Inevitably, nihilism will expose all cherished beliefs and sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a defective Western mythos. This collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose will be the most destructive force in history, constituting a total assault on reality and nothing less than the greatest crisis of humanity:. What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism.
For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end.
Will to Power. In his study, Spengler concludes that Western civilization is already in the advanced stages of decay with all three forms of nihilism working to undermine epistemological authority and ontological grounding. While nihilism is often discussed in terms of extreme skepticism and relativism, for most of the 20th century it has been associated with the belief that life is meaningless.
Existential nihilism begins with the notion that the world is without meaning or purpose. Given this circumstance, existence itself—all action, suffering, and feeling—is ultimately senseless and empty. In The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life , Alan Pratt demonstrates that existential nihilism, in one form or another, has been a part of the Western intellectual tradition from the beginning.
In antiquity, such profound pessimism may have reached its apex with Hegesias of Cyrene. Because miseries vastly outnumber pleasures, happiness is impossible, the philosopher argues, and subsequently advocates suicide. Out, out, brief candle!
When we abandon illusions, life is revealed as nothing; and for the existentialists, nothingness is the source of not only absolute freedom but also existential horror and emotional anguish. The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. In retrospect, it was an anecdote tinged with desperation because in an absurd world there are absolutely no guidelines, and any course of action is problematic.
Passionate commitment, be it to conquest, creation, or whatever, is itself meaningless. Enter nihilism. Camus, like the other existentialists, was convinced that nihilism was the most vexing problem of the twentieth century. Although he argues passionately that individuals could endure its corrosive effects, his most famous works betray the extraordinary difficulty he faced building a convincing case. In The Stranger , for example, Meursault has rejected the existential suppositions on which the uninitiated and weak rely.
In Caligula , the mad emperor tries to escape the human predicament by dehumanizing himself with acts of senseless violence, fails, and surreptitiously arranges his own assassination. And in his last novel, the short and sardonic, The Fall , Camus posits that everyone has bloody hands because we are all responsible for making a sorry state worse by our inane action and inaction alike.
In these works and other works by the existentialists, one is often left with the impression that living authentically with the meaninglessness of life is impossible.
A Worldview involves the mind, but it is first of all a commitment, a matter of the soul. A Biblical worldview centers on God as Creator of the universe and everything in it. Others center on the belief there is no God; therefore, the universe formed itself and man is his own god. This view is called Naturalism or Atheism. Chapter 6: Beyond Nihilism June 20, Existentialism Existentialism is not a full-fledged worldview, therefore it takes on two basic forms; atheistic existentialism and theistic existentialism.
Basic Atheistic Existentialism Atheistic existentialism begins by affirming all the propositions of naturalism except those related to human nature and our relationship to the cosmos.
Existentialism is interested mostly in humanity and how we can be significant in an otherwise insignificant world. Naturalism is the belief that there is no greater being that created our world and that everything is made up of material and natural elements. There are several branches of naturalism. These branches are hedonism, nihilism, existentialism, scientism, and new atheism. Having nothing to live for and believing that life is worthless, describes the branch nihilism.
Ironically, naturalism began as an Age of Enlightenment based on the affirmation of human intelligence, but a truly consistent naturalist leads to what is called a nihilist. Nihilists realize that they can place no confidence in knowing anything at all. Purpose of book 1. Schopenhauer was a philosopher in the 19th century who made the striking case for view of nihilism and he argued that for a life to be worth living, it must include a preponderance of happiness over suffering.
However, he argued that there is no life include preponderance happiness over suffering. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. On What Matters: Volume Two. Find in Worldcat. Go to page:. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Search within book. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again.
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