Nihilism | Define Nihilism at Dictionary.com

Contemporary Examples

I think with that generation, so many of their hopes have been so dashed that nihilism is really a natural response.

Or better, and to speak like Nietzsche, art with a hammer that practices, and then reverses and reevaluates, nihilism.

Its arguably the best film of the 90sa postmodern pop culture smorgasbord awash in nihilism and dripping with retro cool.

To understand better the nihilism of Thiessen's thinking, I must now quote his column at greater length.

Journey to the End of the Night does not offer readers much more than nihilism as a response to a detestable world.

Historical Examples

The very faults which nihilism seeks to remedy are kept alive by its existence.

A period of reaction has set in: Despotism and nihilism meet face to face.

But his liberalism is not in the least akin to nihilism or Anarchism.

nihilism was not to be rooted out by the removal of any particular set of men.

You prate of stultifying yourself by taking the oath of nihilism, and repudiating your word to Alexander.

British Dictionary definitions for nihilism Expand

a complete denial of all established authority and institutions

(philosophy) an extreme form of scepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in existence, the possibility of communication, etc

a revolutionary doctrine of destruction for its own sake

the practice or promulgation of terrorism

Derived Forms

nihilist, noun, adjectivenihilistic, adjective

Word Origin

C19: from Latin nihil nothing + -ism, on the model of German Nihilismus

(in tsarist Russia) any of several revolutionary doctrines that upheld terrorism

Word Origin and History for nihilism Expand

1817, "the doctrine of negation" (in reference to religion or morals), from German Nihilismus, from Latin nihil "nothing at all" (see nil), coined by German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819). In philosophy, an extreme form of skepticism (1836). The political sense was first used by German journalist Joseph von Grres (1776-1848). Turgenev used the Russian form of the word (nigilizm) in "Fathers and Children" (1862) and claimed to have invented it. With a capital N-, it refers to the Russian revolutionary anarchism of the period 1860-1917, supposedly so called because "nothing" that then existed found favor in their eyes.

nihilism in Medicine Expand

nihilism nihilism (n'-lz'm, n'-) n.

The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.

A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.

nihilism in Culture Expand

An approach to philosophy that holds that human life is meaningless and that all religions, laws, moral codes, and political systems are thoroughly empty and false. The term is from the Latin nihil, meaning nothing.

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Nihilism | Define Nihilism at Dictionary.com