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    Nihilism

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    nihilism

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    Nihilism

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    See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

    net/publication/335740667

    Nihilism

    Book · September 2019


    DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11773.001.0001

    CITATIONS READS
    7 11,181

    1 author:

    Nolen Gertz
    University of Twente
    40 PUBLICATIONS   62 CITATIONS   

    SEE PROFILE

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    From the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series

    Nihilism
    by Nolen Gertz

    When someone is labeled a nihilist, it’s not usually meant as a compliment. Most of us as-
    sociate nihilism with destructiveness and violence. Nihilism means, literally, “an ideology
    of nothing. “Is nihilism, then, believing in nothing? Or is it the belief that life is nothing?
    Or the belief that the beliefs we
    have amount to nothing? If we
    can learn to recognize the many
    varieties of nihilism, Nolen
    Gertz writes, then we can learn
    to distinguish what is meaning-
    ful from what is meaningless. In
    this new addition to the MIT
    Press Essential Knowledge se-
    ries, Gertz traces the history of An examination
    nihilism in Western philosophy
    from Socrates through Hannah
    of the meaning of
    Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. meaninglessness:
    Although the term “nihilism”
    why it matters that
    was first used by Friedrich Ja-
    cobi to criticize the philosophy nothing matters.
    of Immanuel Kant, Gertz shows
    that the concept can illumi-
    nate the thinking of Socrates,
    Descartes, and others. It is
    Nietzsche, however, who is most
    associated with nihilism, and
    Gertz focuses on Nietzsche’s
    thought. Gertz goes on to consider what is not nihilism—pessimism, cynicism, and
    apathy—and why; he explores theories of nihilism, including those associated with Ex-
    istentialism and Postmodernism; he considers nihilism as a way of understanding aspects
    of everyday life, calling on Adorno, Arendt, Marx, and prestige television, among other
    sources; and he reflects on the future of nihilism. We need to understand nihilism not
    only from an individual perspective, Gertz tells us, but also from a political one.

    Nolen Gertz is Assistant Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

    Paperback | $15.95 T | £11.95 | 9780262537179 | 224 pp. | 5 x 7 | September 2019

    mitpress.mit.edu/books/nihilism
    View publication stats

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