An examination of the meaning of meaninglessness: why it matters that nothing matters. When
someone is labeled a nihilist it's not usually meant as a compliment. Most of us associate
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 meaningful
from what is meaningless. In this addition to the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series Gertz
traces the history of nihilism in Western philosophy from Socrates through Hannah Arendt and
Jean-Paul Sartre. Although the term nihilism was first used by Friedrich Jacobi to criticize
the philosophy of Immanuel Kant Gertz shows that the concept can illuminate 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 Existentialism 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.
