I know this is long so I divided it into three parts. The third is the only necessary one, so I recommend skipping ahead to it.
This is meant to be philosophical, I’ll use personal example only to clarify. Like most I have unresolved personal issues, but I didn’t exactly write this to express myself, everyone who writes about philosophy has, often hidden, personal motives for what they write, but there is still a clear distinction between personal expression and philosophy. I’ve read a relatively small amount of the major philosophical works; I’m interested in hearing from people who wish to offer a perspective based on the history of philosophy as well as those who don’t. Also, it should be noted that I’m writing this from a somewhat optimistic perspective, not the stereotypical pessimistic perspective one usually applies to nihilists.
(Nonetheless, if someone is reading this and taking it very personally, then please feel free to share what you personally think of my ideas or ask me to clarify what I’m saying. Or send me a PM.)
Part 1
We have three terms I want to explore; nihilism, nihilist and nihilate. The first two terms have a lot of ambiguity about them because of their long history, so I’ll set a standard definition for them to use in this thread. I’m interested in reading perspectives on their proper use, but I’m admitting from the start that I may be using the terms incorrectly. The third term “nihilate” is somewhat obscure, I believe first used by Sartre.
I’m very familiar with Sartre through Being and Nothingness and I’m just beginning to study Heidegger’s Being and Time. Perhaps Heidegger with the term Dasein has a fundamentally better way of describing being than Sartre, but in the context of this thread perhaps that issue is not important.
The first term I want to explain is nihilate. The translator of Being and Nothingness, Hazel E. Barnes wrote in the key, “Consciousness exists as consciousness by making a nothingness arise between it and the object of which it is consciousness. Thus nihilation is that by which consciousness exists. To nihilate is to encase in a shell of non-being.”
To make a somewhat rough paraphrase; we are in a, perhaps, deterministic world, being is as it is, it changed and will change as it must. In order to experience the world we must not be a part of the world, that is we are separated by a metaphorical nothingness. All this means in practical terms in that we don’t create the world or even control it in any manner, but we choose our experience in it, by letting ourselves be conscious of what we will without being that which we are conscious of.
I was tempted to speak us the term nihilate like this, “we can accept an idea or we can nihilate it, that is truly no longer recognize its existence”, but it seems that Sartre was saying that all being that we are conscious of must be nihilated. Perhaps, we can completely reject an idea in a way that we no longer recognize its existence. I’ll get back to that later.
So based on the above we all must nihilate, in a way that is all that we do. So rather than try to consider a nihilist to be only one who rejects all values, I’ll define a nihilist as one who recognizes that we must always nihilate. And then nihilism will simply be the philosophy of explaining that.
Though, I would set higher standards for one to be a nihilist than simply say they understand and believe this philosophy, there is certain faith required to be a nihilist. I’m using the word faith in a very loose way. Many have faith in things that logic finds very difficult to work with to say the least, but many also have a lack of faith in things that logic works with very well, such as any particular aspect of well established science. That doesn’t necessarily mean they reject the logic of that aspect of science, but for example, one might be very familiar with medical science and need a simple surgical procedure done, that has, let’s say, an outstanding success rate, still without faith they may not have it done.
The logic of nihilism as I defined it is up for debate (preferably not here) but if one accepts the logic of it, it is still in question if they have faith in it. I’ll say right away that bad experiences can (though of course not necessarily) be what it takes to obtain that faith.
This is my experience. I believed truth must exist, I was involved in constant reflection on trying to figure out where truth came from, I did no serious reading because I didn’t think many knew the truth and I had no idea which ones did. I had to live in the mean time so I just made “educated guesses” as to what the truth was.
I started reading Sartre (but, I think any philosopher with even remotely similar ideas would have worked) to see what the “enemy” had to say, that is what one who didn’t believe in truth especially truth of morality. Once I started to understand him, I started to believe him in the sense that I couldn’t refute his logic and was no longer looking for truth, but I still was completely hung up on the “educated guesses” I had made, mostly very bad one’s for my own well being I might add.
Several near death experiences are what it took to give me faith in nihilism. Yes, I have yet to hear any good logic refuting nihilism (and as you may have gathered I was very open minded and still am), but I have just as much unexplainable faith in it as I have the simple respect for its logic.
I’m not as faithful in nihilism as some Christians are faithful in God. My faith in nihilism is about as strong as the average Christian who actually prays three times a day even when they’re alone, and goes to church every week even when they are out of town and no one will know. I assume even the average Christian, such as that, has faith that is usually contingent on circumstances, but strong in a sense, that is as far as my faith goes. I’d like to think that "'m willing to argue the logic of nihilism more than they would the logic, or lack thereof, of God, but who knows.