'Nihilism' seems to me a rather fluid and rhetorical term, that changes meaning in different contexts.  Bit like, say, 'liberal'.  Dangerous, I think, in 'serious' political and philosophical debate.

Nietzsche as the father of 'nihilism'?  Really? Nietzsche the 'Yea-Sayer', the Affirmer of Life, rather than of negative, reactive forces that stifle life in the interests of some hidden group interest (Capital, Nationalism, Religion, whatever)?

I think those who called him a nihilist a century ago were complaining that he didn't pay pious obedience to their great historical scams.  ...And trying to tarnish him by association with the Nihilists or political terrorists in late Tsarist Russia, portrayed for example in Dostoyevsky's Demons - which is itself, I guess, a pretty good guide to the cultural context which gave birth to Nihilism as a term and 'movement' (insofar as a nihilistic movement is not self-contradictory).

Dear ELi,

As I see it, while nihilism is quite a useful concept to make sense of Nietzsche's revolutionary ideas, it might be relevant only as a counter-oncept for Heidegger: the idea against which he strived in his philosophy. 

On the other hand, nihilism - an extreme form of secularisation - might be relevant if we want to understand the impact of radical political ideas, like fascism, Nazism or Communism. When members of European political communities lost their traditional denominational faith, new ideas claiming to compensate for the loss of them might become influential. In a way, totalitarian ideology certainly behaved like quasi-religions in these societies, as a substitute for their traiditonal religions. In this sense, nihilism might be indirectly responsible for their spread.

Best,

Ferenc

I disagree, but first of all nice to meet you all.

As I wrote I’m not agree, a point of view considering nihilism as a discipline or a phenomenon can be found only in few authors and in particular political-economical condition, and about it Mr. Ferenc Hörcher is right. But this is a limited and incomplete point of view, in western culture can be found an approach able to be classify as nihilistic in different fields, even if with not exactly the same meanings and, obviously, the same theoretical consequences. I don’t thinck we could really say that those way of proceed in creation of system of belive is irrelevant or absent. Some exaples can be found in poetry with Baudelaire and in ethic with Oswald Spengler; in both cases their approach has a nihilistic approac at their foundation but their doctrine, ideas and system are not.

I hope I was able to answer at your question sensibly, regards

Diego.

Dear Mr. Paolini, Dear Diego,

thanks for your comment on my own one, concerning a more general wave of nihilism in modern culture, exemplified by Baudelaire and Spengler. Well, certainly, there is a very deep disappointment in Baudelaire, which might be labelled as nihilistic in its tendencies, but Spengler does not seem to be nihilistic, to mee, again. He might be called pessimistic, but this is a different category, I would claim.

Certainly the effect of academic and artistic nihilism on the wider audience and the public, in general, is a topic worth considering, as our initial problem raised by Eli was the connection between nihilism as a school doctrine and society's embracing of Fascism. TO answer that problem we would need more historical data about people's mental landscape in those years, a question for historical sociology, I think.

Best,

Ferenc

The phenomenon of nihilism is inherent in our Western present. On this issue I have worked a long time. I have several investigations on this topic (spanish):

- Nihilismo y mundo actual (Coeditor), Granada, Ed. Universidad de Granada, 2009.

- Pensar la nada. Ensayos sobre filosofía y nihilismo (Coeditor), Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2007

- «Nihilismo y barroco en la experiencia actual del espacio. Arte y filosofía en lo otro de la salud existencial», en Barroso, O./De la Higuera, J./Sáez Rueda, L. (eds.), La filosofía y su otro. Para pensar el presente, Granada, Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2013, pp. 291-321.

- «Hospedar la locura. Reto del pensar en tiempos de nihilismo», en Ávila, R./Estrada, J.A./Ruiz, E. (eds.), Itinerarios del nihilismo. La nada como horizonte, Madrid, Arena Libros, 2009, pp. 245-264.

- «Ser, nada y diferencia. El nihilismo nómada de G. Deleuze, más allá de Nietzsche y Heidegger», en Sáez Rueda/De la Higuera (eds.), Pensar la nada. Ensayos sobre filosofía y nihilismo, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2007.

The texts can be downloaded from:

http://www.ugr.es/~lsaez/cv/libros.html

http://www.ugr.es/~lsaez/cv/capyart.html

Good day Mr Sàez Ruada, does exist english version of your works?

to Mr. Ferecnc Hörcher, at first good day ant thanks for your consideration, I really appreciate the answer. I will try to be clearer, reading Spengler we could find a kind of moral relativism, I think that the idea behynd the courtains in that he refuse the axioms of the previous (and still present today) deontological ethics with thire axioms (Gods, lows, ecc....). In my opinion this assumption could be considered nihilistic. What do you think about it?

Dear Diego, thanks for your kind contribution once again. I do not consider myself much of an expert on Spengler, so I would not go too far to defend my position, but it seems to me, that he was more on the side of criticising secular nihilism. But once you struggle with an idea, you might easily get stuck to it. So you are right, that Spengler's thought might be taken as a symptom of nihilism in early twientieth century Europe. Best, Ferenc

Estimated Diego,

Unfortunately I have no such texts in English. The key that have come my colleagues and I are as follows.  For Nietzsche nihilism (in a negative sense) is the mode of being of our contemporary cultural world. Nihilism, as you know, from Nietzsche means the triumph of reactive forces, ie, the not released to life and the consequent resentment, resentment leading to the invention of new idols or gods. In the posthumous appears very clearly and intelligently in the set entitled "The European nihilism". To Nietzshce nihilism  coincides with the pathologie of West. For Heidegger, nihilism is forgetfulness of being. We found very clear statements in his book Nietzsche, Volume II. Another important idea, in my opinion, is that for Heidegger nihilism is not directly disease of the West and the present, but their "pathogen agent", a agent which would civilizational surface expression in various pathologies. This statement is in the article that discusses with Jünger, who did think nihilism and disease. Ah! I forgot to say that Nietzsche would be made against a Big Political, directed nihilistic culture change. This idea is clearly in the Intespestiva on Schopenhauer.

The link between nihilism and single supra-and ontological Cultural illness led me then to a research project on what we have called in Granada "civilizing Pathologies". This is the Link:

http://www.ugr.es/~filosofiayterapia/

Sorry my english so bad

Best Regards

Luis Sáez

Estimated Diego,

I think that relativism is an assumption of nihilism, yes. But I think the most important diagnoses of nihilism, as I said in another answer, are those of Nietzsche and Heidegger.

I have a summary of my book "Being erratic" in English. I am not speaking here specifically of Nihilism, but I think there try to make diagnosis on cultural diseases of our time is based on the idea of nihilism. I indicated the link:

http://www.ugr.es/~lsaez/cv/Continental%20Philosophy%20Review.pdf

Best Regards

Luis Sáez

@stefan,

Thanks for your answer and for your bibliographical indication. I didnt now the book. I will read and add on my research references.

Best regards

Eli Vagner

@stefan, 

Thanks for the indication of Husserl's work. I Know the importance of this text to the problem of reason's crisis. The link between nihilism and existencialism is very important to. The sugestion to search about "people's mental landscape in those years" according to Ortega Y Gasset is precious. Thanks for your atention and sorry my bad english.

Best regards

Eli 

one of the ignored aspect of nihilism , ware defects in his religion , as Nietzsche said in one of his books , god is dead , it mean , on my opinion , there is not good explanation to defense god in his religion that can not answer its demand for his life .

Economics, the dismal science. "Life is nasty, brutish & short." (Hobbes)

Certainly nihilistic tendencies express in human beings' treatment of each other,  as a system of values (or anti-values) culturally, economically and between the nations. Nietsche had his opinions, motivated by his observations & sentiments, but he wasn't committed to being the very best researcher, by putting those aside. Sorry for not quoting others' literary works or analysis, the above is just obvious to me.

'Nihilism' seems to me a rather fluid and rhetorical term, that changes meaning in different contexts.  Bit like, say, 'liberal'.  Dangerous, I think, in 'serious' political and philosophical debate.

Nietzsche as the father of 'nihilism'?  Really? Nietzsche the 'Yea-Sayer', the Affirmer of Life, rather than of negative, reactive forces that stifle life in the interests of some hidden group interest (Capital, Nationalism, Religion, whatever)?

I think those who called him a nihilist a century ago were complaining that he didn't pay pious obedience to their great historical scams.  ...And trying to tarnish him by association with the Nihilists or political terrorists in late Tsarist Russia, portrayed for example in Dostoyevsky's Demons - which is itself, I guess, a pretty good guide to the cultural context which gave birth to Nihilism as a term and 'movement' (insofar as a nihilistic movement is not self-contradictory).

i think to begin to answer this you have to first define nihilism in the context of your field of study, for example, if you are talking a broad philosophical examination then the dictionary definition might suffice, that of a rejection of any religious/moral position and questioning the meaning of life. however, if you are approaching this in terms of artistic aesthetics you may be drawn toward Baudrillard and Derrida for your interpretations rather than primarily to Nietzsche. I would also add that outside of philosophy, on a social level, at least in europe, we have culturally endorsed a form of nihilism regardless of political position, mistrust exists toward religious and political bodies following scandals both monetary and sexual and in the case of politics we are witnessing a certain disregard of democratic process and the rise of a corporatocracy that does what it wants regardless or in actual contempt of government (for example the tex avoidance of the likes of Amazon) 

May be not nihilism, but something close to the post-modern projects , as the cult to the individualism. Could be usefull.

Richard Sennett. The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale (2006).

Zygmunt Bauman. Postmodern Ethics, 1993

hi,  enlightening publications :

https://books.google.co.th/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AYX--dfuw1EC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=nihilism&ots=cTeJpX-8u-&sig=rAJqosIoNfYukCHp54R2LXjs0-I&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nihilism&f=false

https://books.google.co.th/books?hl=en&lr=&id=w8KfghO9UJEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=nihilism&ots=qyIJ9mCGUl&sig=abbT21olJItCDT4qqmfZaTUVxBs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nihilism&f=false

https://books.google.co.th/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aV7HmO3IRPwC&oi=fnd&pg=PT15&dq=nihilism&ots=ppE1xCUglD&sig=aj_zqrK4BV7g-4jG73-aBhgKS3A&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nihilism&f=false