 God's death or nonexistence is a quintessential nihilistic concern. This article is about the philosophical position. For the Russian political and revolutionary movement, see Nihilist movement. Time magazine cover, April 8, 1966 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Time magazine cover, April 8, 1966 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
This article is about the Russian cultural and political movement. ...
Nihilism literally means belief in nothing. As a philosophical position, nihilism is the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. It is more often a charge levelled against a particular idea than a position to which someone is overtly subscribed. Movements such as Dada, Deconstructionism, and Punk have been described by various observers as "nihilist". Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for example, Baudrillard has called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch, and some Christian theologians and figures of authority assert that modernity and postmodernity represent the rejection of God, and therefore are nihilist. The term philosophy derives from a combination of the Greek words philos meaning love and sophia meaning wisdom. ...
Binomial name Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Subspecies Homo sapiens idaltu (extinct) Homo sapiens sapiens Human beings define themselves in biological, social, and spiritual terms. ...
This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in the evaluation of propositions, sentences, and similar items. ...
Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ...
The term deconstruction is often used in a loose way as a synonym of critical analysis, especially the kind of uncooperative critical analysis that subjects a work or a text to close scrutiny in order to expose contradictions, poor logic or unwelcome affinities with other works or cultural objects. ...
Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to the present, there has evolved a distinctive and largely cohesive system of thought associated with the punk subculture (often simply referred to as punk). ...
Jean Baudrillard (born 1929) is a cultural theorist and philosopher. ...
Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century...
Christianity is the worlds largest religion. ...
Prominent philosophers that have written on nihilism include Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removed meaning from this earthly life, and focused instead on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the realization that "God is Dead", and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the earth. The latter described it as the state where "there is nothing left of Being as such", and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of being to mere value. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher, philologist, and psychologist. ...
Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ...
Etymological origins
The term comes from Latin nihil, meaning "not anything", through the Russian "nigilizm". The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1817 as its earliest use in English, and Alain Rey's Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (rev. ed. 1995) gives 1787 as the first use of the word in French, noting that nihiliste was used in 1761, though in a religious sense of 'heretic' that is now obsolete. The Russian nigilizm to which the term owes much of its modern impetus first appears in 1829, according to Rey. Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a comprehensive multi-volume dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). ...
1817 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
1787 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
1761 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
The Latin indefinite pronoun nihil ('nothing') is a reduced form of nihilum, a term that derives from ne-hilom an emphatic form of the negation ne by means of hilum, meaning 'the slightest amount' and of uncertain origin.
Nihilism in philosophy Though the term nihilism was first popularized by Ivan Turgenev (see below), it was first introduced into philosophical discourse by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819), who used the term to characterize rationalism, and in particular Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy in order 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. Ivan Turgenev, photo by Félix Nadar (1820-1910) Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев, November 9, 1818, Orel, Russia - September 3, 1883,Bougival, near Paris, France ) was a major Russian novelist and playwright. ...
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (January 25, 1743 - March 10, 1819), was a German philosopher who made his mark on philosophy by coining the term nihilism and promoting it as the prime fault of Enlightenment thought and Kantianism. ...
Events February 14 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister February 21 - - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handels oratorio, Samson. ...
1819 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...
A painting of Immanuel Kant in his middle age Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 in Königsberg – February 12, 1804) was a German philosopher from Prussia, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...
Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for reduction to the absurd, traceable back to the Greek ἡ εις το αδυνατον απαγωγη, reduction to the impossible, often used by Aristotle) is a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then...
This article discusses faith in a religious context. ...
For information on the last book of the New Testament see the entry on the Book of Revelation. ...
Friedrich Nietzsche's later work was obsessed with nihilism. Book One of The Will to Power, which consists of an arrangement of selections from Nietzsche's notebooks from 1883 to 1888, is entitled "European Nihilism," which he calls "the problem of the nineteenth century." Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher, philologist, and psychologist. ...
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher. ...
1883 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
1888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ...
Though derided by some as nihilistic, postmodernism can be contrasted with the above formulation of nihilism in that nihilism tends toward defeatism, while postmodern philosophers tend to find strength and reason for celebration in the varied and unique human relationships it explores. Nihilism can also readily be compared to skepticism as both reject claims to knowledge and truth, though skepticism does not necessarily come to any conclusions about the reality of moral concepts nor does it deal so intimately with questions about the meaning of an existence without knowable truth. Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...
Defeatism is acceptance and content with defeat without struggle. ...
Skepticism (British spelling: Scepticism) can mean: Philosophical skepticism - a philosophical position in which people choose to critically examine whether the knowledge and perceptions that they have are actually true, and whether or not one can ever be said to have absolutely true knowledge; or Scientific skepticism - a scientific, or practical...
Existence is an ontological topic par excellence. ...
Nihilism in ethics and morality In the world of ethics, nihilist or nihilistic is often used as a derogatory word referring to a complete rejection of all systems of authority, morality, and social custom, or one who purportedly makes such a rejection. Either through the rejection of previously accepted bases of belief or through extreme relativism or skepticism, the nihilist is construed as one who believes that none of these claims to power are valid, and often that they should be fought against. From a nihilist point of view, the ultimate source of moral values is the individual rather than culture or another rational foundation. Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ...
Moral relativism is the position that moral propositions do not reflect absolute or universal truths. ...
In meta-ethics, moral skepticism is a theory which maintains either that ethical claims are generally false, or else that we cannot sufficiently justify any ethical claims, and must therefore maintain doubt about whether they are true or false. ...
Postmodernism and the breakdown of knowledge Postmodern thought is colored by the perception of a degeneration of systems of epistemology and ethics into extreme relativism, especially evident in the writings of Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida. These philosophers tend to deny the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and the ideals of humanism and the Enlightenment. Though it is often described as a fundamentally nihilist philosophy, before entering a brief discussion on postmodern thought it is important to note that nihilism itself is open to postmodern criticism: nihilism is a claim to a universal truth, exactly what postmodernism rejects. Postmodern philosophy is an eclectic and elusive movement characterized by the postmodern criticism and analysis of Western philosophy. ...
Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. ...
Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ...
Jean-François Lyotard (August 10, 1924-April 21, 1998) was a French philosopher and literary theorist. ...
Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop deconstruction after it emerged in the work of Martin Heidegger. ...
Humanism is a general term for many different lines of thought which focus on common solutions to common human issues. ...
The Age of Enlightenment (or The Enlightenment for short) was an intellectual movement in 18th-century Europe. ...
Lyotard and meta-narratives Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on an objective truth or method to prove their claims (logic, empiricism, etc.), philosophers legitimize their truths by reference to a story about the world which is inseparable from the age and system the stories belong to. Lyotard calls them meta-narratives. He then goes on to define the postmodern condition as one characterized by a rejection both of these meta-narratives and of the process of legitimization by meta-narratives. Objectivity has several meanings: Objectivity (philosophy) Objectivity (journalism) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy amongst philosophers (see below). ...
Empiricism (greek εμπειρισμός, from empirical, latin experientia - the experience) is generally regarded as being at the heart of the modern scientific method, that our theories should be based on our observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith; that is, empirical research and a posteriori inductive reasoning rather...
In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative is a grand overarching account, or all-encompassing story, which is thought to give order to the historical record. ...
Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...
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. It is this unstable concept of truth and meaning that leads one close to nihilism, though in the same move that plunges toward meaninglessness, Lyotard suspends his philosophy just above its surface.
Nihilism and Nietzsche "To the clean are all things clean" — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish!
Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): "The world itself is a filthy monster."
For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen!
TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true!
There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!
- -Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Project Gutenberg eText
While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche defined the term as any philosophy that, rejecting the real world around us and physical existence along with it, results in an apathy toward life and a poisoning of the human soul — and opposed it vehemently. He describes it as "the will to nothingness" — in this sense the philosophical equivalent to the Russian political movement mentioned above: the irrational leap beyond skepticism — the desire to destroy meaning, knowledge, and value. To him, it was irrational because the human soul thrives on value. Nihilism, then, was in a sense like suicide and mass murder all at once. He saw this philosophy as present in Christianity and Christian morality, which he describes as slave morality, and in asceticism and any excessively skeptical philosophy. Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a book started in 1885 by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche; it is arguably one of the most famous books in philosophy. ...
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher, philologist, and psychologist. ...
Christianity is the worlds largest religion. ...
Ethics is a branch of philosophy dealing with right and wrong in human behaviour. ...
Asceticism has appeared in both religious and secular settings. ...
Nietzsche is referred to as a nihilist in part because he famously announced "God is dead!" What he meant by this oft-repeated statement was not that God has passed away in a literal sense, or even necessarily that God doesn't exist, but that we don't believe in God anymore, that even those of us who profess faith in God really don't believe. God is dead, then, in the sense that his existence is now irrelevant to the bulk of humanity. "And we," he says in The Gay Science, "have killed him." Nietzsche also recognized that, even though he viewed Christian morality as nihilistic, without God humanity is left with no epistemological or moral base from which we can derive absolute beliefs. Thus, even though nihilism has been a threat in the past, through Christianity, Platonism, and various political movements that aim toward a distant utopian future, and any other philosophy that devalues human life and the world around us (and any philosophy that devalues the world around us by privileging some other or future world necessarily devalues human life), Nietzsche tells us it is also a threat for humanity's future - this warning can also be taken as a polemic against 19th and 20th century scientism. Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ...
Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ...
The term scientism is a relatively newly coined word that refers to certain epistemologies based on science. ...
Nietzsche advocated a remedy for nihilism's destructive effects and a hope for humanity's future in the form of the Übermensch, a position especially apparent in his works Also Sprach Zarathustra and The Antichrist. The ubermensch is an exercise of action and life: one must give value to their existence by behaving as if one's very existence were a work of art. Nietzsche believed that the ubermensch "exercise" would be a necessity for human survival in the post-religious era. In Thus spake Zarathustra (in German, Also sprach Zarathustra), the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche explains the steps through which man can become an Ãœbermensch ((homo superior): By his will to power, manifested destructively in the rejection of, and rebellion against, old ideals and moral codes; By his will to power...
Also sprach Zarathustra (English: Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a book started in 1885 by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche; it is arguably one of the most famous books in philosophy. ...
In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist is a person or other entity that is the embodiment of evil and utterly opposed to truth. ...
Another part of Nietzsche's remedy for nihilism is a revaluation of morals — he hoped that we are able to discard the old morality of equality and servitude and adopt a new code, turning Judeo-Christian morality on its head. Excess, carelessness, callousness, and sin, then, are not the damning acts of a person with no regard for his salvation, nor that which plummets a society toward decadence and decline, but the signifier of a soul already withering and the sign that a society is in decline. The only true sin to Nietzsche is that which is against a human nature aimed at the expression and venting of one's power. Virtue, likewise, is not to act according to what has been commanded, but to contribute to all that betters a human soul. Judeo-Christian (also spelled Judaeo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Christianity and Judaism, and typically considered a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values. ...
Salvation means being saved from suffering of some kind. ...
Decadence was the name given, first by hostile critics, and then triumphantly adopted by some writers themselves, to a number of late nineteenth century fin de siècle writers associated with Symbolism or the Aesthetic movement. ...
Virtue (Greek αρετη; Latin virtus) is the habitual, well-established, readiness or disposition of mans powers directing them to some goodness of act. ...
Nietzsche attempts to reintroduce what he calls a master morality, which values personal excellence over forced compassion and creative acts of will over the herd instinct, a moral outlook he attributes to the ancient Greeks. The Christian moral ideals developed in opposition to this master morality, he says, as the reversal of the value system of the elite social class due to the oppressed class' resentment of their Roman masters. Nietzsche, however, did not believe that humans should adopt master morality as the be-all-end-all code of behavior - he believed that the revaluation of morals would correct the inconsistencies in both master and slave morality - but simply that master morality was preferable to slave morality. Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek_speaking world in ancient times. ...
Social class refers to the ranking of people into a hierarchy within a culture. ...
History - Ancient history - Ancient Rome This is a List of Ancient Rome-related topics, that aims to include aspects of both the Ancient Roman Republic and Roman Empire. ...
The nihilist paradox Nihilism is often described as a belief in the nonexistence of truth. In its most extreme form, such a belief is difficult to justify, because it contains a variation on the liar paradox: if it is true that truth does not exist, the statement "truth does not exist" is in itself not a truth, thereby proving itself incorrect. A more sophisticated interpretation of the claim might be that while truth may exist, it is inaccessible in practice, but this leaves open the problem of how the skeptic or nihilist has accessed it. In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox encompasses paradoxical statements such as: or To avoid having a sentence directly refer to its own truth value, one can also construct the paradox as follows: // Eubulides of Miletus words The oldest version of the liar paradox is attributed to the Greek philosopher...
Some would proffer that the nihilist has not accessed truth directly, but has come to the conclusion that truth is ultimately unattainable within the confines of human circumstance. Thus, since the nihilist knows truth cannot be attained in this life, he/she looks upon the activities of those rigorously seeking truth as futile.
Nihilism in art There have been various movements in art, such as surrealism and cubism, which have been criticized for touching on nihilism, and others like Dada which have embraced it openly. More generally, modern art has been criticised as nihilistic due to its often non-representative nature, as happened with the Nazi party's Degenerate art exhibit. Surrealism is an artistic movement and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative powers of the unconscious. ...
Woman with a guitar by Georges Braque, 1913 Cubist house in Prague Cubism was an avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. ...
Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ...
For the psychedelic rock band, see The Modern Art. ...
The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ...
The Magdeburger Ehrenmal (Magdeburg cenotaph) created by Ernst Barlach was declared to be degenerate art due to the deformity and emaciation of the figures which corresponded to Nordaus theory of the connection between mental and physical degeneration. ...
Nihilistic themes can be found in literature and music as well. This is especially true of contemporary music and literature, where the uncertainty following what some perceive as the demise of modernism is explored in detail.
Dada The term Dada was first used during World War I, an event that precipitated the movement, which lasted from approximately 1916 to 1923. 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 and labeling them art, thus undermining ideas of what art is and what it can be. At other times Dadaists paid attention to aesthetic guidelines only so they could be avoided, attempting to render their works devoid of meaning and aesthetic value. This tendency toward devaluation of art has led many to claim that Dada was essentially a nihilist movement a destruction without creation. Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ...
Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...
1916 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ...
1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Found poetry is the rearrangment of words or phrases taken randomly from other sources (example: clipped newspaper headlines, bits of advertising copy, handwritten cards pulled from a hat) in a manner that gives the rearranged words a completely new meaning. ...
Aesthetics (or esthetics) (from the Greek word αισθητική) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty. ...
Nihilism in literature Although the word nihilism is of recent historical vintage, the attitude it represents is not, as is seen in a famous passage near the end of Shakespeare's Macbeth — though Macbeth is not speaking of universal collapse or expansion but the brute and more immediate fact of human death: William Shakespeare—born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (O.S.), May 3, 1616 (N.S.)—has a reputation as the greatest of all writers in English. ...
Scene from Macbeth, depicting the witches conjuring of an apparition in Act IV, Scene I Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based loosely on the historical King Macbeth of Scotland. ...
-
- Out, out, brief candle!
- Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
- That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
- And then is heard no more; it is a tale
- Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
- Signifying nothing. (Act 5, Scene 5)
In nineteenth-century culture, nihilism was given wide currency by the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons (1862) to describe the views of an emerging radical Russian intelligentsia. These consisted primarily of upper-class students who had grown disillusioned with the slow pace of reformism. The primary spokesman for this new philosophy was D. I. Pisarev (1840-1868) who articulated a program of Revolutionary Utilitarianism and advocated violence as a tool for social change. Pisarev was cast as Bazarov in Fathers and Sons much to his own delight; he proudly embraced his new status as a fictional hero and villain. Ivan Turgenev, photo by Félix Nadar (1820-1910) Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев, November 9, 1818, Orel, Russia - September 3, 1883,Bougival, near Paris, France ) was a major Russian novelist and playwright. ...
Fathers and Sons was an 1862 novel by Ivan Turgenev, his best known work. ...
1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
The intelligentsia is a social class of intellectuals and social groups close to them (e. ...
Reformism (also called revisionism or revisionist theory) is the belief that gradual changes in a society can ultimately change its fundamental structures. ...
The Russian Dimitri Pisarev was born in 1840 and died in 1868. ...
Utilitarianism (from the Latin utilis, useful) is a theory of ethics based on quantitative maximisation of happiness for society or humanity. ...
After its popularization in the character of Bazarov, the word quickly became a catch-all term of derision for younger, more radical generations, and continues in this vein to modern times. It is often used to indicate a group or philosophy the speaker intends to characterize as having no moral sensibility, no belief in truth, beauty, love, or whatever else the speaker and his presumed audience values, and no regard for the current social conventions. This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in the evaluation of propositions, sentences, and similar items. ...
This page is about the pleasant phenomenon. ...
Love has many meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure (I loved that movie) to something one would die for (patriotism, pairbonding). ...
In sociology a social rule refers to any social convention commonly adhered to in a society. ...
In Germinal (1885), by Emile Zola, the nihilist character Souvarine dramatizes the danger of nihilism when, in a climactic scene, he sabotages a coal mine and causes a catastrophic accident, then slips away. Souvarine's lack of belief, frequently expressed, is a foil to the optimistic socialism that fuels the coal miners' revolt. Germinal was the seventh month in the French Republican Calendar. ...
1885 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...
mile Zola (April 2, 1840 - September 29, 1902) was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. ...
For information on mainstream political parties using the term Socialist, see Social democracy and Democratic socialism,For the governments of the USSR, the PRC, and others, see: Communist state, Other variants of Socialism include Marxism, Communism, and Libertarian Socialism. ...
The work of Albert Camus can be read as a sustained engagement with nihilism. Albert Camus Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries (with Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. ...
In contemporary literature, themes of nihilism can also be found in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and many of Kurt Vonnegut's books. Robert Stone, additionally, is a contemporary American novelist who has often thematized nihilism in his work. In A Flag for Sunrise (1981), for example, the anthropologist Holliwell is a protagonist struggling against his own nihilistic tendencies. Another American author who is commonly believed to deal with themes of nihilism is Chuck Palahniuk. In his 1996 novel Fight Club, for example, the ultimate goal of the book's 'project mayhem' is the destruction of modern civilization in order to rebuild humanity. Palahniuk, however, claims that he does not purposely focus on the subject. Atlas Shrugged cover Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the USA. There are currently plans to make a movie version. ...
Ayn Rand (February 2, 1905 – March 6, 1982; first name pronounced (IPA) (rhymes with mine)), born Alissa Alice Zinovievna Rosenbaum, was a popular and controversial American philosopher and novelist, best known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. ...
Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Junior (born November 11, 1922) is an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. ...
Photo of Robert Stone by Robert Birnbaum Robert Stone (born August 21, 1937) is a critically well regarded American novelist, whose work is typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor. ...
1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Charles Michael Chuck Palahniuk (born February 21, 1961 in Pasco, Washington, USA) is an American satirical novelist and freelance journalist living in Portland, Oregon. ...
1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...
Fight Club (1996) is the first published novel by Chuck Palahniuk. ...
Nihilism in Music Punk rock has often been regarded as taking a nihilistic and anarchistic view of the world around it. Another approach to nihilism has been taken by Death Metal, whose intentionally bizarre song structures and morbid lyrics depict life's meaninglessness and a lack of absolute morals. Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ...
This article describes a range of political philosophies that oppose the state and capitalism. ...
Death metal is a type of heavy metal music with thrash metal influences which emerged in the United States (especially Florida and California), Europe (especially the United Kingdom and Sweden) and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ...
Lyrics are the written words in a song. ...
Moral absolutism is the belief or theory that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged and suggests that morals are not determined by societal or situational influences. ...
However, the subcultures that have sprung up around these genres contain some amount of unique social norms and mores. An example would be so-called "Pit Etiquette". These are the rules of common courtesy that dictate behavior in mosh pits at concerts. The existence of these mores suggests that although lyrically and artistically a philosophy of Nihilism may permeate these genres, the draw to their normally younger fan base may be more based on an illusion of rebellion than any real nihilistic beliefs. The term mores (pronounced mor-ayz) as used in Sociology is a plural noun. ...
See also In philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of the objective reality of entities of a certain type or the insistence that we should be agnostic about their real existence. ...
In philosophy, contextualism is the view that any decision or action or utterance always takes place in a context and can only be understood within that context (cf indexicality). ...
Cynicism was originally the philosophy of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics (main article), founded by Antisthenes. ...
This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...
Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views the individual, the self, the individuals experience, and the uniqueness therein as the basis for understanding the nature of human existence. ...
Disambiguation: Theatre of the Absurd In Philosophy, The Absurd refers to humans who continue to live their lives, despite knowledge that their lives are utterly pointless. ...
Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ...
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (January 25, 1743 - March 10, 1819), was a German philosopher who made his mark on philosophy by coining the term nihilism and promoting it as the prime fault of Enlightenment thought and Kantianism. ...
Luigi Pirandello (June 28, 1867 – December 10, 1936) was an Italian dramatist and novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. ...
Johann Kaspar Schmidt (October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856), better known as Max Stirner (the nom de plume he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow [Stirn]), German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary grandfathers of nihilism, existentialism and...
Paul Karl Feyerabend (January 13, 1924 - February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, who later lived in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, and finally Switzerland. ...
Post-structuralism is a term used in an English-language context to designate some French-language scholarship and Anglo-American derivatives that washed ashore as the tide of structuralism receded. ...
Solipsism (from the Latin ipse = self and solus = alone) is the metaphysical belief that only oneself exists, and that existence just means being a part of ones own mental states — all objects, people, etc, that one experiences are merely parts of ones own mind. ...
External links
References - Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi [1]. entry by George di Giovanni on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website
- Nietzsche, Friedrich (1886). Beyond Good and Evil. Project Gutenberg eText.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Project Gutenberg eText.
Books on Nihilism - Nihilism, The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose, Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation, Forestville, CA, l994,l995.
- Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld, Thomas S. Hibbs, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, TX, 2000.
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