Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.
Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ(h)ɪlɪzəm, ˈniː-/; from Latin nihil 'nothing') is a family of views within philosophy that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as knowledge, morality, or meaning.
Nihilism is a way of coping with the absurd; Nihilists believe that the universe is indifferent to human beings and that our individual lives have no inherent purpose. They think that the Absurd is a natural outgrowth of the human condition. But, they don't see this as a reason to give up or despair.
Nihilists can have sympathy, empathy, and antipathy, but they cannot have apathy. Not caring is not the same thing as caring about nothing. The apathetic individual feels nothing. But the nihilist has feelings.
Being a nihilist or having nihilist thoughts isn't a negative thing. As detailed above, many nihilist theories say that it is up to the individual to create their own meaning. Remember, nihilism can lead to meaningful worldviews, so perhaps our actual value comes from leading a healthy and happy life.
Nihilism is one of the most extreme existential experiences in schizophrenia as it goes far beyond the notion of a meaningless life as one source of suicide.
Nihilistic delusions occur primarily in schizophrenic reactions and depressive states, particularly in acute depression. They are also observed in occasional cases of general paresis, psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis, and the depressed and agitated type of senile dementia.
Because nihilistic intellectualization is often colored by its sister-strategies of anger or depression, it is often aggressive, hostile, cynical, or pessimistic; whereas eternalistic justifications are typically cloying, simpering, naïve, and Pollyanna-ish.
Someone who's nihilistic believes in the philosophy of nihilism, which embraces the idea that life as we know it is useless. If you're nihilistic, you don't believe in anything — not religion, a moral code, love.
The nihilist wants to destroy the existing social order for no valid reason, and the narcissist strives to feed from others even if it destroys them. While these are not the same, there are some overlapping ego-centric ideologies.
Nihilists assert that there are no moral values, principles, truths. A nihilist is not the same thing as a skeptic, because although a nihilist will agree with the skeptic -- that humans cannot have knowledge about moral realities, not all skeptics will agree with nihilists.
The danger of active nihilism comes from its anarchic willingness to destroy society for the sake of freedom. The danger of passive nihilism comes from its conformist willingness to destroy freedom for the sake of society.
The Power of Acceptance and Overcoming Nihilism
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is renowned for his thoughts on nihilism and its power over humanity. He believed that the only way to overcome nihilism was to embrace life and accept that our lives have no ultimate meaning or purpose.
Nihilism tells you that happiness does not come from without, it points to happiness coming from within, because anything beyond your skin is devoid of meaning anyway, so you won't find happiness out there.
The young philosophers embracing nihilism
In short, he argues that if life is meaningless – and we are not pinned to some greater existential task or goal – then we may as well focus on finding happiness during this brief, meaningless flash of consciousness we call existence.
“Believing that everything is futile and pointless, that there is no greater truth or wonder or purpose of life or anything and everything is meaningless.” Not worrying which God to pray and praying to none. Not having desire of paradise or fear of hell.
Therefore, emotional nihilism and existential emptiness may be common emotional states and challenges most people ex- perience in their current environment, and these emotional states and challenges may be accompanied by a persistent depressive state of mind and sense of meaninglessness.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is perhaps the most well-known writer on nihilism, who wrote on the matter extensively.
The most classic figure of nihilism is the statement that everything is devalued, de-symbolised and untenable in the face of death. It is an equalisation of the totality of everything that could be valued, faced with the radical ontological finitude that death represents.
Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures.
As a start, “nihilism” is commonly defined as “the belief that life is meaningless.” A fuller definition would further add that nihilism is the belief that life has no objective meaning. In other words, nihilists suppose that there is no single, factually-correct meaning to life that unites all of humanity.
Nihilism does not imply that "one does not care about anything". For that can fit into another definition : Apatheism (although apatheism means one does not care about God's existence or non-existence). Anyway, Nihilists like any other philosophers, do actually care about purpose (or, in this case non-purpose).
One of the many criticisms of nihilism is that it opens the door to unchecked selfishness. It's a logical next step if you think there's nothing to gain from life except personal happiness and pleasure.
Thus, nihilism is not inherently hopeless, instead, it can be said to create hope, as it pushes us to change, ask questions and find answers for ourselves. Active nihilism is certainly necessary for any kind of social, political or religious revolution.
For Camus, the entire purpose of Existential philosophy is to overcome absurdity, or, more accurately, for man to triumph over the absurdity of existence. So Existentialism is the opposite of nihilism: the nihilist says "There is no god, no heaven or hell, so screw it: there can be no right or wrong.