Debate: Nihilism is an Illogical Philosophy

I thought about this for quite some time, and have concluded that the entire philosophy of nihilism is an illogical contradiction. Let's dive into this and see what you think. People that are nihilistic believe that life has no inherent meaning or purpose, nothing truly matters, and there can be no such thing as an inherent truth. So let's look into the first claim of nihilism: no inherent meaning. It's funny that nihilists believe this because of the fact that no meaning is the meaning that they give to their lives. It's the same argument from getting something out of nothing. You cannot have anything without first having something.

Claim number two: nothing truly matters. Do they really believe that? Let's think about the implications of what this means. Why do anything at all if it doesn't matter? No one literally just sits around waiting to decay. Obviously, we do things because we think they matter in some way.

Claim number three: no inherent truth. Do nihilists really believe this? Do they believe that we don't all want to live a meaningful existence, give our life agency? I think you would be hard-pressed to argue that there is anyone out there that doesn't want to find meaning and purpose in their life. In a sense, you could argue the fact that we are all searching for meaning as a universal truth of life.
 
I break it into these classes (assembled from Nietzsche, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and The Handbook of Philosophy and Religion) - otherwise a nihilist will dance in and among these various classes in order to play a bit of a shell game with you - always able to claim a straw man fallacy exemption, no matter what definition of nihilism you frame.

How the process works:

A. Typically a nihilist will object and claim to hold value sets of meaning and purpose - but this is nothing but Romanticist Nihilism... so don't let them get away with that special pleading exemption, because B.​
B. A nihilist will hide inside and claim to be Atheist as part of their disguise, but will enforce Nihilism dialogue nonetheless, and claim that THAT is atheism.​
C. The dilettante fall for this, and the idea that atheism is nihilism becomes a Verdrängung Mechanism from there (pluralistic ignorance combined with the Lindy Effect)​
Fundamental or Existential Nihilism
1. There exist no theoretical domain sets regarded as a value – or ‘ought to’ statement family; neither dependent to a culture, man or entity of reference, nor independent of them.​
1ƒ. (strong) There cannot exist such a value or values.¹‡​
This is the nihilism which Nietzsche laments as not a practical art, in his comment:​
“A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this ‘in vain’ is the nihilists’ pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.”
~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 [60], The Will to Power, section 585, Walter Kaufmann trans ed.​

Metaphysical Nihilism
2. There exists the possibility of a complete or partial nothingness to aspects of the realms we ponder.​
2ƒ. (strong) There cannot exist any state but nothingness, outside of that which is repeatably observable and consistently measurable.²​
Nihilist Romanticism
1´. However, as Nietzsche cites, Fundamental Nihilism is moot. As we not only may choose, but without exception have chosen as a mandate, to artificially and personally construct such value sets as the conscious will of our skeptical, empirical or secular thinking, or self illusion of such, might deem acceptable.​
1ƒ´. The strong question of whether such values can exist or not is moot.¹​
2´. However, the applicability of the validity of nothingness as a basis of verity for our metaphysical or ontological reality, is moot in a social discourse because the social discourse already assumes the impotence of such an argument.​
2ƒ´. The mandatory state of nothingness for that which is not under a consensus of repeatability and measurability, is an a priori decision which may be adopted as per 1′.​
3. Immaterial to 1´, there can exist a personal ontological principle of Existential Nihilism as an optional subset of Nihilist Romanticism. The personal regard that life has no inherent meaning must be adjudicated in terms of objective application of its tenets in social discourse. The term ‘meaning’ must be defined in a context before applicability can be determined.²​
3′. Therefore the argument reverts back to the definition of the term ‘meaning’ (and this then merges Existential Nihilism back into the primary thematic definition being supported. The domain sets are chosen, and almost all relate to meaning – regardless of objective or subjective context.​

∴ Nihilism is defined as Romanticist (1′) in basis in that we choose those sets of domain to value, and strong Metaphysical (2ƒ’) as we choose those sets of domain to exclude as non-existent. Finally these domain sets are often then based on Existential meaning (3′).
 
Claim number two: nothing truly matters. Do they really believe that? Let's think about the implications of what this means. Why do anything at all if it doesn't matter? No one literally just sits around waiting to decay.
I've lived through that. It wasn't fun, it was real. But one thing, it wasn't sustainable. It's like balancing a pencil on its point, unstable equilibrium. Something has to give. At some point, the pencil falls, maybe it breaks, we won't presume to say what comes next, but remaining in that state is not possible in the long term.
 
I've lived through that. It wasn't fun, it was real. But one thing, it wasn't sustainable. It's like balancing a pencil on its point, unstable equilibrium. Something has to give. At some point, the pencil falls, maybe it breaks, we won't presume to say what comes next, but remaining in that state is not possible in the long term.

Indeed, this is the curse that is depression. I have suffered from this before, so I am all but familiar with how debilitating it is. At some point, you lose the will to do anything aside from basic bodily functions. For anyone who has not gone through it, words cannot describe how hopeless you feel.

I would really like to see more research done on a topic as important as this. The majority of available treatments, about 66% offer little more than a placebo. There is the Diathesis Stress Model, which is the idea that depression happens when an event in the environment causes the gene to activate. At the moment, the serotonin deficiency hypothesis cannot account for all cases of depression, and there is more than likely biological factors involved as well, as it is known that various gut flora that produce serotonin are connected to the nervous system.
 
Well, I'd say there may be an interrelationship with depression, but it isn't the same thing, at least not as I was meaning. I'd experienced depression both before and after that part of my life, and it was distinctly different. There's little I can add without turning this into a cumbersome autobiography, which might still not convey it adequately.
 
Back
Top