Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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".
Cosmicism and human centric views of the universe are incompatible. [2] [9] Cosmicism shares many characteristics with nihilism, though one important difference is that cosmicism tends to emphasize the insignificance of humanity and its doings, rather than summarily rejecting the possible existence of some greater purpose (or purposes); e.g., in Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories.
In popular use, "nihilism" now most commonly refers to forms of existential nihilism. Metaphysical nihilism is the position that concrete objects and physical constructs might not exist in the possible world , or that, even if there exist possible worlds that contain some concrete objects, there is at least one that contains only abstract objects .
The two basic paradoxes are reflective of the philosophies of nihilism that created them; metaphysical nihilism and existential nihilism. Both paradoxes originate from the same conceptual difficulty of whether, as Paul Hegarty writes in his study of noise music, "the absence of meaning seems to be some sort of meaning". [1]
Existentialism asserts that people make decisions based on subjective meaning rather than pure rationality. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical free will and our awareness of death.
The existential angst experienced by the protagonist allows him to eventually understand that meaning exists only when he creates it for himself. Sartre once said "existence precedes essence". What he meant was "that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.
Abandonment, in philosophy, refers to the infinite freedom of humanity without the existence of a condemning or omnipotent higher power.Original existentialism explores the liminal experiences of anxiety, death, "the nothing" and nihilism; the rejection of science (and above all, causal explanation) as an adequate framework for understanding human being; and the introduction of "authenticity ...
The concept of the Void takes on new dimensions in modern philosophy, particularly in the realms of existentialism and nihilism. These philosophical movements, emerging primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries, grapple with the implications of the Void for human existence, meaning, and morality.