Nihilism

Nihilism (from Latin nihil - nothing) is a doctrine whose central postulate is the complete rejection of traditions, norms, rules, social principles, authorities. Nihilism is a complex socio-historical phenomenon, it has many varieties. There is social and political nihilism, connected with the denial of the socio-political system. Such nihilism manifests itself in the revolutionary movement; his supporters tend to anarchism. There is ethical nihilism, which denies universal morality, the existence of good in general. Such nihilism turns into pessimism. You can talk about aesthetic nihilism, which denies artistic canons, the very concept of beauty. Nihilism m. cognitive, declaring the unattainability of truth. Cognitive skepticism borders on agnosticism. Finally, we can talk about nihilism as a philosophical position, within which the existence of absolute foundations of existence, the semantic orientation of life is denied.

The term "nihilism" has long been a cultural use. In the Middle Ages, heretics, who denied the historical existence of Christ, were called "nihilianists." Nihilism as a characteristic of the rationalistic way of philosophizing was written in the 18th-19th centuries. representatives of irrationalist philosophy (Jacobi F.). Representative of the philosophy of romanticism Jean Paul called "nihilism" romantic poetry. For the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, S. esthetic tz, t.z. irony and games was an expression of nihilism. Many researchers believe that the term "nihilism" took a strong place in European culture thanks to IS Turgenev. and his novel "Fathers and Sons" (1862). "In our time, the most useful is denial".

Heidegger M. viewed nihilism as the completion of the dominant trend of European philosophy - its subjectivism and in "a certain correctly understood meaning - the end of metaphysics as such," the apex of which is the idea of a superman. For Heidegger, the very philosophy of Nietzsche is a complete "classical" nihilism, not so much fighting the past as the essence that expresses it. Descartes and Nietzsche are two sides of the same coin. The naive nihilism of Protagoras, hidden nihilism. Descartes only discovered himself in the philosophy of Nietzsche. Nihilism is not only a way of comprehending the European culture of self, but also the inability to abandon oneself, from one's subjectivism, "humanism", "anthropomorphy". A subject in European philosophy is always in the foreground - be it the cognizing subject of the modern age or the "volitional" subject, Nietzsche's "blond beast". All past philosophy is nihilistic, it is the metaphysics of subjectivity, the metaphysics of man as a "rational animal", whether Descartes, Hegel or Nietzsche. In Nietzsche's philosophy, metaphysics openly declares itself as an "anthropology," a doctrine of "perspectives," "points of view," "worldview."

Heidegger argues for the need to think of being "out of himself," and "not according to how we grasp and perceive it." Being for Heidegger is not a condition of being, it can not be understood based on man as subject of cognition, activity, "power." Eliminated from the anthropomorphism of Western metaphysics, being deprived of the familiar human characteristics acting as a "value" for man. Being becomes so. for man in "nothing". "Nihilism," Heidegger makes a paradoxical conclusion, "then it will be necessary to call: a fundamental non-thinking about the essence of Nothingness."

Nihilism is particularly prevalent during the crisis periods of socio-historical development. The nihilist was a representative of the intelligentsia of the 1880s, who denied feudal orders, opposed tsarism, aristocratic life and manners, as well as all the spiritual values of the society around them, including traditional notions of honor, love, family, duties and etc. "Here is the ultimatum of our camp: what can be broken, then it is necessary to break it, that it will withstand the blow, then it will do, that it will collapse to pieces, then trash: in any case, hit the right and left, there will be no harm and no m. b. ". The authorities used the word as abusive against revolutionary democracy. Often the word "nihilist" was an abusive name to the participants in the revolutionary movement of the 1860s-1870s, generally students, "intellectuals" with spectacles and long unwashed hair.