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The paradox of nihilism is a family of paradoxes regarding the philosophical implications of nihilism, particularly situations contesting nihilist perspectives on the nature and extent of subjectivity within a nihilist framework. There are a number of variations of this paradox.
While there are several derivative examples of the paradox of nihilism, they generally fall on the lines that nihilism itself has drawn to demarcate different sections of the philosophy. The two basic paradoxes are reflective of the philosophies of nihilism that created them; metaphysical nihilism and existential nihilism. Both paradoxes originate from the same conceptual difficulty of whether, as Paul Hegarty writes in his study of noise music, "the absence of meaning seems to be some sort of meaning". [1]
Metaphysical nihilism is based around skepticism that concrete objects, and the self which perceives them, actually exist as concrete objects rather than as abstract objects. It is not a far stretch, in the framework of this theory, to assume that these objects do not exist at all. The philosophy can most succinctly be summed up using the model proposed by British philosopher Thomas Baldwin in his 1996 paper [2] on the subject which is referred to as subtraction theory. It holds that for a possible world with finite objects, any one or more of those objects may not have existed, and their non-existence does not mean that something equivalent exists in their place. Therefore, it is entirely possible that a world with no objects exists.
The paradox arises from the logical assertion that if no concrete or abstract objects exist, even the self, then that very concept itself would be untrue because it itself exists. Critics often point to the ambiguity of Baldwin's premises [3] as proof both of the paradox and of the flaws within metaphysical nihilism itself. The main point made argues that a world is itself a concrete object, and whether it exists or does not exist is irrelevant because in both instances it would disprove subtraction theory. In the case of its existence, subtraction theory fails because there is still a concrete object; if the world does not exist, subtraction theory fails because the truth of the world is revealed via subtraction theory, which itself exists, and therefore negates Baldwin's conclusion that a world with no objects can exist.
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no inherent meaning whatsoever, and that humanity, both in an individual sense and in a collective sense, has no purpose. That is to say: while objects have the capacity for purpose or meaning, there is no universal truth that guides this individual purpose. Thus, without a universal purpose, all meaning that objects could have does not exist, and the idea of any purpose or meaning attributed to something is untrue. If this is taken as a given, then existential nihilism holds that humans are compelled to make up meaning for themselves and others in the absence of a universal, unilateral meaning in order to spare themselves from the negativity surrounding the inevitability of death. Existential nihilism explores both the nature of this invention and the effectiveness of creating meaning for oneself and others, as well as whether the latter is even possible. It has received the most attention out of all forms of nihilism in both literary and popular media.
According to Jonna Bornemark, "the paradox of nihilism is the choice to continue one's own life while at the same time stating that it is not worth more than any other life". [4] Richard Ian Wright sees relativism as the root of the paradox.[ clarification needed ] [5]
In Critical Legal Studies (CLS) theory, the arguments used to criticize the centrist position also undermine the position of CLS. [6] [ clarification needed ]
Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.
In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.
Nihilism is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist or are meaningless or pointless.
In mathematical logic, Russell's paradox is a set-theoretic paradox discovered by the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell in 1901. Russell's paradox shows that every set theory that contains an unrestricted comprehension principle leads to contradictions. The paradox had already been discovered independently in 1899 by the German mathematician Ernst Zermelo. However, Zermelo did not publish the idea, which remained known only to David Hilbert, Edmund Husserl, and other academics at the University of Göttingen. At the end of the 1890s, Georg Cantor – considered the founder of modern set theory – had already realized that his theory would lead to a contradiction, which he told Hilbert and Richard Dedekind by letter.
Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, sometimes published with the subtitle A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, is a 1943 book by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In the book, Sartre develops a philosophical account in support of his existentialism, dealing with topics such as consciousness, perception, social philosophy, self-deception, the existence of "nothingness", psychoanalysis, and the question of free will.
Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd. This implies that the world lacks meaning or a higher purpose and is not fully intelligible by reason. The term "absurd" also has a more specific sense in the context of absurdism: it refers to a conflict or a discrepancy between two things but there are several disagreements about their exact nature. These disagreements have various consequences for whether absurdism is true and for the arguments cited in favor and against it. Popular accounts characterize the conflict as a collision between rational man and an irrational universe, between intention and outcome, or between subjective assessment and objective worth. An important aspect of absurdism is its claim that the world as a whole is absurd. It differs in this regard from the uncontroversial and less global thesis that some particular situations, persons, or phases in life are absurd.
Essence is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity.
Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or wrong.
Philosophical realism is usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters. Realism about a certain kind of thing is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.
In philosophy, mereological nihilism is the metaphysical thesis that there are no objects with proper parts. Equivalently, mereological nihilism says that mereological simples, or objects without any proper parts, are the only material objects that exist. Mereological nihilism is distinct from ordinary nihilism insofar as ordinary nihilism typically focuses on the nonexistence of common metaphysical assumptions such as ethical truths and objective meaning, rather than the nonexistence of composite objects.
Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there might have been no objects at all—that is, that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all; or at least that there might have been no concrete objects at all, so that even if every possible world contains some objects, there is at least one that contains only abstract objects.
Ernest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University.
The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense. It defines a situation in which the existence or identity of a thing depends on the co-existence of at least two conditions which are opposite to each other, yet dependent on each other and presupposing each other, within a field of tension.
Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
Raymond Brassier is a British philosopher. He is member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, London, England.
Nihilism is a philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. It has several forms:
Atheistic existentialism is a kind of existentialism which strongly diverged from the Christian existential works of Søren Kierkegaard and developed within the context of an atheistic world view. The philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche provided existentialism's theoretical foundation in the 19th century, although their differing views on religion proved essential to the development of alternate types of existentialism. Atheistic existentialism was formally recognized after the 1943 publication of Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre and Sartre later explicitly alluded to it in Existentialism is a Humanism in 1946.
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing 'why'. The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective 'meaning' or 'purpose'. Of all types of nihilism, existential nihilism has received the most literary and philosophical attention.
An anti-nihilistic novel is a form of novel from late 19th-century Russian literature, that came as a reaction to the disillusioned attitudes of the Russian nihilist movement and revolutionary socialism of the 1860s and 1870s. The genre was influential in shaping subsequent ideas on nihilism as a philosophy and cultural phenomenon. Its name derives from the historical usage of the word nihilism as broadly applied to revolutionary movements within the Russian Empire at the time.
Failure/impossibility: noise is only ever defined against something else, operating in the absence of meaning, but caught in the paradox of nihilism – that the absence of meaning seems to be some sort of meaning.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link){{cite journal}}: External link in |via=But essentially these values can be negated by extending the same critical methods which Marx uses to negate earlier philosophical idealism and liberal bourgeois ideology. In other words, from a Nietzschean perspective, Marx's foundational principles are not sufficient to defend his humanistic values. Thus it can be argued that they still maintain the residue of the Christian ethics and Platonic metaphysics which have permeated western thought for several thousand years and which continue to provide modem thinkers with many of their illusory presuppositions. Nevertheless, one is justified in asking: Without such presuppositions, does not the critique of law, politics, or "this earth" lose its ultimate justification or meaning? How can one critique laws without holding on to a sense of justice? And herein lies the crux of the paradox of nihilism. If nihilism is the basis of human existence then all values are relative, and as such, particular values can only be maintained through a "will to power." (page 97)
... Critical Legal Studies Movement (CLS) ... CLS' view generates a "paradox of nihilism" which CLS has recognized and tried unsuccessfully to resolve.(subscription required)
The argument supporting CLS' attack on centrist ideology, adhering as it does to social contingency, jurisprudential indeterminacy, and pervasive conditionality flowing from the fundamental contradiction, seems to preclude CLS from establishing a normative justification for its own vision. CLS' critical attack seems to cut the heart from all efforts to provide non-question-begging adjudication of epistemological and moral truth claims. This nihilistic paradox, in which CLS' critical attack is so extreme that it prohibits CLS from constructing persuasively its own alternative vision, ...
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