Let’s face it, we all think from time to time how worthless and meaningless everything is. However, this thought often arises after a bad event or when we are depressed. Nihilism, on the other hand, considers this idea as a philosophical view. In nihilism, people tend to reject the value of basically everything, and some radicals even destroy it.
When it comes to nihilism, we are sure that many people will think of Friedrich Nietzsche first because he often used nihilistic themes in his works. However, Nietzsche was not exactly a nihilist, he even thought that these thoughts would bring the end of the world. The most staunch nihilists were Russian intellectuals. Let’s take a closer look at what nihilism is and see the interesting details about it.
Let’s start with a basic definition; What is nihilism?
Nihilism, also called nihilism and non-existence in Turkish, is a philosophical view derived from the Latin word nihil meaning nothing. Although it has different sub-thoughts, nihilism in general argues that all known values are actually baseless, that nothing can be known and transmitted.
So, what exactly is nihilism?
Nihilists are generally pessimistic people. They don’t value anything and don’t believe in anything. Some even have a tendency to destroy what they see as worthless. Everything that is considered valuable in philosophy, such as the existence of God, family, love, loyalty, happiness, free will, and knowledge, is actually rejected by nihilism.
So how did nihilism arise?
- Ivan Turgenev
The word nihilism has been used to mean destruction for many years, but the first person to use it as a radical idealism, close to what we know today, was the 18th century German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. The person who gave the full meaning of nihilism was the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. The vulgar scientist attitude of the character of Bazarov in his novel Fathers and Sons has made nihilism popular among the people.
The moral approach that would pave the way for the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia later on was nihilism. Mikhael Bakunin, who is accepted as the founder of anarchism, talked about the destruction of existing values by rejecting them in his writings. It is known that at the end of the 1870s, many anarchist or communist groups in Russia united in a morality based on nihilism.
Of course, if we want to go deep into nihilism, we must go to Ancient Greece and meet Demosthenes, the father of skepticism. Although Demosthenes, who lived between 371 and 322 BC, is known as a skeptical philosopher, he actually laid the foundations of epistemological nihilism when viewed from today.
The person who worked as a philosophical thought in the sense that we know nihilism was the German philosopher Max Stirner. Stirner argues that in order to achieve individual freedom, the state must be destroyed and abstract concepts must be rejected. Going further, Stirner says that even existence is a war of all against all. Of course, these are radical anarchist ideas.
Nietzsche’s view of nihilism is somewhat different:
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Of course, one of the most important names that come to mind when nihilism is mentioned will be the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche actually says that there is no order in the world, that we created this order. He argues that all values are baseless and that every true nihilist must radically reject all known values.
Going further, Nietzsche says that nihilism will constitute the greatest destructive force in history. Because when all the value and belief systems imposed on people by western traditionalists are rejected and destroyed, one of the biggest crises in history will come up. According to him, with such a destruction, the reality will be revealed without being hidden anymore.
Nietzsche’s idea was studied by many philosophers and artists in the following years. The German philosopher Oswald Spengler, in his study of destroyed cultures, discovered that values and beliefs really disappeared first. A culture that had lost its values and beliefs was indeed doomed to collapse, so Nietzsche was right.
Helmut Thielicke, a German theologian, said that according to nihilism, a world ruled by nothingness would be meaningless. Going further, Thielicke also said that such nonsense would pave the way for atrocities of the kind perpetrated by the Nazis. In other words, the revolution that will take place with nihilism may not always be a revolution with flowers and insects.
Nihilism in the 20th century focused on more individual problems:
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Like many things in the war-filled world of the 20th century, philosophy became more human-focused and existential nihilism emerged. A writer named Alan Pratt, in his work written in 1994, actually says that existential nihilism is an integral part of the western intellectual tradition. Pratt overemphasized the following sentence of Empedocles; “The life of mortals is so meaningless that it is almost non-life.”
This sentence dangerously reminds many of Hegesias’ idea that we should commit suicide because pain is more than pleasure. In other words, existential nihilism is not a concept that emerged in the 20th century. Such approaches are frequently mentioned, even in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.
Sartre and Camus mix things up:
- Albert Camus
Existential nihilism combined with atheism in France became much stronger. Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the most popular names of the period, rejects all values other than human self by saying that existence comes from the essence. It is an opinion that is defended in this period that everything around us is an illusion and that when we reject them, we will come across with nothing.
The Legend of Sisyphus was written by Albert Camus during this period. His endless and useless struggle is actually a wonderful metaphor for today’s people. In other words, man is in a meaningless struggle from the day he is born until he dies, and the only thing he has achieved is nothing. So existence is nothing.
We talked about important details you need to know by answering questions such as what is nihilism, the philosophical view that rejects all existing values, and what does it advocate? Of course, it is like a deep ocean where you will get lost when you dive into nihilism, but in this article, we aimed to give basic information to those who are introduced to this philosophical view for the first time.
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