nihilism – WikiChoeclaiste

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[31]: 43–50 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.
[30] For Nietzsche, nihilism applied to both the modern trends of value-destruction expressed in the ‘death of God’, as well as what he saw as the life-denying morality of
Christianity.
[78] 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.
With regard to Nietzsche’s development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with “nihilistic” themes from 1869 onwards (“pessimism, with nirvana
and with nothingness and non-being”[68]), a conceptual use of nihilism occurred for the first time in handwritten notes in the middle of 1880 (KSA 9.127-128).
[9][5] Earlier forms of nihilism, however, may be more selective in negating specific hegemonies of social, moral, political and aesthetic thought.
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.
Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.
[8] Contemporary understanding of the idea stems largely from the Nietzschean ‘crisis of nihilism’, from which derive the two central concepts: the destruction of higher values
and the opposition to the affirmation of life.
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 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.
[5][6] Scholars of nihilism may regard it as merely a label that has been applied to various separate philosophies,[7] or as a distinct historical concept arising out of nominalism,
skepticism, and philosophical pessimism, as well as possibly out of Christianity itself.
[27] The nihilist characters of the novel define themselves as those who “deny everything”, who do “not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may
be enshrined in”, and who regard “at the present time, negation is the most useful of all”.
In the “Doctrine of Nihilism” in the Apannaka Sutta, the Buddha describes moral nihilists as holding the following views:[37] • The act of 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 world.
Nietzsche characterizes this attitude as a “will to nothingness”, whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world.
[73] Rather, there are interpretations through which we understand the world and give it meaning.
Lyotard[edit] 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 not be separated from the age and system the stories belong to—referred to by Lyotard as meta-narratives.
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.
[70] Nietzsche asserts that with the decline of Christianity and the rise of physiological decadence,[clarification needed] nihilism is in fact characteristic of the modern
age,[71] though he implies that the rise of nihilism is still incomplete and that it has yet to be overcome.
The meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can create their own subjective meaning or purpose.
Though the notion appears frequently throughout Nietzsche’s work, he uses the term in a variety of ways, with different meanings and connotations.
[8] In popular use, the term commonly refers to forms of existential nihilism, according to which life is without intrinsic value, meaning, or purpose.
o Extreme metaphysical nihilism, also sometimes called ontological nihilism, is the position that nothing actually exists at all.
[23] In the period surrounding the French Revolution, the term was also a pejorative for certain value-destructive trends of modernity, namely the negation of Christianity
and European tradition in general.
[33] Religious scholars such as Altizer have stated that nihilism must necessarily be understood in relation to religion, and that the study of core elements of its character
requires fundamentally theological consideration.
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.
However, the word could be emphasized in a different way, so that it becomes no-thingness, indicating that nirvana is not a thing you can find, but rather a state where you
experience the reality of non-grasping.
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.
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.
[26] From the time of Jacobi, the term almost fell completely out of use throughout Europe until it was revived by Russian author Ivan Turgenev, who brought the word into
popular use with his 1862 novel Fathers and Sons, leading many scholars to believe he coined the term.
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.
[69] Karen L. 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.
[31][32] Under Nietzsche’s profound influence, the term was then further treated within French philosophy and continental philosophy more broadly, while the influence of nihilism
in Russia arguably continued well into the Soviet era.
“[47] 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.
This concept of the instability of truth and meaning leads in the direction of nihilism, though Lyotard stops short of embracing the latter.
[10] The term is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence or arbitrariness of human principles
and social institutions.
[43] Jacobi[edit] The term nihilism was first introduced to philosophy by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), who used the term to characterize rationalism,[44] and in
particular the Spinoza’s determinism and the Aufklärung, 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.
[19] The term nihilism emerged in several places in Europe during the 18th century,[7] notably in the German form Nihilismus,[20] though was also in use during the Middle
Ages to denote certain forms of heresy.
Postmodernism[edit] 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.
[101][102] The American Heritage Medical Dictionary defines one form of nihilism as “An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
[77] 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.
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.
“[74] 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.
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.
[72] 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.
[3] 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.
He rather tries to incorporate Nietzsche’s thoughts into his own philosophical system of Being, Time and Dasein.
[citation needed] 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.
[80] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive.
This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as “a sign of strength,”[81] 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.
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.
[39][42] Despite the Buddha’s explanations to the contrary, Buddhist practitioners may, at times, still approach Buddhism in a nihilistic manner.
However, despite the fact that both views deny the certainty of objects’ true existence, the nihilist would deny the existence of self, whereas the solipsist would affirm
it.
Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ(h)ɪlɪzəm, ˈniː-/; from Latin nihil ‘nothing’) is a family of views within philosophy that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence,[1][2]
such as knowledge, morality, or meaning.
[29] Nihilism was further discussed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who used the term to describe the Western world’s disintegration of traditional morality.
Moreover, because metaphysics has forgotten to ask about the notion of Being (what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit), it is a history about the destruction of Being.
According to Heidegger, the history of Western thought can be seen as the history of metaphysics.
[18] Other prominent positions within nihilism include the rejection of all normative and ethical views (§ Moral nihilism), the rejection of all social and political institutions
(§ Political nihilism), the stance that no knowledge can or does exist (§ Epistemological nihilism), and a number of metaphysical positions, which assert that non-abstract objects do not exist (§ Metaphysical nihilism), that composite objects
do not exist (§ Mereological nihilism), or even that life itself does not exist.
“[99] • Cosmic nihilism is the position that reality or the cosmos is either wholly or significantly unintelligible and that it provides no foundation for human aims and principles.
Rather, 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).
[49] 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.
[79] He describes this as “an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists”: 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.
Rejecting idealism thus results in nihilism, because only similarly transcendent ideals live up to the previous standards that the nihilist still implicitly holds.
[71] 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.
One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism, which he recognizes in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer.
Each of these, as the Encyclopædia Britannica states, “denied the existence of genuine moral truths or values, rejected the possibility of knowledge or communication, and
asserted the ultimate meaninglessness or purposelessness of life or of the universe.
[38] 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.
The Buddha further states that those who hold these views will fail to see the virtue in good mental, verbal, and bodily conduct and the corresponding dangers in misconduct,
and will therefore tend towards the latter.
[21] The concept itself first took shape within Russian and German philosophy, which respectively represented the two major currents of discourse on nihilism prior to the
20th century.

Works Cited

[‘Crosby, Donald A. (1998). “Nihilism”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N037-1. ISBN 9780415250696. As its name implies (from Latin nihil, ‘nothing’), philosophical nihilism is a philosophy of negation,
rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life.
2. ^ Deleuze, Gilles (1962). Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Tomlinson, Hugh. London: The Athlone Press (published 1983). ISBN 978-0-231-13877-2. Nietzsche calls the enterprise
of denying life and depreciating existence nihilism.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b c Veit, Walter (2018). “Existential Nihilism: The Only Really Serious Philosophical Problem”. Journal of Camus Studies: 211–236. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.26965.24804.
4. ^
 Crosby,
Donald A. (1998). “Nihilism”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N037-1. ISBN 9780415250696. As its name implies (from Latin nihil, ‘nothing’), philosophical nihilism is a philosophy of negation,
rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life.
 Pratt, Alan. “Nihilism”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2010-04-12. Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can
be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.
 “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. In the 20th century, nihilism encompassed a variety of philosophical
and aesthetic stances that, in one sense or another, denied the existence of genuine moral truths or values, rejected the possibility of knowledge or communication, and asserted the ultimate meaninglessness or purposelessness of life or of the universe.
 Harper,
Douglas. “nihilism”. Online Etymology Dictionary.
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“The Meaning of Life#Nihilism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
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JSTOR 3711099.
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 Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996). Nihilism Before Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226293486.
 Deleuze, Gilles (1983) [1962]. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Tomlinson, Hugh.
London: The Athlone Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13877-2.
9. ^ Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996). Nihilism Before Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226293486.
10. ^
 Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996). Nihilism Before Nietzsche. University
of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226293486.
 Petrov, Kristian (2019). “‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s Russian nihilism and its notion of negation”. Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4.
S2CID 150893870.
11. ^ Cited in Woodward, Ashley. 2002. “Nihilism and the Postmodern in Vattimo’s Nietzsche.” Minerva 6. ISSN 1393-614X. Archived from the original on 2010-04-05.
12. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. 1993. “Game with Vestiges.” In Baudrillard
Live, edited by M. Gane.
13. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. [1981] 1994. “On Nihilism.” In Simulacra and Simulation, translated by S. F. Glasser.
14. ^ See:
 Toynbee, Arnold J. 1963. A Study of History VIII & IX;
 Mills, C. Wright. 1959.
The Sociological Imagination;
 Bell, Daniel. 1976. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.
15. ^ See: Rose, Gillian. 1984. Dialectic of Nihilism; Carr, Karen L. 1988. The Banalization of Nihilism; Pope John-Paul II. 1995. Evangelium vitae:
Il valore e l’inviolabilita delta vita umana. Milan: Paoline Editoriale Libri.”
16. ^ Leffel, Jim; Dennis McCallum. “The Postmodern Challenge: Facing the Spirit of the Age”. Christian Research Institute. Archived from the original on 2006-08-19.
…the nihilism and loneliness of postmodern culture…
17. ^ Phillips, Robert (1999). “Deconstructing the Mass”. Latin Mass Magazine (Winter). Archived from the original on 2004-04-17. For deconstructionists, not only is there no truth to know,
there is no self to know it and so there is no soul to save or lose.” and “In following the Enlightenment to its logical end, deconstruction reaches nihilism. The meaning of human life is reduced to whatever happens to interest us at the moment…
18. ^
Pratt, Alan. “Existential Nihilism | Nihilism.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Nihilism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy”. Archived from the original on 2010-04-12. Retrieved 2003-08-26.: Existential nihilism is “the notion that life has
no intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used and understood sense of the word today.”
19. ^ “Nihility”. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
20. ^ Jump up to:a b “Nichilismo”.
Enciclopedia Italiana: Enciclopedia online (in Italian). Treccani: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
21. ^ “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. The term is an old one, applied to certain heretics in
the Middle Ages.
22. ^ “nihilism”. Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2003. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
23. ^ Gloy, Karen (2014). “Nihilismus–Pessimismus”. Zwischen Glück
und Tragik (in German). Wilhelm Fink. pp. 145–200. doi:10.30965/9783846756454_007. ISBN 9783846756454.
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 Klemme, Heiner F.; Kuehn, Manfred, eds. (2010). “Obereit, Jacob Hermann”. The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers.
Continuum. ISBN 9780199797097.
 di Giovanni, George. “Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi”. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2008 ed.). Archived from the original on 2013-12-02.
25. ^ Harper, Douglas. “nihilism”.
Online Etymology Dictionary.
26. ^ “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. In Russian literature, nihilism was probably first used by N.I. Nadezhdin, in an 1829 article in the Messenger of Europe, in which he applied it to Aleksandr
Pushkin. Nadezhdin, as did V.V. Bervi in 1858, equated nihilism with skepticism. Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, a well-known conservative journalist who interpreted nihilism as synonymous with revolution, presented it as a social menace because of its
negation of all moral principles.
27. ^ Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996). Nihilism Before Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press. p. 110. ISBN 9780226293486.
28. ^
 Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton
University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. For it was Bazarov who had first declared himself to be a “Nihilist” and who announced that, “since at the present time, negation is the most useful of all,” the Nihilists “deny—everything.”
 Turgenev,
Ivan. “Chapter 5”. Fathers and Sons. Translated by Constance Garnett. A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.
29. ^ Petrov,
Kristian (2019). “‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s Russian nihilism and its notion of negation”. Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4. S2CID 150893870.
30. ^ “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia
Britannica. 3 January 2024. The term was famously used by Friedrich Nietzsche to describe the disintegration of traditional morality in Western society.
31. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Carr, Karen L. 1992. The Banalisation of Nihilism. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
32. ^ Deleuze, Gilles (1983) [1962]. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Tomlinson, Hugh. London: The Athlone Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13877-2.
33. ^
 Ramos, Alice (1996). “Triumph of the Will”. The Review
of Politics. 58 (1): 181–184. doi:10.1017/S0034670500051779. S2CID 181941969.
 Altizer, Thomas J. J. (1997). “Review: Nihilism before Nietzsche by Michael Allen Gillespie and Metaphysics by Michel Haar & Michael Gendre”. The Journal of Religion.
77 (2). University of Chicago Press: 328–330. doi:10.1086/490005. JSTOR 1205805.
34. ^ Altizer, Thomas J. J. (1997). “Review: Nihilism before Nietzsche by Michael Allen Gillespie and Metaphysics by Michel Haar & Michael Gendre”. The Journal of Religion.
77 (2). University of Chicago Press: 328–330. doi:10.1086/490005. JSTOR 1205805.
35. ^ “Buddhists celebrate birth of Gautama Buddha”. HISTORY. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved Apr 7, 2020.
36. ^ Bhikkhu Bodhi. “Pali-English
Glossary” and “Index of Subjects.” In The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikkaya.
37. ^ Jump up to:a b Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans. “Apannaka Sutta.” In The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
Note 425.
38. ^ Jump up to:a b Pasanno, Ajahn; Amaro, Ajahn (October 2009). “Knowing, Emptiness and the Radiant Mind” (PDF). Forest Sangha Newsletter (88): 5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
39. ^ Jump
up to:a b Alagaddupama Sutta, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (PDF). Translated by Nanamoli, Bikkhu; Bodhi, Bikkhu. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
40. ^ Jump up to:a b Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta: To
Vacchagotta on Fire. Translated by Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. 1997. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 24 June 2019 – via Accesstoinsight.org.
41. ^ Bhikkhu, Thanissaro (1999). “‘This fire that has gone out… in which direction from
here has it gone?'”. Mind Like Fire Unbound (Fourth ed.). Retrieved 24 June 2019 – via Accesstoinsight.org.
42. ^ Kevatta (Kevaddha) Sutta: To Kevatta. Translated by Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. 1997. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019. Retrieved
24 June 2019 – via Accesstoinsight.org.
43. ^ Amaro, Ajahn (7 May 2015) [2008]. “A Dhamma article by Ajahn Amaro – The View from the Centre”. Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
44. ^
di Giovanni, George. “Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi”. plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
45. ^ Davis, Bret W. 2004. “Zen After Zarathustra: The Problem of the Will in the Confrontation Between Nietzsche and Buddhism.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies
28:89–138. p. 107.
46. ^ Dreyfus, Hubert (2004). “Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age”. Berkeley.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-12-22.
47. ^ Jump up to:a b Hannay, Alastair. Kierkegaard, p. 289.
48. ^
Cotkin, George. Existential America, p. 59.
49. ^ Kierkegaard, Søren. The Present Age, translated by Alexander Dru. Foreword by Walter Kaufmann.
50. ^ Kierkegaard, Søren. 1849. The Sickness Unto Death.
51. ^ Barnett, Christopher. Kierkegaard,
Pietism, and Holiness, p. 156.
52. ^ Wrathall, Mark, et al. Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity. p. 107.
53. ^
 “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. Nihilism, (from Latin nihil, “nothing”), originally a philosophy of
moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th-century Russia during the early years of the reign of Tsar Alexander II.
 Pratt, Alan. “Nihilism”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely
organized revolutionary movement (C.1860-1917) that rejected the authority of the state, church, and family.
 Lovell, Stephen (1998). “Nihilism, Russian”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-E072-1.
ISBN 9780415250696. Nihilism was a broad social and cultural movement as well as a doctrine.
54. ^ “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. The philosophy of nihilism then began to be associated erroneously with the regicide of Alexander
II (1881) and the political terror that was employed by those active at the time in clandestine organizations opposed to absolutism.
55. ^
 Petrov, Kristian (2019). “‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s
Russian nihilism and its notion of negation”. Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4. S2CID 150893870.
 Scanlan, James P. (1999). “The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground”. Journal
of the History of Ideas. 60 (3). University of Pennsylvania Press: 553–554. doi:10.2307/3654018. JSTOR 3654018.
56. ^ Lovell, Stephen (1998). “Nihilism, Russian”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-E072-1.
ISBN 9780415250696. The major theorists of Russian Nihilism were Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Dmitrii Pisarev, although their authority and influence extended well beyond the realm of theory.
57. ^
 Lovell, Stephen (1998). “Nihilism, Russian”.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-E072-1. ISBN 9780415250696. Russian Nihilism is perhaps best regarded as the intellectual pool of the period 1855–66 out of which later radical movements emerged.
 Nishitani,
Keiji (1990). McCormick, Peter J. (ed.). The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. Translated by Graham Parkes; with Setsuko Aihara. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791404382. Nihilism and anarchism, which for a while would completely dominate the
intelligentsia and become a major factor in the history of nineteenth-century Russia, emerged in the final years of the reign of Alexander I.
58. ^ “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. Nihilism, (from Latin nihil, “nothing”), originally
a philosophy of moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th-century Russia during the early years of the reign of Tsar Alexander II.
59. ^
 Petrov, Kristian (2019). “‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis
of 1860s Russian nihilism and its notion of negation”. Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4. S2CID 150893870. Even so, the term nihilism did not become popular until Turgenev published F&C in 1862. Turgenev, a sorokovnik
(an 1840s man), used the term to describe “the children”, the new generation of students and intellectuals who, by virtue of their relation to their fathers, were considered šestidesjatniki.
 “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. It was Ivan
Turgenev, in his celebrated novel Fathers and Sons (1862), who popularized the term through the figure of Bazarov the nihilist.
 “Fathers and Sons”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Fathers and Sons concerns the inevitable conflict between generations
and between the values of traditionalists and intellectuals.
 Edie, James M.; Scanlan, James; Zeldin, Mary-Barbara (1994). Russian Philosophy Volume II: The Nihilists, The Populists, Critics of Religion and Culture. University of Tennessee
Press. p. 3. The “fathers” of the novel are full of humanitarian, progressive sentiments … But to the “sons,” typified by the brusque scientifically minded Bazarov, the “fathers” were concerned too much with generalities, not enough with the specific
material evils of the day.
60. ^ Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. For it was Bazarov who had first declared himself to be a “Nihilist” and who announced that, “since
at the present time, negation is the most useful of all,” the Nihilists “deny—everything.”
61. ^
 “Fathers and Sons”. Encyclopædia Britannica. At the novel’s first appearance, the radical younger generation attacked it bitterly as a slander,
and conservatives condemned it as too lenient
 “Fathers and Sons”. Novels for Students. Retrieved August 11, 2020 – via Encyclopedia.com. When he returned to Saint Petersburg in 1862 on the same day that young radicals—calling themselves “nihilists”—were
setting fire to buildings.
62. ^
 “Nihilism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 January 2024. Originally a philosophy of moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th-century Russia during the early years of the reign of Tsar Alexander
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Russian nihilism did not imply, as one might expect from a purely semantic viewpoint, a universal “negation” of ethical normativity, the foundations of knowledge or the meaningfulness of human existence.
63. ^ Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996). Nihilism
Before Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press. p. 139. ISBN 9780226293486. This nihilist movement was essentially Promethean.”; “It has often been argued that Russian nihilism is little more than skepticism or empiricism. While there is a certain
plausibility to this assertion, it ultimately fails to capture the millenarian zeal the characterized Russian nihilism. These nihilists were not skeptics but passionate advocates of negation and liberation.
64. ^
 Gillespie, Michael Allen
(1996). Nihilism Before Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press. pp. 139, 143–144. ISBN 9780226293486. These nihilists were not skeptics but passionate advocates of negation and liberation.”; “While the two leading nihilist groups disagreed on details,
they both sought to liberate the Promethean might of the Russian people”; “The nihilists believed that the prototypes of this new Promethean humanity already existed in the cadre of the revolutionary movement itself.
 Petrov, Kristian (2019).
“‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s Russian nihilism and its notion of negation”. Stud East Eur Thought. 71 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1007/s11212-019-09319-4. S2CID 150893870. These “new types”, to borrow Pisarev’s
designation
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66. ^ Petrov, Kristian (2019). “‘Strike out, right and left!’: a conceptual-historical analysis of 1860s Russian
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Primary texts[edit]
• Brassier,
Ray (2007) Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, Jacobi an Fichte (1799/1816), German Text (1799/1816), Appendix with Jacobi’s and Fichte’s complementary Texts, critical Apparatus,
Commentary, and Italian Translation, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Naples 2011, ISBN 978-88-905957-5-2.
• Heidegger, Martin (1982), Nietzsche, Vols. I-IV, trans. F.A. Capuzzi, San Francisco: Harper & Row.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1998/1854),
The Moment and Late Writings: Kierkegaard’s Writings, Vol. 23, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-03226-9.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1978/1846), The Two Ages : Kierkegaard’s Writings,
Vol 14, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong, and Edna H. Hong, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-07226-5.
• Kierkegaard, Søren (1995/1850), Works of Love : Kierkegaard’s Writings, Vol 16, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna
H. Hong, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-03792-9.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (2005/1886), Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1974/1887), The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufman, Vintage, ISBN
0-394-71985-9.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1980), Sämtliche Werken. Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. C. Colli and M. Montinari, Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-007680-2.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (2008/1885), Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. Thomas Common.
• Tartaglia,
James (2016), Philosophy in a Meaningless Life: A System of Nihilism, Consciousness and Reality, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Secondary texts[edit]
• Arena, Leonardo Vittorio (1997), Del nonsense: tra Oriente e Occidente, Urbino: Quattroventi.
• Arena,
Leonardo Vittorio (2012), Nonsense as the Meaning, ebook.
• Arena, Leonardo Vittorio (2015), On Nudity. An Introduction to Nonsense, Mimesis International.
• Barnett, Christopher (2011), Kierkegaard, pietism and holiness, Ashgate Publishing.
• Carr,
Karen (1992), The Banalisation of Nihilism, State University of New York Press.
• Cattarini, L. S. (2018), Beyond Sartre and Sterility: Surviving Existentialism (Montreal: contact argobookshop.ca)
• Cunningham, Conor (2002), Genealogy of Nihilism:
Philosophies of Nothing & the Difference of Theology, New York, NY: Routledge.
• Dent, G., Wallace, M., & Dia Center for the Arts. (1992). “Black popular culture” (Discussions in contemporary culture ; no. 8). Seattle: Bay Press.
• Dod, Elmar
(2013), Der unheimlichste Gast. Die Philosophie des Nihilismus. Marburg: Tectum 2013.
• Dreyfus, Hubert L. (2004), Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age. Retrieved at December 1, 2009.
• Fraser, John (2001),
“Nihilism, Modernisn and Value”, retrieved at December 2, 2009.
• Galimberti, Umberto (2008), L’ospite inquietante. Il nichilismo e i giovani, Milano: Feltrinelli. ISBN 9788807171437.
• Gillespie, Michael Allen (1996), Nihilism Before Nietzsche,
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Giovanni, George di (2008), “Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved on December 1, 2009.
• Harper, Douglas, “Nihilism”, in: Online Etymology
Dictionary, retrieved at December 2, 2009.
• Harries, Karsten (2010), Between nihilism and faith: a commentary on Either/or, Walter de Gruyter Press.
• Hibbs, Thomas S. (2000), Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist
to Seinfeld, Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing Company.
• Kopić, Mario (2001), S Nietzscheom o Europi, Zagreb: Jesenski i Turk.
• Korab-Karpowicz, W. J. (2005), “Martin Heidegger (1889—1976)”, in: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, retrieved at
December 2, 2009.
• Kuhn, Elisabeth (1992), Friedrich Nietzsches Philosophie des europäischen Nihilismus, Walter de Gruyter.
• Irti, Natalino (2004), Nichilismo giuridico, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
• Löwith, Karl (1995), Martin Heidegger and European
Nihilism, New York, NY: Columbia UP.
• Marmysz, John (2003), Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
• Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang (2000), Heidegger und Nietzsche. Nietzsche-Interpretationen III, Berlin-New York.
• Parvez
Manzoor, S. (2003), “Modernity and Nihilism. Secular History and Loss of Meaning”, retrieved at December 2, 2009.
• Rose, Eugene Fr. Seraphim (1995), Nihilism, The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, Forestville, CA: Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation.
• Rosen,
Stanley (2000), Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay, South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press (2nd Edition).
• Severino, Emanuele (1982), Essenza del nichilismo, Milano: Adelphi. ISBN 9788845904899.
• Slocombe, Will (2006), Nihilism and the Sublime
Postmodern: The (Hi)Story of a Difficult Relationship, New York, NY: Routledge.
• Tigani, Francesco (2010), Rappresentare Medea. Dal mito al nichilismo, Roma: Aracne. ISBN 978-88-548-3256-5.
• Tigani, Francesco (2014), Lo spettro del nulla e il
corpo del nichilismo, in La nave di Teseo. Saggi sull’Essere, il mito e il potere, Napoli: Guida. ISBN 9788868660499.
• Villet, Charles (2009), Towards Ethical Nihilism: The Possibility of Nietzschean Hope, Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller.
• Williams,
Peter S. (2005), I Wish I Could Believe in Meaning: A Response to Nihilism, Damaris Publishing.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/5680695867/’]