nihilism

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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd
One is supposed to behold and partake of the glory of God...in a way in which chickens do not share in the glory of coq au vin.
Well, chickens don't grapple with theology. Nor do they actually grasp that when they're dead and gone that means forever and forever and forever. Besides, what do they know of being gobbled down by us? And while some of our Gods may well send us packing to Hell, they don't actually consume us.

Two different things entirely, right?
The same is true of service to a state, a movement, or a revolution. People can come to feel, when they are part of something bigger, that it is part of them too. They worry less about what is peculiar to themselves, but identify enough with the larger enterprise to find their role in it fulfilling.
The same is true in that, for some, "a state, a movement, or a revolution" can become the equivalent of God. And, as well, that there have been and are many, many different and ofttimes hopelessly conflicting such entities down through the ages. And still today. Such that each member of the clique/claque sees themselves as part of the state, the movement, and/or the revolution. Enabling them to divide up the world between "one of us" and "one of them".

Here alone we've had dozens of them.
However, any such larger purpose can be put in doubt in the same way that the aims of an individual life can be, and for the same reasons.
In other words, not just my reasons.

Or your reasons?
It is as legitimate to find ultimate justification there as to find it earlier, among the details of individual life. But this does not alter the fact that justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end---when we do not find it necessary to look any further. If we can step back from the purposes of individual life and doubt their point, we can step back also from the progress of human history, or of science, or the success of a society, or the kingdom, power, and glory of God, and put all these things into question in the same way. What seems to us to confer meaning, justification, significance, does so in virtue of the fact that we need no more reasons after a certain point.
Indeed, some philosophers come up with truly elaborate philosophical contraptions in order to propose just that. Hegel for example, idealistically. Marx, materialistically. And then of course all the philosophical realists among us. Suggesting a priori mind independent realities that are applicable only after we manage to yank ourselves out of the shadowy existential caves of mere mortals.

And then, of course, the sociopaths. Those who need no more reason to do what they do than that no one, apparently, is able to stop them from doing it.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

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Ex mea sententia nihilism is simply one maxima of a swinging pendulum. The other maxima is collectors, of all shapes & sizes.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

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Agent Smith wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 9:19 am Ex mea sententia nihilism is simply one maxima of a swinging pendulum. The other maxima is collectors, of all shapes & sizes.
Thanks for clearing whatever that means up. 8)
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

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iambiguous wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:29 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 9:19 am Ex mea sententia nihilism is simply one maxima of a swinging pendulum. The other maxima is collectors, of all shapes & sizes.
Thanks for clearing whatever that means up. 8)
It's quite simple, no?

I have in my mind a description of nihilism, but what I lack is a sound argument for it. Do you have any ideas about how nihilism is justified?
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

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Thomas Nagel
The Absurd
What makes doubt inescapable with regard to the limited aims of individual life also makes it inescapable with regard to any larger purpose that encourages the sense that life is meaningful.
Inescapable only if you accept the premise that human existence is in fact essentially meaningless and absurd. But those who champion this frame of mind are no more able to demonstrate that this is true than those who insist that the manner in which they give life meaning is that which all reasonable men and women are then obligated to share.

Then the inescapable fact that none of us on either end of the "meaning of life" spectrum are able to go much beyond that which "here and now" we profess to believe about it "in our head". And, down through the ages, what has not been believed is true by mere mortals in the staggering vastness of all there is?

That's the beauty -- the ugly truth? -- about the human condition. This: that you believe something is all that matters. Why? Because your behaviors are predicated on what you believe and not on what you can demonstrate is, in fact, true. And it is as a result of our behaviors that there are actual consequences. For example, what Hitler believed. Or, today, what Putin believes?
Once the fundamental doubt has begun, it cannot be laid to rest.
That can be true. It is certainly true of me. But I have been planting that doubt for years now. And yet how many "fulminating fanatic objectivists" -- God or No God -- have, uh, "seen the light"?

Nope. For most True Believers, the psychological rewards of being able to anchor their Real Me...their one true Intrinsic Self...onto one or another one true objectivist Path are such that they simply refuse to accept that my own "fractured and fragmented" "self" is an option that makes any sense at all.

Besides, who would want to think like "I" do.
Camus maintains in The Myth of Sisyphus that the absurd arises because the world fails to meet our demands for meaning. This suggests that the world might satisfy those demands if it were different. But now we can see that this is not the case. There does not appear to be any conceivable world (containing us) about which unsettlable doubts could not arise. Consequently the absurdity of our situation derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves.
And, I suspect, Camus met the same reactions from others back then that I do now. After all, the objectivists have their moral and political and spiritual font of choice. It does comfort and console them. It does anchor them to the One True Path.

So: what collision within them? No, the collisions still unfold between their own objectivist Self [one of us...the smart guys, the good guys] and the objectivist selves of others [one of them...the dumb guys, the bad guys].

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

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Agent Smith wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:41 am
iambiguous wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:29 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 9:19 am Ex mea sententia nihilism is simply one maxima of a swinging pendulum. The other maxima is collectors, of all shapes & sizes.
Thanks for clearing whatever that means up. 8)
It's quite simple, no?

I have in my mind a description of nihilism, but what I lack is a sound argument for it. Do you have any ideas about how nihilism is justified?
Nope. Not in any, say, philosophically sound or scientifically objective manner.

My own description of nihilism revolves instead around the subjective assumption that the human condition unfolds in a No God universe. And, as such, that, in the is/ought world "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" seems reasonable to me.

But what of this is "simple" [to you] given the gap between what any of us think about these things "here and now" and all that would need to be known definitively about the existence of existence itself?
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

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iambiguous wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 5:34 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:41 am
iambiguous wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:29 pm

Thanks for clearing whatever that means up. 8)
It's quite simple, no?

I have in my mind a description of nihilism, but what I lack is a sound argument for it. Do you have any ideas about how nihilism is justified?
Nope. Not in any, say, philosophically sound or scientifically objective manner.

My own description of nihilism revolves instead around the subjective assumption that the human condition unfolds in a No God universe. And, as such, that, in the is/ought world "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" seems reasonable to me.

But what of this is "simple" [to you] given the gap between what any of us think about these things "here and now" and all that would need to be known definitively about the existence of existence itself?
Perhaps we would need to trace the nihilism meme back to its origins.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

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Agent Smith wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:17 pm
Perhaps we would need to trace the nihilism meme back to its origins.
I already did that:
My own description of nihilism revolves instead around the subjective assumption that the human condition unfolds in a No God universe. And, as such, that, in the is/ought world "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" seems reasonable to me.
Leaving aside the part we may never, ever grasp: how that fits into the definitive understanding of existence itself. After all, that may include God, right? That and a definitive understanding of where genes end here and memes begin.

Now all we need is a context.
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

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iambiguous wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:40 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:17 pm
Perhaps we would need to trace the nihilism meme back to its origins.
I already did that:
My own description of nihilism revolves instead around the subjective assumption that the human condition unfolds in a No God universe. And, as such, that, in the is/ought world "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" seems reasonable to me.
Leaving aside the part we may never, ever grasp: how that fits into the definitive understanding of existence itself. After all, that may include God, right? That and a definitive understanding of where genes end here and memes begin.

Now all we need is a context.
How very fascinating it is. I sense an antinomy, deep in the nihilist's heart.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Agent Smith wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:01 am
iambiguous wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:40 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:17 pm
Perhaps we would need to trace the nihilism meme back to its origins.
I already did that:
My own description of nihilism revolves instead around the subjective assumption that the human condition unfolds in a No God universe. And, as such, that, in the is/ought world "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" seems reasonable to me.
Leaving aside the part we may never, ever grasp: how that fits into the definitive understanding of existence itself. After all, that may include God, right? That and a definitive understanding of where genes end here and memes begin.

Now all we need is a context.
How very fascinating it is. I sense an antinomy, deep in the nihilist's heart.
Noted.

Anyone else? 8)
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

Post by Agent Smith »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 6:07 am
Agent Smith wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:01 am
iambiguous wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:40 pm

I already did that:



Leaving aside the part we may never, ever grasp: how that fits into the definitive understanding of existence itself. After all, that may include God, right? That and a definitive understanding of where genes end here and memes begin.

Now all we need is a context.
How very fascinating it is. I sense an antinomy, deep in the nihilist's heart.
Noted.

Anyone else? 8)
:mrgreen: What does the antinomy imply in your opinion? Once nihilism takes root, it flourishes in a weird kinda way - it's kinda there but look again, oui mon ami?
popeye1945
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Re: nihilism

Post by popeye1945 »

Nihilism could be defined as the utter meaninglessness of the physical world in the absence of a conscious subject, for in and of itself it is meaningless. Life, biology, a conscious subject is the creator of all meaning which when the subject experiences it can then bestow it upon an otherwise meaningless world. The other possibility is that an individual sees no value in the continuation of living, generally in a state of depression. Fairy godfathers have really nothing to do with it but perhaps supply a means of escaping reality.
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Re: nihilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

Agent Smith wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:41 am
iambiguous wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:29 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 9:19 am Ex mea sententia nihilism is simply one maxima of a swinging pendulum. The other maxima is collectors, of all shapes & sizes.
Thanks for clearing whatever that means up. 8)
It's quite simple, no?

I have in my mind a description of nihilism, but what I lack is a sound argument for it. Do you have any ideas about how nihilism is justified?
You would need more than an (one) argument for nihilism. It's a batch of connected beliefs and one need not have all of them. Nihilists are moral anti-realists. And there are plenty of arguments for that postion....
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
for some people being a moral anti-realist makes you a nihilist. But I think that's a poor idea, since it also means a sense that life is meaningless, at the very least this also. The 'nothing' part of nihilism not just being about morals, but also about meaning AND epistemology. IOW there are no objective morals, life has no meaning AND you can't really know anything, so we are tagging a radical skepticism on the end of nihilism.
But then historically the term also includes the rejection of all political positions, institutions and rules. This last could be viewed as a conclusion, given that if there are not objective morals and there is no way to know what the truth is no authority has a real basis for their authority. But that's, at the very least, an argument.

And then there's the emotional aspect of nihilism, that one has a depressed attitude towards life.

I have seen no one in this thread who qualifies as a pure nihilist. Such a person would not mount arguments. They would not differentiate between is and ought issues, since nihilism sees objectivity as a whole, not just moral objectivity, as an impossible enterprise.

A nihilist can, it seems, only find meaning in reacting to non-nihilists. They have little to say to each other. Even moral anti-realists have little to say to each other. If you look at the two main promoters of this position, Iambiguous and Peter Holmes, they have little to say to each other. But Peter Holmes is not a nihilist, since he certainly believes in objectivity. Iambiguous is more mixed, but does make the is ought distinction so he is a not a full blown nihilist. But there is a great deal of skepticism and more focus on the meaninglessness of life.
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Re: nihilism

Post by bobmax »

Agent Smith wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:41 am I have in my mind a description of nihilism, but what I lack is a sound argument for it. Do you have any ideas about how nihilism is justified?
Nihilism is inherent in logical thinking itself.
It is the other side of the coin of rationality.

The more logic is believed to be the foundation of reality, the more nihilism grows, perhaps unwittingly.

For the nihilist, in fact, nothing has value.
And it's the same for logic.
Belinda
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Re: nihilism

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Sat Oct 29, 2022 6:48 am Nihilism could be defined as the utter meaninglessness of the physical world in the absence of a conscious subject, for in and of itself it is meaningless. Life, biology, a conscious subject is the creator of all meaning which when the subject experiences it can then bestow it upon an otherwise meaningless world. The other possibility is that an individual sees no value in the continuation of living, generally in a state of depression. Fairy godfathers have really nothing to do with it but perhaps supply a means of escaping reality.
I agree and I'd like to add to what you write if I may.

Care towards what is other than self is sure defence against that species of depression ( Durkheimian anomie) that arises from rootlessness in some object of care. Environmentalism is evidence that the object of care does not have to be social or even animate and may also be inanimate.

Inanimate does not imply ideological. There is a lively need to understand what exists and what does not. In the guise of ideologies some theories of what exists are demented.
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