Nihilism is a philosophical doctrine that indicates extreme pessimism and skepticism towards reality or human values. In a broad sense, nihilism is an attitude of denial or absolute disbelief in relation to principles, be they religious, moral, political or social.
Nihilism comes from the Latin word nihil, which means "nothing". It represents a critical attitude towards social conventions and traditional values.
Nietzsche and Nihilism
According to Nietzsche, nihilism presupposes the death of the Christian Deity and its principles. Man thus bids farewell to the moral values and rules established by these doctrines.
For Nietzsche, there are two types of nihilism: o passive it's the active. Passive nihilism can be seen as a kind of evolution of a person, although there is no change in values. On the other hand, active nihilism turns all its forces to the demolition of morality, everything being left in the void and the absurd gains preponderance, in such a way that the nihilist can only hope or cause his own solution. death.
Passive nihilism is that of Schopenhauer, according to which nothing makes sense for the human being, life is a suffered battle. Nietzsche aims to give more importance to active nihilism than to passive, indicating that Man is stronger knowing that the world is meaningless. Only in this way the human being is able to create new adequate values.
Moral, ethical, existential, political and negative nihilism
nihilism moral (or ethical nihilism) is a point of view in which no action can be considered moral or immoral.
nihilism existential it means that the existence of the human being has no meaning or purpose and, therefore, man should not seek a meaning and purpose for his existence.
nihilism political it is based on the fact that the destruction of all political, religious and social forces is essential for a better future.
nihilism negative, which gave rise to all the others, consists in the denial of the perceptible world to the senses, in order to seek an ideal world, a paradise. It originated thanks to Platonism and Christianity.
The original meaning of the term nihilism was achieved thanks to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Jean Paul. Only later was this concept approached by Nietzsche, who described it as "lack of conviction in which human beings find themselves after the devaluation of any belief". This devaluation ends up culminating in the awareness of the absurd and of nothingness.
The term first appeared in Turgenev's literary work "Fathers and Children". In it, a character states: "A nihilist is a man who does not bow down to any authority or accept any principle without examination, whatever respect that principle entails."
In Russia, the term "nihilist" was applied to the revolutionary movement during the second half of Alexander II's reign. The first nihilists, followers of Pisarev's ideas, demanded that the achievement of social progress would only be possible from a scientific reconstruction of society.
Since 1870, some followers of nihilism have adopted more radical forms of protest, with a mentality coinciding with the anarchist movement. Despite this, not all nihilists were part of revolutionary groups, contrary to what many people claimed.
See the meaning of anarchy and meet some characteristics of an anarchist person.
See too:
- Skepticism
- Skeptical
- Philosophy