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The etymological origin of nihilism is the Latin root word nihil, meaning 'nothing', which is similarly found in the related terms annihilate, meaning 'to bring to nothing', [5] and nihility, meaning 'nothingness'. [21]
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no objective meaning or purpose. [1] The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective "meaning" or "purpose".
Nihilists predictably fell into conflict with the Russian Orthodox religious authorities, as well as with prevailing family structures and the Tsarist autocracy. Although most commonly associated with revolutionary activism, most nihilists were in fact not political and instead discarded politics as an outdated stage of humanity.
Moral nihilists agree that all claims such as 'murder is morally wrong' are not true. But different nihilistic views differ in two ways. Some may say that such claims are neither true nor false; others say that they are all false.
Mereological nihilists claim that there are no composite material objects. According to mereological nihilism, there are only fundamental physical simples arranged in various spatial patterns. For example, the mereological nihilist claims that, despite appearances to the contrary, there really are no tables.
Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there might have been no objects at all—that is, that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all; or at least that there might have been no concrete objects at all, so that even if every possible world contains some objects, there is at least one that contains only abstract objects.
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Dmitry Pisarev was born in Znamenskoye in the west of the Russian Empire, into a family of the landed aristocracy.He graduated from a gymnasium in Saint Petersburg in 1856, and in the same year began studying history and philology at Saint Petersburg Imperial University.