Nihilism is a…?
For me, it seems as if there is a very negative attitude towards the idea of Nihilism… Why? What is so wrong about Nihilism. Can Nihilism not be a liberating experience? Does it always have to be taken in the negative context?
What are your thoughts on Nihilism and its Nature?
-Szpak
Nihilism = belief in nothing
beliefs lead to values
values lead to vision
vision leads to purpose
purpose leads to meaning
Without beliefs there is no value
Without values there is no vision
Without vision there is no purpose
Without purpose life is meaningless
Beliefs and values are aspects of social construction, and deveolp into “goods” by his/her society and are not universal.
Dont know what you mean by vision… one can have a vision of doing nothing can they not?
purpose and meaning i’ll take in the same context. We already know that we cannot communicate anything with meaning. Language is essentially arbitrary and therefore we can never communicate a definite “meaning” with each other.
This has got to be a trick question. Nihilism is neither good nor bad because it contains no value, objective or subjective. Nihilism leads nowhere and everywhere.
Nihilism amounts to this: You say beliefs and values are social construction. So what? What does that even matter? What is a belief? What is a social construct? Why even care if the values you hold are real or not? Why even discuss this topic since there is no point? What is a point? What is a topic? Ad infinitium.
In fact (unfact?) a nihilist wouldn’t even say he/she was a nihilist and probably wouldn’t consciously hold such a position since it would be subjective and pointless to do so.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. Nihilism is extreme skepticism of the accepted thoughts or ideas of a society. Nihilists tend to ask a lot of questions. Only until they feel the argument has been questioned enough can they make a decision on whether or not they agree or disagree with it.
No one can believe in nothing (yeah I know that’s a double negative 
). Everybody has some sort of dogmatic belief system (you can thank Imp for that). You cannot reject everything because even then you believe in something. You still have your own beliefs.
Nihilism is a great philosophy. I think we need more nihilists. As a society, we tend to accept things as they are. We need more people to stand up and ask questions.
That makes no sense. A nihilist wouldn’t ask questions about society because there would be no correct answer- everything is baseless. A nihilist wouldn’t even care about society whatsoever because he’s, well…a NIHILIST.
A nihilist is not a skeptic because a skeptic is out to prove that nothing can be proven. A skeptic admits to a sort of unattainable realism. For example a skeptic would say: “you can’t tell me ALL dogs have two ears because you haven’t seen ALL the dogs in the world. There might be a dog with three ears or one ear.” A nihilist on the other hand would say: “you can’t tell me anything because I don’t give a damn and I’m not going to bother proving anything right or wrong.”
I was working based on the assumption that j 175 held these things “virtue” etc. as Goods or as something we should follow.
so really the only true nihilism is a sort of “Nihilism Lite”? Since a Nihilist wouldn’t identify themselves as such? Nihilism itself is an absolute series of contradictions. ex. “I believe in nothing, which is something, about nothing etc.”
I would have to agree. I guess its not nihilists (cause apparently thats impossible) but extreme skeptics certainly are needed. Its an easy stance when dealing with anything on the meta-level
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A dip into nihilism every once in a while is not a bad thing. It’s actually a good idea to lose all beliefs and rethink life, so the beliefs don’t become callous and dogmatic. Don’t dwell too much in nihilism, though, because once nihilism is grasped, it has to then be overcome.