NIHILISM

Nihilism

Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or ontological/metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist.

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nihilism

Noun

  1. Extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing has a real existence.
  2. The rejection of all moral principles.
  3. (capitalized by protagonist Turgenev) A Russian anarchistic revolutionary doctrine (1860-1917) holding that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake, independent of any constructive program or possibility.
  4. The belief that all endeavors are ultimately futile and devoid of meaning.
    "...the band members sweat hard enough to earn their pretensions, and maybe even their nihilism" (rock critic Dave Marsh, reviewing the band XTC's album Go)
  5. Contradiction (not always deliberate) between behavior and espoused principle, to such a degree that all possible espoused principle is voided.
  6. The deliberate refusal of belief, to the point that belief itself is rejected as untenable.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: nihilism
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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