Talk:Nihilism

"The Matrix and Philosophy" by William Irwin...see chapter 13...(how appropriate)...

nemo senki

Dictionaries commonly define nihilism as rejecting the basis or foundation for a variety of ideas: the basis for moral beliefs, religious values, political ideals, etc. "Aspects of existence" is needlessly vague and broad. What exactly is an aspect of existence? Nihilists reject things like meaning, knowledge, and morality. The category there is something like "values" or "abtract concepts that human cultures emphasize as fundamnetal." Meanwhile, "aspects of existence" can mean nearly anything from physics to biology to ecology to anthropology to culture: evolution, reproduction, energy transfer, entropy, etc. Let's please find a way to be more precise. Wolfdog (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello Wolfdog and thanks for bringing this to the talk page. You are right that the expression "aspects of existence" is vague and broad. I'm not sure that this is a disadvantage: different forms of nihilism do not have much in common except for denying something. The missing precision in the first sentence is given right in the next sentence, which lists several denied aspects. A simple solution to your concern would be to merge the two sentences into one: "... certain aspects of existence, such as ...". However, MOS:FIRST states "Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead." I prefer the current version since it is more accessible, going from general to specific. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate your collegiality. We can certainly try to avoid overloading the sentence. What do you think of my possible tweaks to the "aspects of existence" phrasing though? I think words like "basis" or "values" seem a bit more precise, while understanding that nihilism is certainly an umbrella. Wolfdog (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm not particularly happy with the specific phrase either but haven't yet found good alternatives. One could say "certain fundamental principles" or "the basis of certain ideas", but I'm not sure that they are improvements. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:43, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

I would be happy with "the basis of certain fundamental ideas". I think even better would be "the basis of certain fundamental moral, political, or religious ideas". (I said "philosophical" in my original edit to cover moral, epistemic, metaphysical, etc.) Here's some dictionaries I looked at: MerrWeb includes that "traditional values and beliefs are unfounded" and "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truth", so to me here the key words are something like values, foundation, (objective) ground. Collins talks of "all political and religious authority"; "denial of all established authority and institutions"; and " rejects all values", so authority and values. Cambridge doesn't seem to discuss one common noun (it says "all political and religious organization are bad" which makes me laugh). American Heritage says negativity "suggesting an absence of values or beliefs". So the major abstract nouns are values (the top one), foundation, ground (basis is the synonym we seem to be moving towards), and authority. Perhaps then the best-case sentence is: "the basis of certain fundamental moral, political, or religious values"? Wolfdog (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

I went with "the basis of certain ideas", a modification of your first suggestion: Given we already have the term "basis", adding the term "fundamental" introduces redundancy. I'm not convinced that the change is an improvement, but it should work. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:18, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

I still think an adjective would be great. Me randomly imagining a pink elephant is an "idea." But we're talking about ideas that are fundamental to learning, morality, culture, and human understandings of the universe. That's why I used "fundamental". Is there something better? ("Philosophical"?) Wolfdog (talk) 20:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

To include the term "fundamental", we could say "reject certain fundamental ideas" without the expression "basis of". Either way avoids the pleonasm. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

I'll just drop it. Wolfdog (talk) 10:20, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Apologies for omitting to check the talk page. Thoughts on this?

>Nihilism, defined narrowly, is a family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value, or purpose in life, morality, or the universe. Defined more broadly, nihilism can refer to any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of something commonly believed by others to exist (eg mereological nihilism). [rest of intro] --krimin_killr21(talk) 03:13, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Hello krimin_killr21 and thanks for bringing this to the talk page. The position you describe seems to be existential nihilism. This is already discussed in the second paragraph. Since there are also other forms of nihilism, I think the current first sentence is better. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:46, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

How would you feel about keeping the two sentence broad and narrow intro, but replacing the first sentence as:

Nihilism, defined narrowly, is a family of philosophical views arguing that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, or that knowledge is impossible. --krimin_killr21(talk) 13:41, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

The current first sentence already covers the most important types of nihilism, so characterizing it as a narrow definition is misleading. We should also be careful about the broad claim that nihilism covers "any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of something commonly believed by others to exist". For example, materialism is commonly believed today, but that doesn't mean that idealism is a form of nihilism. To implement something similar to your idea, we could keep the first sentence as it is and use a modified version of the second sentence: Nihilism is a family of philosophical views arguing that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, or that knowledge is impossible. In a broad sense, it encompasses viewpoints that reject the basis of certain ideas. Nihilistic views span several branches... Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I actually quite like your "family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value," etc. followed by a broader second defintion. Though I don't love the "believed by others to exist" bit. We should narrow that, as it tends to be core, fundamental, almost pan-human, widely-held views that are rejected. Otherwise, while I admit the page's current definition is quite narrow (a definition by examples), a definition like "rejects aspects of existence" or "certain ideas" seems excessively vague to me. However, I could be persuaded by your current take but with some tweaks, along the lines of a family of philosophical positions that deny the existence of inherent meaning, value, purpose in life, morality, the universe, or other fundamental aspects of existence (or maybe, widely held views?). Wolfdog (talk) 12:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I thinking keeping at as two sentences serves two important purposes.

One, it helps to distinguish that nihilism is used in two pretty distinct ways. There's Nihilism™, which is existential or even just total nihilism about the value of anything. And then there's little-n nihilism, which only denies specific ideas.

Two, it prevents a run on sentence and gives us the opportunity to describe this second kind of nihilism more fully.

Could we agree to a revision of the second sentence along the lines of:

Defined more broadly, nihilism can refer to any viewpoint that rejects or denies the existence of [something, some philosophical concept] widely held [by human beings, by others] to exist [(eg mereological nihilism)]. --krimin_killr21(talk) 13:47, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I certainly approve of a basic usual (narrow) vs broad distinction. I think we still need some tweaks on the second sentence to incorporate Phlsph7's idealism concern. To me, the broader type is something like "an active rejection of a belief/s without usually any offer of a positive replacement belief." But still unsure of the wording. Wolfdog (talk) 23:13, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I suppose most of it is historical and supported by reliable sources, but the basic idea of nihilism seems not to be treated from a neutral point of view here. Sure, "it can lead to indifference, lack of motivation, and existential crises", but isn't this equally true of the concerns of opposing views? Believing in truths and meaning can at least as logically lead to "indifference, lack of motivation, and existential crises", although this arguably much more affects the attitude towards others: a believer becomes indifferent to other views, lacks motivation to investigate other options, and is vulnerable to existential crises or overly defensive against it when the slightest doubt about a belief is raised. Especially that latter aspect causes the bias towards nihilism, but we seem to possess very little notion of "truth" at birth and freeing oneself of later obtained values or ideas of meaning can be more liberating than depressing if welcomed without the fear of what may get lost. What gets lost is usually not a widely acknowledged fact or a scientific theory, but more often a very shaky and irrational belief in something that contradicts fact and scientific theories. A "detachment from worldly concerns" thus seems to be a very positive aspect of nihilism, supported in dominant world views to some extent, but not a "response" to nihilism as the article now seems to suggest (the alternative interpretation that this is a response to the potential negative issues being raised seems less logical).

Arguments like this are not rare and can probably easily be supported by reliable sources. Plenty already pop up in the article. Perhap it's just a few lines that make the text appear to be written from a predominantly dismissive point of view rather than a neutral encyclopedic view, so adjusting these would improve much. Besides some lines already quoted, phrases like "different forms of nihilism deny different features of reality" do not take the reality of nihilistic objections to misguided ideas of reality into account, and the association with "disillusioned attitudes" may be historically correct, but objections like "nihilists deny that it has any positive or negative meaning" seem too scarce. Despite my emphasis on a more positive notion of nihilism here, I don't see myself as a nihilist and don't advocate an overly positive approach, but I hope others see my point and can make the tone of this article more neutral. Joortje1 (talk) 12:04, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

As the article already hints at, the general dismissive portrayal of nihilism seems to have mostly come from western philosophers influenced by over a thousand years of christianity, who were struggling to find alternatives for the apparent certainty of that outlook, especially since atheism rose during modernism. It can easily be argued that the certainty about meaningfulness of whatever topic tends to be arrogant and misguided. Many may prefer Descartes "cogito, ergo sum" as it suggests positvism, but his refined "dubito, ergo sum" can be explained as a paradox comparable to Multatuli's "Maybe nothing is completely true, and not even that”, which is more obviously utterly nihilistic. Epistemic humility and rigorous skepticism seem very important when it comes to conceptualising any potential truth, as opposed to emotionally driven ideas of value and meaning (dominantly suffered from in virtually every philosophy or religion). This is widely acknowledged in science and logic, and much of the resistance to it is irrational and subjective. Does most of the literature perhaps focus on resistance from these subjective notions of certainty and of reality (by unconvinced or struggling authors), rather than on convincing nihilistic argumentation? Joortje1 (talk) 12:14, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello Joortje1 and thanks for your comment. The article covers various forms of nihilism and all the subsections of the main forms explain arguments both for and against to ensure WP:NPV. For example, see the paragraphs Arguments for and against existential nihilism..., One argument for moral nihilism...Moral realists have raised objections to moral nihilism..., and Proponents of relativism emphasize... An influential criticism argues that relativism.... Phlsph7 (talk) 09:41, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Phlsph7, thanks for your reply, but I don't really see how it engages with my point and the given examples. I already acknowledged that plenty of arguments pop up in the article, but also gave examples for sentences that make the whole article seem written from a dismissive POV. One of the best arguments is hidden away in note b: "Others propose nihilism as one way to resolve [existential crises] by learning to accept meaninglessness rather than finding a source of meaning." That notion is hardly made clear in the main text; and as far as it's hinted at, it's drowned out by for instance associations with depression and apathy. It's as if even the arguments for nihilism are written by someone like Camus, whose suicidal thoughts seem illustrative of my point that the struggle against nihilism can lead to depression rather than nihilism itself. Was any source written by somebody who identified as a nihilist, who promoted nihilism wholeheartedly, or who at least understood the view at least as well as any opposing view? Joortje1 (talk) 07:02, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I reformulated the sentence on Camus to give it a more positive spin. The point about resolving existential crises through nihilism is only mentioned in a footnote because this is not a common view. I added a sentence on Nietzsche about liberating effects, which is hopefully in the spirit of your point.

Regarding your more specific points above about "opposing views", it is true that there are counterarguments against the criticisms of the different forms of nihilism. However, there are also counterarguments against the arguments in favor of the different forms of nihilism. The treatment in this overview article needs to be concise, so we cannot pursue complex chains of arguments and counterarguments. This would fit better into child articles on more specific topics.

Generally speaking, the article is based on a broad range of high-quality overview sources, which seek to give a balanced overview. For example, the following is the first paragraph of the section "Existential Nihilism" of the Nihilism entry of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I think its general outlook is similar to what our article says.

Existential nihilists contend that human existence has no purpose, value, or justification. There is no reason to live, and yet we persist in living. The human situation is therefore absurd. The philosophical position of existential nihilism is not just that this or that person may fail to find meaning in life; it is rather that a genuinely meaningful life is impossible. In the face of this conclusion, Schopenhauer counsels us to quench the flame of affirmation and desire, to resign ourselves to the span of our days without hope of respite and calmly await an annihilating death, the last sure sign of the utter futility of our existence. Sartre too hammers at the absurdity of existence but counsels us in Being and Nothingness (1943) to invent meanings for our lives through sheer acts of freedom, creating those meanings - in the manner of the God of traditional religion - out of nothing. Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, finds the absurdity of the human situation to lie in our restless, futile search for comprehensive meaning in a universe that has no discoverable significance or value. He advises us not to commit suicide when we realize that our lives have no point - that would be the coward’s way out. Instead, we should heroically rebel against the abyss of meaninglessness and in that very act of defiance find some semblance of a reason for being (see Existentialism).

Phlsph7 (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits you made in reponse. Especially the new Nietzsche line seems to capture the idea of nihilism much better than Schopenhauer's pessimism and Camus' anti-nihilism. Even Nietzsche ultimately rejected nihilism, but was at least able to relatively neutrally consider its pros and cons (if I understand correctly from what wikipedia tells me).

"resolving existential crises through nihilism [is] not a common view": how not? Note b cites 4 sources. Although he gave it a pessimistic framework, Schopenhauer basically advised it in his ascetism, an essentially nihilistic principle promoted in many religions and philosophies. Nietzsche's relatively popular idea of 'active' nihilism clearly aligns. Punk ideologies seem to say more or less the same, although more as political protest rather than cosmological or personal introspection. Much of this already was in the article (except the mention of punk), but seemed drowned out by several biased sentences, like the one that was in the lead. I believe your new version is a great improvement! Joortje1 (talk) 07:43, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The footnote cites four sources for the whole passage. If I remember correctly, only Yalom 2020 explicitly supports the part about resolving existential crises through nihilism, discussing nihilism only as one of several competing responses. Existential crisis is a technical term and many sources on nihilism may address related issues without mentioning the term in this context. As far as I'm aware, the more common view is that the inability to find meaning causes existential crises and that one typically resolves them by finding new sources of meaning rather accepting meaninglessness. By the way, I added a see-also link to punk ideologies. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:18, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Isn't the very notion "that, without a God, there is no source of higher values that transcend the natural world" an utterly theistic view? Our article now frames it as "an atheistic view". Most atheists would "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion" (see Atheism#Atheism and ethics). Aren't there plenty metaphysical notions of moral values, other than atttributing them to a god? Which "atheistic view" of the innumerable total actually denies all "source[s] of higher values that transcend the natural world"? Shouldn't we specify that in the article rather than keep the current problematic statement? Once again, I don't want to advocate nihilistic or atheistic views here; I'm just trying to point out that the tone of this article often doesn't seem very neutral (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). Joortje1 (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Atheism is standardly construed as a view about the existence of God, see the IEP entry Atheism: "Atheism is the view that there is no God". Our sentence does not say that all atheists are nihilists. It says that this form of nihilism includes atheist views. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:37, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, did I somehow inadvertently imply that atheism meant something else than the view that there are no gods? Atheism doesn't really exclude ideas like Ietsism or other beliefs in supernatural forces that may inspire moralistic values, and certainly doesn't reject metaphysical humanism as a source for morality. The current line thus seems totally counterfactual. And it obviously is an utterly theistic belief that associates morality with one or more gods. Many theists therefore believe in the strawman notion that atheism rejects morality.

Perhaps the passage in the article tries to say that a certain atheistic view embraces nihilism and thus rejects morality along with a lack of belief in gods, but if so, it's phrased very imprecise and comes with many problematic implications. (I have no idea how you instead interpreted my point as a presumed misinterpretation that the article would suggest that "all atheists are nihilists")

There may be many 'reliable' sources written from such (predominantly christian) biases, but that's no reason to do the same on Wikipedia. For instance https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/ emphatically explains "To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods", before explicitly addressing this problem: "Older dictionaries define atheism as “a belief that there is no God". Clearly, theistic influence taints these definitions." Wikipedia's page on Atheism seems to have taken such arguments into account, so why not the article on Nihilism? Joortje1 (talk) 08:45, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I restored a reformulated version of the sentence on atheism since the connection to atheism should be mentioned in some form. I hope the new formulation makes the relation clearer. It does not define atheism, addressing your concerns about the precise definition. The sentence is directly supported by Crosby 1988: A world without God must lack the intelligible structures and purposive goals of a creative mind ... A second argument tying atheism to nihilism yields two interconnected conclusions. The first is that no objective ground for values can exist apart from belief in God as the source and standard of all value. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Citing a 1980s source by a US theologian might explain the bias, but let's see what Crosby actually argues. He's interested in "arguments that purport to show that loss of belief in God leads necessarily to nihilism." The "loss of belief in God" actually underlines my arguments that it's not nihilism as much as the struggle with losing a previous belief in a certainty that leads to distress, and "purport to show" hints at the dubious status of the argument. Crosby ultimately identfies it as a defense of theism by citing theologian Hans Küng. That's precisely what I said: "an utterly theistic view" and heavily biased "strawman notion" of atheism and nihilsm, not a cosmological argument "sometimes combined with atheism to form the argument that there is no God". I changed the line to better reflect Crosby's ultimate explanation. Joortje1 (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Our passage in question is about arguments for nihilism. An argument along the lines "there is no god, therefore there is no objective meaning or value" fits the topic. This is why Crosby discusses the argument in the section "Arguments for Nihilism". As Crosby mentions, you can reverse the logic and transform this into an argument for theism, as you did in the sentence you added. The problem is that an argument for theism does not fit into a passage about arguments for nihilism.

The point we have to make is relatively simple. There are various arguments in the academic literature about how the non-existence of God leads to nihilism. This idea is already found in Nietzsche. We need one sentence to summarize this line of thought, even if we do not agree with it. If you feel strongly about the term "atheism", we can try to look for a formulation that does not use that term. What about A different line of argument asserts that there is no God and that there can be no inherent purpose or objective foundation for values without a God.

As a sidenote: I don't think it's a good idea to dismiss high-quality sources as biased because they define atheism differently than you or because they are written by US theologians. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:15, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

When there are contradicting views, they typically need proper attribution to not conflate opponent's opinions with the view itself. My remark on Crosby's theological background and the related edit mainly take that aspect into account, rather than dismissing a source that happens to support my own arguments. I'm not defining atheism and don't feel strongly about the term itself, but I prefer to look at the logic implied, how experts explain it, but preferably not from an opposing view. Similarly, I wouldn't just claim that Christians must be miserable because they believe in hell and in a jealous vengeful god, while Christian sources generally maintain that their faith offers love and happiness instead, even if I would have some source by an expert atheist positing the argument.

"Our passage in question is about arguments for nihilism": then why does the paragraph start with "Arguments for and against existential nihilism are discussed in the academic discourse."? And why are the better arguments are hidden in footnotes. Note C's difference between passive and active nihilsm seems particularly illuminating.

"A different line of argument asserts that there is no God and that there can be no inherent purpose or objective foundation for values without a God": I do like the paradox that the first part implies atheism and the second part theism, which illustrates the problem in Küng's strawman argument. I'm less sure whether anybody actually ever argued something like your sentence suggests, but it may resemble the struggles of people losing their christian faith? Crosby descriptions of the 'Godless cosmos indifferent to human concerns' of Nietzsche and co seem to reflect some of it, but not entirely (especially given their responses as stated in the article). It's ultimately Küng's defense of theism that best fits the bill. Joortje1 (talk) 18:55, 17 March 2026 (UTC)