143. Forms of nihilism
Here I start a series on nihilism: what
does it mean, what forms are there, what responses to it, how can one move
beyond nihilism, what did Nietzsche propose for that move, and what is my
proposal? Here, I elaborate on item 19 of this blog, with the title ‘Beyond
nihilism: Imperfection on the move’. I use bits from a book with that title
that I am writing.
Western
culture has harboured a deep urge, and still lingers in that urge, towards the
certainty of ideals or values that are objective, i.e. ‘outside’ or independent
from human cognition and inclinations, and absolute, that is: universal,
unconditional, regardless of conditions and interests, and immutable, in other
words applying everywhere and forever. This urge has been shaken by nihilism.
Nihilism is
a complex notion, with a variety of meanings and interpretations. Karen Carr
gave the overall characterization that I like best: ‘Loss of all sense of
contact with what is ultimately true or meaningful’[1].
This loss has led to despair, in a loss of meaning in life, a feeling that life
is not worth living. This is called Existential nihilism. It is a
derived form of nihilism, following from loss of faith in the old, absolute
values, or in human ability to live by them, or both. This can result in
despair, if the old ideals are maintained, or in disorientation, if the
desirability of the old ideas is in doubt or rejected.[2]
Nihilistic
anxiety is not new, and arose before Nietzsche, but the spectre of nihilism
manifested itself more openly and radically in his work, and it has been
haunting philosophy ever since.
There are
different forms of nihilism, according to the type of values lost. Religious
nihilism results from loss of God, ontological nihilism from loss of
reality as independent from human consciousness, epistemological nihilism
from loss of objective knowledge, ethical nihilism from loss of
objective morality, and aesthetic nihilism from loss of objective
standards of beauty.
Epistemological
nihilism can be traced to the scepticism of the ancient philosopher Pyrrho, and
to the later Kantian revolution. According to Kant we can only perceive and
interpret the world according to categories of time, space and causality that
we impose. We have no access to objective reality as it is in itself. This
destroys the correspondence view of truth as a correspondence between
ideas and items in reality.
Kant did
propound absolute standards of ethics, such as the categorical imperative,
a form of the ancient golden rule: do (not) do unto others that you (do
not) want done to yourself. The underlying idea is that reasons are sufficient
only when based on absolute values, and that reason can grasp them, standing
apart from inclinations and interests.
Nietzsche
demolished absolutes in all areas, of God, knowledge, ethics and art. The basic
idea is that claims to knowledge, ethics and art are always, inevitably, based
on some contingent, non-absolute perspective, associated with interests, which
could be different but nevertheless yields sufficient reasons.
For
Nietzsche, the point was not only that the old absolutes couldn’t be achieved
but, more importantly, that they pervert, thwart life. What room is there for
life and humanity, for creativity and invention, and corresponding error, when
we are bound by universal, immutable ideas? In particular, Nietzsche rejected
the morality of compassion and altruism, as hypocritical, a revolt of the weak
against the strong, which destroys excellence and flourishing of life.
There is a
distinction between weak nihilism: regretful loss of belief, and strong
nihilism: no longer seeing such belief as desirable. Could one not make a
step from disorientation to re-orientation, on the basis of values that are no
longer claimed to be objective and/or absolute? Would that still be nihilism?
Nietzsche did not simply reject the old values as irrelevant, deserving indifference, as later postmodernists did (such as Richard Rorty). He also rejected indifference with respect to values, and passiveness, hedonism, and stoicism as an escape from the despair of nihilism. In his view that was as ‘decadent’, i.e. life thwarting, as the old absolutes.
He
acknowledged the need for man to seek value and meaning, and rather than
rejecting all values that go beyond the self, he sought a ‘Revaluation of all
values’, with values that are not absolute and yet contribute to the
flourishing of life. This offers an escape from nihilistic despair, but the
despair was needed to propel this revaluation. What that revaluation entails I
will discuss in a later item in this series.
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