Nihilism

Philosophical nihilism

In ancient Greece, the sophist Gorgias developed nihilist theses. It was one of the first philosophers to do it. These theses are summarized in three points:

Nothing exists
If something exists, this something could not be apprehended and even less known by the man.
Even if it were it, its apprehension would not be communicable with others

At the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche describes the speeding-up of the historical process with imbalances which are accentuated compensated by the anonymous tyranny of the institutions generator of stress. For this last, the concept of nihilism reveals an interesting paradox. It describes two forms of nihilism:

a nihilism of weak (or dyonisiaque nihilism): “A nihilist is a man who judges that the world such as it is should not exist, and that the world such as it should be does not exist. Thus to live (to act, suffer, want, feel) does not have a direction: what there is the pathetic one in the nihilism, it is of knowing that all is vain - and this pathetic is still an inconsistency at the nihiliste" (Nietzsche). This nihilism can be close to the doctrines of Schopenhauer, which influenced the thought of the philosopher largely.
a nihilism of the forts (or nihilism apollonien), when the beliefs crumble owing to the fact that they are exceeded.

According to Nietzsche, the normal state of the nihilism, which is the negation of the to be, is a divine manner to think, in the sense that it is a final rejection of any idealism (of the nihilism to the weak direction) and of its consequences (morals inter alia).

Franz Kafka, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Albert Camus for example in the Myth of Sisyphus (1942) to the theater, Eugene Ionesco in the professional singer bald person (1950) illustrate this alienation of the Western individual and his corseté existential vacuum. These constraints allow in artists like the surrealist a going beyond symbolic system.

Cioran invented the pessimistic nihilism, which does not leave with the man any glimmer of hope. But the author who pushed the nihilism in his more remote extreme was certainly Albert Caraco, which saw the life like an absolute nonsense.

Nihilism of Gorgias or its remarks on the non-being

As explained higher, the nihilist thesis of Gorgias is based on three essential principles:

Nothing exists

If something exists it cannot be apprehended by the Man

If its apprehension were possible, it cannot in no case to be communicable with others

On the fact that nothing exists, here argumentation of explained Gorgias in manner simplified:

If something exists, it is forcing the being or not to be. However neither one nor the other exists.

the non-being does not exist. Indeed, to think the non-being as such is in is the proof that the non-being does not exist. In addition, the non-being as an idea exists. However a thing cannot at the same time exist and not exist. Thus the non-being does not exist.

In the same way, the being does not exist. Because if the being exists, it is either derived, or nonderived (to include/understand “derived” in the direction “resulting from something”). However, if the being is nonderived, it does not have a beginning, and is then infinite. But, if the being is the contents of a container which would be the space which it entour, then the being cannot be infinite because there does not exist any container which would be larger than the infinite one. If the being cannot be contained in a container, there does not exist. In the same way, if the being is derived, then it is resulting either to be it or of the non-being. However what gives birth must belong to the existence, which is not the case of the non-being. Thus the being cannot be derived from the non-being. In the same way, the being cannot result to be it, because it was not born but exists from time immemorial. In other terms, if a being is resulting from another being, this other must itself result from another being, which creates an infinity, and brings back the being derived to the condition of being nonderived. Thus it is impossible that the being is.

Thus, if neither the being nor not to be exists, then nothing exists.

Nihilism and Buddhism

The Bouddhisme is often confused with the nihilism. That is an erroneous interpretation or simply an ignorance of the concept of Vacuité (shûnyâta), which, certainly, literally means " vide". This false sight comes in a our way instinctive to think in term of duality (if it is not the left, then it is line etc)

When it is said that the things are empty of clean existence, one wants to say that it do not exist by themselves, i.e. they depend on the others to exist. Moreover, as they are impermanent thus transitory, they do not exist durably. It is in the sense that one speaks about non-existence, of vacuity.

Political nihilism

The nihilism also corresponds to a political movement in Russia, sometimes called “destroying nihilism”, person in charge in particular of the assassination of the tsar Alexandre II.

The nihilism existed like social criticism in Russia at the 19th century. It evolved to doctrines Politique not admitting any constraint of the company on the individual, by refusing any absolute religious, metaphysical, moral or political. By extension, name given to the revolutionary movements anti-tsarists which preached political terrorism. Although transitory, this political movement will have raised questions in which the thinkers will be interested of all horizons. From these interrogations in relation to will be born philosophical doctrines the sociological absurdity, the negation of the values morals and more generally, the negation of the existence of a substantial reality.

The term nihilism was popularized by the Russian writer Ivan Tourgueniev in its news Pères and wire (1861) to describe, through its hero Bazarov, the sights of the radical intelligentsia Russian emergent.

This one was especially made up of the students of the higher classes, which were disillusioned more and more by the slow change of the politico-social reforms. The critic Nicolaï Dobrolioubov, the theorist Dimitri Pissarev, the economist Nikolaï Tchernychevsky, the scientists Lavrov and Kropotkine preach direct actions and violent to reverse the mode in order to rebuild, in a scientific way, a world which will ensure the happiness of the masses.

The nihilists succeeded in assassinating the tsar Alexandre II which wanted to make its mode less autocratic, which made pass the capacity to his/her son who had liberal ideas less . The stiffening in a company which industrialized quickly leads during the First World War to the introduction of the Communisme and the class struggle in system. The repression which followed the assassination of the tsar was fatal with the nihilist movement, but not with its ideas.

“Passive” nihilism and the absence of direction of the existence

Writers like Dostoïevski in Had the and Emile Zola in Germinal show and possibly denounce the danger of the extremism of the nihilism . Dostoïevski notes the difficulty in reconciling the idea of good God and the Almighty with the existence of the evil. The evil, especially, torments it. On another side, it notes that the Western Athéisme does not deny only any more God, but also the direction of creation, the raison d'être of the world and the life. It notes that human justice is unable to remedy the moral evil. It is itself a sometimes inhuman mechanism. The Socialisme remove with the man his freedom to make his happiness. Atheistic socialism denies the conscience. But Dostoïevski comes from there to note that " if God does not exist, all is allowed. " (this observation becomes what certain would call later the " problem of the bien"). It is with this provocante question that later individuals as Camus will try to answer. Camus, for example, thinks that the direction of the absurdity is not in the things. " the absurdity is born from this confrontation between the human call and the unreasonable silence of the world ". The absurdity is maintained like certainty and presupposition first. Its consequence is the renouncement of any metaphysical attribution of a direction to the existence. However, if the individual opposes without the hope of a divine safety the conditions of his existence, it can be identified with the other men, in particular by the Souffrance. The man can thus feel interdependent of the destiny of the other human ones and within this fraternity to maintain all the same a certain requirement moral.

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