Related Papers
Nihilism in Postmodernity
2006 •
Ashley Woodward
but that asks about their ramifications on our perceptions of the value and meaningfulness of existence. Moreover, as becomes particularly evident in Nietz.sche's treatment of nihilism, nihilistic interpretations of the world are not restricted to the abstract concepts of academic philosophy, bur thoroughly permeate human culture. Nihilism asks us to think about what forms of thought and what interpretations of the world are commensurate with a positive valuation of existence, and what forms are detrimental to such a valuation. Moreover, what are the criteria for such judgements? I would argue that even more abstract uses of the term in philosophy-such as the tendency to apply it to any doctrine that denies the existence of something carries with it these existential ramifications in the critical connotation it has. "Nihilism" is most often an accusation, a criticism, not a neutral description of a doctrine or position. BrieRy summarising the history of the philosophi...
Theorizing Fatal Strategies: A New Leftist Vocabulary of Jean Baudrillard
善一 杨
Open Philosophy
Introduction to Open Philosophy's Topical Issue "Nihilism through a Contemporary Lens: Post-Continental and Other Perspectives"
2023 •
Evrim Bayındır
For the full issue, please visit: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/opphil/html?lang=en#latestIssue
Philosophy & Social Criticism
Nietzsche's shadow: On the origin and development of the term nihilism
2020 •
Juan Luis Toribio Vazquez
While the term 'nihilism' has become increasingly widespread throughout the past two centuries, not only in academic discourses but in popular culture more widely, there is a surprising lack of consensus regarding its specific meaning. This is perhaps owing to the myriad contexts in which the word has appeared since its inception, which range from specialized works of philosophy to an array of mass-cultural products. This article overviews the emergence and development of the term 'nihilism', in order to clarify some of the principal reasons for its prevalence and ambiguity. Having discussed the word's origin, the article scrutinizes its significance in the early work of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was largely responsible for its popularization, and overviews some of its major appearances throughout the 20th century, in order to show that while Nietzsche stands as the iconic founder of discursivity on nihilism, posthumous uses of the word deviate sharply from his own determinations. The term 'nihilism' is of a peculiar nature, to say the least. Since its emergence, in the second half of the 19th century, it has acquired considerable currency-but also notoriety gradually becoming one of those words that appears to be widely understood (or at least familiar to most) but whose deployment seems to suggest quite the opposite. Although the term is prevalent in philosophical and other discourses of the 20th century, there seems to be little agreement as to its precise meaning. Even today, the word is ambiguous, for 'nihilism' is used to denote both a lack of ideology and ideology as such (or even a lack of ideology as ideology). Yet, despite this ambiguity its presence in the
Nihilism After Nietzsche.pdf
Michael Allen Gillespie
Nihilism After Nietzsche Nietzsche imagined that the advent of nihilism would be coterminous with the beginning of a new tragic age. He realized that the death of God and the nihilism that followed in its wake would be catastrophic, undermining European morality and unleashing a monstrous logic of terror, but despite this he welcomed its arrival in large part because he believed it would open up the possibility for the development of a harder and higher super-humanity that could overcome the decadence and degeneration that characterized nineteenth century European civilization. While Nietzsche is often thought to have formulated the concept of nihilism, it actually has a much longer history. The term was first used in the late eighteenth century to describe Fichte's absolute egoism and the thought of his followers, many of whom constituted the core of Jena Romanticism. During this period the term was generally connected with atheism and with a rejection of all existing sources of authority by critics such as Jacobi and Jean Paul, and later by Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. They were all convinced that if the I was posited as absolute, God was nothing, and that without God all authority could have no other basis than shifting human will and opinion 1. The problem presented by nihilism for its early critics thus arises out of an exaggeration and exaltation of human beings in place of God. Nietzsche turned this concept on its head, arguing that the death of God was the result not of a Promethean exaltation of man but of the diminution of man brought about by the slave revolt against the master morality of antiquity. Nihilism thus had 1 Cfr. Gillespie (1995); Arendt (1970).
Ethics
Book Review:The Morality of Freedom. Joseph Raz
1988 •
gerald dworkin
Nihilism Through the Looking Glass: Nietzsche, Rosenzweig, and Scholem on the Condition of Modern Disenchantment
2007 •
Agata Bielik-Robson
The following article analyses Nietzsche, Rosenzweig and Scholem’s view of the nihilism by attempting to establish each one’s opinion on the modern disenchantment condition. The analysis begins on the comparison between Nietzsche’s “Godless World” and its new approach done by Rosenzweig. The nihilism is examined based on its plural aspects and inter-relations and on the analysis made by Gershom Scholem concerning the connection between nihilism and messianism.
Philosophy and Literature
Atheism and Sadism: Nietzsche and Woolf on Post-God Discourse
2000 •
Michael Lackey
There are many types of atheists, which I briefly discuss in this essay. But I foreground those who focus on language. As Michel Foucault claims: "the death of God profoundly influenced our language." But how? The liber mundi tradition holds that the world, created by God, is like a readable text, written in a decipherable language. Atheists like Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf, and Foucault came to the conclusion that there is no language best suited to signify the world, because there is no God that created the world as a readable text. Therefore, when we use language to signify the world, there is an element of violence implicit in the usage of language. Put differently, instead of neutrally and objectively representing the world, language is a violent imposition on both the world and the other, and those doing the violence take considerable joy in their linguistic imposition, which is why, I argue, there is a link between atheism and sadism. Within this framework, sadism is not always a bad thing. In fact, it can be quite good. But above all, it is a necessary condition of being.
Non Serviam 23 non serviam #23 Contents
Alex Green
Of Hatred and Solitude in the Works of Mary Shelley and E. M. Cioran, Philobiblon. Transylvanian Journal of Multidiscplinary Research In Humanities, XXII, 2, pp. 105-116 (2017)
Stefan Bolea
Despite the fact that Mary Shelley and E. M. Cioran have never been previously analyzed in the same context (they belong not only to different ages but also to divergent genres), we will find that they share at least two similar themes. The motif of solitude, common among Romantic poets (Coleridge, Byron, Poe), finds a deep expression in Shelley's Frankenstein and in Cioran's early oeuvre. A more thorough investigation of the British novelist and the Romanian-French self-described " anti-philosopher " discloses that hatred (a theme that is not frequently researched from a philosophical point of view) might be another of their obsessions. The concept of the nihilistic not-man becomes useful when we will follow the tripartite shape of hatred (of others, of myself and of God) not only in literature or philosophy but also in pop culture. Romanticism and Nihilism: Mary Shelley and E. M. Cioran Cioran's early work contains many post-Romantic features: the fierce (almost extreme) individualism (a trait shared with Kierkegaard and Stirner, among philosophers, but also present in the works of poets such as Jean Paul and Byron), the antihumanism and obvious misanthropy of his diatribes (in the 19 th century tradition of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Mainländer), his focus on the " night soul " , on the dark side of being (a process similar to the Romantic discovery of the unconscious, anticipating the discoveries of psychoanalysis), his anti-intellectualism and criticism of the decadence of Western civilization (influenced by theoreticians such as Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Weininger, and Spengler), his reactionary radicalism and dismissal of the values of Enlightenment (we might remember here that Romanticism is considered a counter-Enlightenment by D. J. Moores). Moreover, his entire
