the "threat" of nihilism.
Instead, drawing on thinkers such as Alain
Badiou, François Laruelle, Paul Churchland,
and Thomas Metzinger, Brassier defends a view
of the world as inherently devoid of meaning.
That is, rather than avoiding nihilism, Brassier
embraces it as the truth of reality.
Brassier concludes from his readings of Badiou
and Laruelle that the universe is founded
on the nothing, but also that philosophy is
the "organon of extinction," that it is only
because life is conditioned by its own extinction
that there is thought at all.
Brassier then defends a radically anti-correlationist
philosophy proposing that Thought is conjoined
not with Being, but with Non-Being.
== In culture ==
=== Dada ===
The term Dada was first used by Richard Huelsenbeck
and Tristan Tzara in 1916.
The movement, which lasted from approximately
1916 to 1922, arose during World War I, an
event that influenced the artists.
The Dada Movement began in the old town of
Zürich, Switzerland – known as the "Niederdorf"
or "Niederdörfli" – in the Café Voltaire.
The Dadaists claimed that Dada was not an
art movement, but an anti-art movement, sometimes
using found objects in a manner similar to
found poetry.
The "anti-art" drive is thought to have stemmed
from a post-war emptiness.
This tendency toward devaluation of art has
led many to claim that Dada was an essentially
nihilistic movement.
Given that Dada created its own means for
interpreting its products, it is difficult
to classify alongside most other contemporary
art expressions.
Due to perceived ambiguity, it has been classified
as a nihilistic modus vivendi.
=== Literature ===
The term "nihilism" was actually popularized
by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and
Sons, whose hero, Bazarov, was a nihilist
and recruited several followers to the philosophy.
He found his nihilistic ways challenged upon
falling in love.Anton Chekhov portrayed nihilism
when writing Three Sisters.
The phrase "what does it matter" or variants
of this are often spoken by several characters
in response to events; the significance of
some of these events suggests a subscription
to nihilism by said characters as a type of
coping strategy.
The philosophical ideas of the French author,
the Marquis de Sade, are often noted as early
examples of nihilistic principles.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== 
References ==
== External links ==
Nihilist Abyss
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spake Zarathustra,
translated by Thomas Common
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nihilism
"Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral
Skepticism, "Skeptical Hypotheses"
"Nihilism".
Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
1911.
"Nihilism".
New International Encyclopedia.
1905.
Radiolab - In The Dust Of This Planet, Radiolab
podcast on nihilism and popular culture
"Nihilism", In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 discussion
with Rob Hopkins, Raymond Tallis and Catherine
Belsey (Nov. 16, 2000)
