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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".
A central theme is that since the world "in-itself" is absurd, that is, not "fair", then a meaningful life can at any point suddenly lose all its meaning. The reasons why this happens are many, ranging from a tragedy that "tears a person's world apart", to the results of an honest inquiry into one's own existence.
The first English use of the expression "meaning of life" appears in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), book II chapter IX, "The Everlasting Yea". [1]Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle.
Such causes provide meaning to one's life to the extent that one participates in the meaningfulness of the cause by working towards it and realizing it. [4] [5] Creativity refers to the activity of creating something new and exciting. It can act as a source of meaning even if it is not obvious that the creation serves a specific purpose.
He claimed, however, that the existence of evil does not necessarily mean a worse world, so that this is still the best world that God could have made. In fact, Leibniz claimed that the presence of evil may make for a better world, insofar as "it may happen that the evil is accompanied by a greater good" [ 13 ] – as he said, "an imperfection ...
This aspect is particularly prominent in the idea that the agent should rebel against the absurd and live their life authentically as a form of passionate revolt. [3] [12] [10] Some see the latter position as inconsistent with the idea that there is no meaning in life: if nothing matters then it should also not matter how we respond to this fact.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in circa 1875. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation, 1819, revised 1844) and said that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, dedicating to him ...
I doubt that such pain makes us ‘better’; but I know that it makes us more profound. [8] Nietzsche does not promote suffering as a good in itself, but rather as a precondition for good. A 'single moment' of good justifies an eternity of bad, but one extreme cannot have meaning without the other. In The Will to Power he writes: