Arguments for existential nihilism?

As I understand it, existential nihilism is the view that life has (1) no objective meaning, (2) no objective purpose, and (3) no objective value.

While I consider myself to be an existential nihilist, I get there by arguing from incredulity (not being able to imagine what objective meaning, purpose or value that life could possibly have, given the positions that I take in other areas), which is not very satisfying.

Are any of you aware of any compelling arguments for existential nihilism, or any of its three components?

In attempting to answer this question, please feel free to take positions in other areas (such as atheism, physicalism, hard determinism, and moral nihilism) that may bolster your argument.

No it’s not, but that’s as far as I got as well. I’m just trying to strengthen my incredulity until I can’t even be bothered to express an opinion, even if renunciation of that opinion is always right under the surface.

Yea, I’ll give you some arguments for the view I think you want to support…

A bit of clarification first, though. The term “existential nihilism” is odd. The only thing all “existentialists” have in common is a focus on concrete existence—i.e., a focus on the world as it actually is. And a “nihilist” is just someone who denies anything like meaning/purpose/value, in some domain. That makes the term “existential nihlism” really odd, because I don’t think there has ever been a philosopher who thought that nothing about the world as it actually is, is value-less or purpose-less (i.e., nihilism).

Most nihilists are only nihilists because they think there is no transcendent meaning/purpose/value. IOW, nihilists generally recognize that things like food and water are valuable to you as the kind of creature that you are, they just think that those things are not “Really” valuable—not transcendentally valuable.

So basically, an “existential nihilist” is someone who denies any meaning/purpose/value to concrete existence. And that’s a view that is almost unsupportable, given that you have all kinds of basic biological functions, and act in the actual world as if it was filled with purpose/value—like getting food and water. I don’t think an “existential nihilist” is someone who would live longer than a day or two after they adopted their position.

Ironically, the only people who might be “existential nihilists” are the hardcore ultra-religious, who deny any meaning/purpose/value to actual existence only because they place all meaning/purpose/value in God’s world—some transcendent realm.

You probably just want to be a nihilist----a good old fashion nihilist—someone who denies there’s any transcendent meaning/purpose/value to actual existence.

Anyways, you already mentioned one way of arguing as a nihilist----that “incredulity” stuff. You might say that all statements about value or ethics use properties that do not actually exist—and thus all statements about value/ethics are systematically false. Or you might argue against any transcendent source of value. E.g., you might argue that all morality requires a perfect God, but a perfect God doesn’t exist, therefore neither does morality.

Arguing for nihilism like above is just a game of whack-a-mole. You wait for someone putting forth a view about meaning/purpose/value—and then you whack it away. That seems to be the most common----since trying to have a positive argument for a negative thesis (like nihilism) is hard to do.

One really famous argument for nihilism comes from Nietzsche’s genealogical method. Basically Nietzsche tells a story about the origin of morality. He thinks that morality arose out of different groups struggling for power, and more specifically it originated because the weakest group—the one with the poorest standing in terms of existence-based values—posited a new kind of otherworldly value in order to lord it over others, gaining power over them. “Hey guys, why do you think cars and women are so good? Isn’t an eternity of bliss better?” – “Ok sheesh yea, are the Church membership fees due quarterly or what?” I won’t go into the story—that’d take to long—but the general gist is that the historical origin of morality makes it highly unlikely that the otherworldly values that were posited actually exist.

Here’s an analogy: Suppose I really need money (or power). I don’t have money, (or power). But I tell you that I’ve discovered an amazing cure-all product that you need to buy, for big bucks. I tell you it cures everything. The upshot of what Nietzsche is saying seems to be that the fact that I have so much to gain gives you a reason to doubt the truth of the claims I’m making.

Why must you take everything to such an extreme, if we can accept that you can be a moralists who can’t really name any examples of moral deeds you do, then why can’t you accept that we might be nihilists that still make, apparently, meaningful actions?

If you want your arguments to be based on their own merit, not your personal merit, then please give others the same benefit.

Philosofer123, I forgot about this thread, it doesn’t offer any arguments for nihilism, but it is a suggestion as to a bases for one finding their own intuitive argument.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=182778

It’s not an extreme. If you don’t consume food/water as an existential value, then you’ll probably be dead in a few days.

That’s such ad hom bullshit. I can’t name examples of good things I’ve done? Really? Okkk thennn…
I’m going to be putting you on ignore for awhile. But just for the record, I have already told you that I am a nihilist. I don’t believe there is any transcendent source of value. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in existential values. What I don’t get is why someone would think there is nothing existentially valuable (like food/water), and still act as if there were. You probably need to figure that out for yourself. It’s nice to be aware of your own contradictions, but you still have to grapple with them. You seem to be like, “yea, I contradict myself… so fucking what? whha’d’ya want from me?”

Can’t, won’t… a minor mistake, but take note of the below which makes a case for ‘can’t’ anyway.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=182625&p=2411975&hilit=stuart#p2411770

That’s ad hom bullshit.

Suppose a moralist acts immorally.
And suppose a nihilist preaches God’s word.

Are they the same thing?

Well, the first can be attributed to weakness of will. What do you say about the second? —Oh, no no wait…maybe the nihilist will say, “I just value God sooo much, blah blah blah”. Riiight. You’ve implied you don’t even value food/water—existential values. That’s just dishonest. Answer the question about why you’ve ate and drank everyday for 50 years, or whatever you are.

The only thing I’d change is the word “objective” and replace it with “absolute” or perhaps “transcendent” according to your leanings.

As it is possible for a given human community to agree on a set of meanings, purposes and values, it is possible to call that “objective”.
Even a Nihilist can choose a meaning, purpose and value for him or herself. If they have the agreement of a community then we may call that objective, in the sense of belonging not just to yourself but others.

Given this adjustment. I can only say that existential nihilism is utterly true. And the evidence of this is that no matter how deep and for how long you look into the various meanings, purposes and values that humans have decided for themselves or collectively, NONE of them agrees with one another, and that ultimately none satisfy the criteria that could apply evenly and for all history or all societies - no matter what the religious will try to tell you.
Along the way you find this tripos of ideas that suit society for a short while only to be replaced and overturned by the natural processes of human society that forged them in the first place.

If there is any ultimate morality it is that Existential Nihilism is the only sensible course available.

And I agree with Camus. Knowing that there is no ultimate purpose or meaning to life is totally liberating. As if nothing matter, not even your memory in others, then you are freed to act with your conscience and not to bend to the rules set by others.

This makes perfect sense. As the lesson from existence is that there is no meaning beyond what you give it.
There are plenty of philosophers that you might like to consider for the title: Camus, Sartre

Camus and Sartre are nihilists only in the sense that they think there is no transcendent meaning/purpose. But since they both think that existence itself is filled with meaning/purpose, they are not existential nihilists. Pretty straightforward, right?

 Can you help me? Suppose I want to make up my mind as far as defining myself as an existential purposeful nihilist versus aa purposeless, existentially meaningless nihilist.  

 Doesent the difference entail some presence of context?  And doesn't context require a presence or alternatively an absence of a required purpose?


 Can I be a self prescribed nihilist/existential nihilist rather than a post-sribed one, without Phenomenological intrusion into the other?


 Is the difference an absolutist/relativist object problem of determination/indetermination?

 Am I really free in any sense?

Ok, so an “existential-purpose-nihilist” would think that there are no purposes in existence? If that’s so, then you definitely don’t want to be that person… because it is patently false. People tend to have wants/desires. Those are purposes. It’s hard to deny that people actually have wants/desires.

And “purposeless-existentially-meaningless-nihilist”----I’m just not sure what that is supposed to be.

I’m not sure what you’re asking. Yes, you can be a nihilist if you want to. You can even prescribe it to others.

Unless you are currently in jail, chained up, have a gun to your head, etc… you are free in the ordinary language sense. You can act on your own intentions----that’s “freedom” in ordinary language English.

Hobbes is right in the above context. Sartre (as in Being and Nothingness) didn’t think the world was filled with m/p unless one gave it that m/p. If I don’t give the world has m/p, then it doesn’t have any, to me. And you can give my words and actions what ever m/p you want, but to me they may just be part of being-in-itself, that is meaningless and purposeless.

You seem to be insisting that we all use the relevant vocabulary exactly as you do or we are misinterpreting them. Once again I must insist that what’s good for us is good for you; so if we must abide by your rules of vocabulary, supposing you know better, then please don’t misinterpret philosophers that you certainly know far less about.

Sartre didn’t think the world had any transcendent m/p, beyond yourself. You give life m/p—and that’s why existence has m/p to you. If you don’t think you’ve given your existence m/p, then why have you acted like the world is filled with it?----i.e., valuable things like food and water? Maybe your purpose in existence is to change the tv channel. That’s a purpose. Why mope about how it doesn’t have transcendent otherwordly significance?

I’m the only one defining the key terms I use, and that’s only because you talk past other people when you don’t. If I want you to know what I’m saying, I tell you what I mean by the words I use. You can ignore what I mean by the words I use, and just talk past me, but then we won’t be actually communicating. You can define any term any way you like, and I’ll adopt that meaning as well. IOW, you’re fucking right that I insist we use the same terms the same way. Why is that surprising?

Right, I think you do understand Sartre to some extent, but it’s in sort of a solipsistic way. You know that you have given your life and that of others m/p and you can’t seem to think outside of that even for a moment. Sartre wasn’t a solipsist because he was able to describe a personal philosophy in a way that it could be understood universally.

To completely understand Sartre you have to be able to juggle different perspectives; you must be able separate his words that are supposedly expressions of some of the m/p he has made, that are spoken as expressions to how people create meaning in general, including your self, the reader, from any other given person.

You can give my actions any m/p you want, it doesn’t mean that I have to. I can consider my actions as meaningless as a deterministic chain of events following the laws of physics or even go as far as to give them no more meaning than a roll of the dice.
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I don’t know, I would think one shouldn’t.

I was speaking specifically to your use of the word ‘nihilist’. If we had never spoken before then you would be right in the above, but we’ve spoken many times and have been involved in many of the same threads for long lengths of time. I have spent many hours and pages doing my best to define what I mean by the use of the term ‘nihilist’, the only way you could have missed all of my descriptions is if you were in fact always speaking over me.

I’m not about to change the long established way I’ve used the term ‘nihilist’ simply because you deside to quickly make some distinctions about what the word means in a few diffent contexts.

Thank you all for some intellectually stimulating comments.

However, I can find no compelling arguments for existential nihilism in your posts. Would anybody care to try to provide one?

I’m saying that you have to. You have to attribute to yourself m/p because you’ve acted in the world for however many decades as if you had m/p. For consistency, you cannot say, “Yes, I’ve busted my ass for lo these many decades for all these many existential purposes, but no, I don’t think there’s any existential purpose to these existential purposes I’ve acted on”. You can say there’s no transcendent m/p in the universe—that’s fine. But you can’t say that you have no worldly purposes when you’ve acted purposefully in the world. That’d be contradicting yourself.

That’s probably just another way of saying you don’t have transcendent m/p. I don’t think it’s possible phenomenologically.

As I can tell, freedom is the only value that’s different betweenthe two concepts, but not as an intrinsically.

Could you clarify that obe? People often define freedom as a transcendence, but we also know how Sartre explained how we are free without a transcendence.

VR, would you like me to explain the difference between time as Sartre uses it while describing one’s personal existence and time as used objectively or in science?

I will tell you I did act with the idea of purpose for many years. But, that past person is stuck as a being in-itself, it is now reliant on my present self and others to define it. You can define my past self as you wish, personally I define my past self to have been acting as purposelessly as I do now, but with just more delusion.

Or should I say the meaning I give to my past actions is that they were meaningless? I understand the contradiction, I can’t use language without seeming to accept that words, if nothing else, are meaningful. But, trust me I give little meaning to anything.

I give some, but then I never said I was entirely a nihilist (or if you insist, existential nihilist), though theoretically it’s possible.

Philosofer123, I addressed you twice, but you only addressed me as a part of the general group involved in this thread, what else can I say?

Maybe I get it, maybe I don’t. As far as I can tell you think nothing has any value or purpose, but when you say that you mean that nothing has any “Ultimate” or “Absolute” or “Transcendent” meaning or purpose. —Because it’s pretty obvious that you have some purpose in mind for continually trying to make yourself clear here, on this website, which you take time to post at… and perhaps that purpose is just simply nothing more than to make yourself clear here, on this website, which you take time to post at. But so what? What’s wrong with that?

Relax, it’s hard work to try to put forth the view that you’re neutral about everything. Pizza—meh. Baseball----eeeh, not bad, not good. Money----bah. Personal achievement----what’s the biggie? Building relationships----who cares. EVERYTHING----meh. You seem frazzled that I don’t get what you’re saying----but not really, it’s just for show.

Sartre had a story about a young man who had to make a choice between going off to serve the French army, or to stay home and care for his elderly mother. He said we’re condemned to be free. Yada yada. The point is that from the standpoint of the universe, it might not matter which you choose… but it does to you, and you really don’t have a choice about that. You are condemned to be free (aka condemned to make a choice for yourself). If you want to make a different kind of choice, you can try not to care about it… but that’s a choice, too, and you likely have some purpose behind it. That’s all the Sartre business, yom sayin.

You want out of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or something?