Philosophy.
a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the
possibility of an objective basis for truth.
Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position that
argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic
value. Nihilists generally assert that objective morality does not exist, so
subsequently there is no objective moral value with which to uphold a rule or
to logically prefer one action over another. Nihilists who argue that there is
no objective morality may claim that existence has no intrinsic higher meaning
or goal. There is no reasonable proof or argument for the existence of a higher
ruler or creator, or posit that even if higher rulers or creators exist,
humanity has no moral obligation to worship them. There are no known sources
that disprove the above claim.
The term nihilism is sometimes used synonymously with anomie to denote a
general mood of despair at the pointlessness of existence.[1] Movements such as
Futurism and deconstructionism,[2] among others, have been identified by
commentators as "nihilistic" at various times in various contexts. Often this
means or is meant to imply that the beliefs of the accuser are more substantial
or truthful, whereas the beliefs of the accused are nihilistic, and thereby
comparatively amount to nothing (or are simply claimed to be destructively
amoralistic).
Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for
example, Jean Baudrillard and others have called postmodernity a nihilistic
epoch,[3] and some Christian theologians and figures of religious authority
have asserted that postmodernity[4] and many aspects of modernity[2] represent
the rejection of God, and therefore are nihilistic.
-wiki
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Polemicist, socialite, and literary figure, Jacobi was an outspoken critic,
first of the rationalism of German late Enlightenment philosophy, then of
Kant's Transcendental Idealism, especially in the form that the early Fichte
gave to it, and finally of the Romantic Idealism of the late Schelling. In all
cases, his opposition to the philosophers was based on his belief that their
passion for explanation unwittingly led them to confuse conditions of
conceptualization with conditions of existence, thereby denying all room for
individual freedom or for a personal God. Jacobi made this point, in defence of
individualism and personalistic values, in a number of public controversies, in
the course of which he put in circulation expressions and themes that resonate
to this day. He was the one who invited Lessing, who he thought was walking on
his head in the manner of all philosophers, to perform a salto mortale (a jump
heels over head) that would redress his
position and thus allow him to move again on the ground of common sense. He
was also responsible for forging the concept of ‘nihilism’ -- a condition of
which he accused the philosophers -- and thereby initiating the discourse
associated with it. His battle cry, which he first directed at the defenders of
Enlightenment rationalism and then at Kant and his successors, was that
‘consistent philosophy is Spinozist, hence pantheist, fatalist and atheist’.
The formula had the effect of bringing Spinoza to the centre of the
philosophical discussion of the day. In the face Kant and his idealistic
successors, Jacobi complained that they had subverted the language of the ‘I’
by reintroducing it on the basis of abstractions that in fact negated its
original value. They had thus replaced real selfhood with the mere illusion of
one.-stanford
Some scholars regard Nietzsche's 1873 unpublished essay, “On Truth and Lies in
an Nonmoral Sense” (“Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn”) as a
keystone in his thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal
constants, and claims that what we call “truth” is only “a mobile army of
metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.” His view at this time is that
arbitrariness prevails within human experience: concepts originate via the
transformation of nerve stimuli into images, and “truth” is nothing more than
the invention of fixed conventions for practical purposes, especially those of
repose, security and consistency. Viewing human existence from a great
distance, Nietzsche further notes that there was an eternity before human
beings came into existence, and believes that after humanity dies out, nothing
significant will have changed in the great scheme of things.-stanford
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