Ted Sider argues that nihilism about objects is incompatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk and takes this point to show that nihilism is flawed. I shall describe one kind of nihilism able to answer this objection. I believe that most of the things we usually encounter do not exist. That is, I take talk of macroscopic objects and macroscopic properties to refer to sets of fundamental properties, which are invoked as a matter of linguistic convention. (...) This view is a kind of nihilism : it rules out the existence of objects; that is, from an ontological point of view, there are no objects. But unlike the moderate nihilism of Mark Heller, Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks that claims that most objects do not exist, I endorse a radical nihilism according to which there are no objects in the world, but only properties instantiated in spacetime. As I will show, radical nihilism is perfectly compatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk. It is also compatible with the epistemic possibility that we actually live in a gunk world. The objection raised by Ted Sider only applies to moderate nihilism that admits some objects in its ontology. (shrink)

I argue against pessimistic readings of the Buddhist tradition on which unawakened beings invariably have lives not worth living due to a preponderance of suffering (duḥkha) over well-being.

Presents the author's evolving views of the best current positions on certain core philosophical and psychological problems as they developed over time. These positions together suggest a skeptical or nihilist perspective modified by evolutionary psychology and contemporary philosophy that embraces our desire to live as best we can and the relative and psychological reality of values, free will and other phenomena while recognizing limitations on their foundations and our understanding. The below makes no claims to originality for most of the (...) ideas expressed, drawing on a range of mostly unreferenced texts that will be familiar to philosophers and psychologists working in this area. (shrink)

Environmental degradation is the most important complex of problems ever confronted by humanity. Humans are interfering with the world's ecosystems so severely that they are beginning to undermine the conditions for their own continued existence. They are polluting the air, the oceans and the land. They are rapidly exhausting the reserves of minerals and destroying the resources of the world on which civilization depends, while destroying other life forms on a massive scale. At the same time humans are increasingly (...) enclosing themselves in built environments which isolate them and fragment their lives, destroy their health and reduce them to either the dehumanized instruments of military-industrial complexes, or to abject poverty. The problem of the environment is also the problem of over-population, the disproportionate consumption of resources by Western nations and the starvation of those in the Third World who lose out in the struggle for the remainder. If present trends continue the total destruction of civilization is probable within a few hundred years - and the extinction of the human species is a real possibility. This situation also presents the greatest intellectual challenge of the era. It undermines the traditional idea of economic progress - the ultimate evaluative concept and the virtual telos of European civilization. It brings into question the economic, legal, political and ethical institutions of modern societies and the modes of thought on which they are based, including the natural and social sciences and the institutions supporting them. In doing so, it opens up the most fundamental questions about human existence: the nature of knowledge and value, of meaning and rationality, and of the significance of life itself. Confronting the environmental crisis requires a complete review of the way we think of ourselves and our place in the world. This book and its sequel, 'Beyond European Ciivlization: Marxism, Process Philosophy and the Environment', attempt this task. (shrink)

Herman Melville was so estranged from the religious beliefs of his time and place that his faith was doubted during his own lifetime. In the middle of the twentieth century some scholars even associated him with nihilism. To date, however, no one has offered a detailed account of Melville in relation to Nietzsche, who first made nihilism a topic of serious concern to the Western philosophical tradition. In this essay, I discuss some of the hitherto unexplored similarities (...) between Melville’s ideas and Nietzsche’s reflections on and reactions to the death of God and the advent of nihilism in the West. (shrink)

The philosophy of the art of living asks the age-old question of orienting one’s own life: ‘How can I live well?’ An art of living is always called for when people do not know what to do and how to go on, when the ways of life are no longer self-evident, when traditions, conventions, rules, and norms lose their plausibility and individuals begin to worry about themselves. The art of living and of its philosophy has a practical (...) aim: It is not concerned with ethical principles, but with the concrete practice of people’s everyday life, with their individual and successful lives. Friedrich Nietzsche, as he often did, pushed the problem of the art of living to the extreme, making it palpable both in its dignity and in its force. For him, the modern uncertainty of human orientation caused by nihilism pointed to art and aesthetics, which, he supposed, makes life if not justifiable, at least bearable. The arts open up a multi-perspectival seeing and hearing, they experiment with alternative forms and techniques, and create the finest sensibilities for both – Nietzsche himself, with his rich forms of philosophical writing, is an outstanding example of this. -/- The volume we present here, entails contributions of German-speaking scholars on Nietzsche and the ways of living he proposes, especially, but not alone in Dawn. The papers are selected from a book series on the common issue “Critical Art of Living,” edited by Günter Gödde, Jörg Zirfas, and others, and translated on behalf of the Foundation for Philosophical Orientation. (shrink)

This paper examines how a person’s life may be shaped by living with a sense of the mystery of reality. What virtues, if any, are encouraged by such a sense? The first section rehearses a radical ”doctrine of mystery’, according to which reality as it anyway is, independently of human perspectives, is ineffable. It is then argued that a sense of mystery may provide ”measure’ for human lives. For it is possible for a life to be ”consonant’ (...) class='Hi'>with this sense -- through exercising humility, for example -- and even to emulate mystery. A further section corrects a misunderstanding about the connection between a sense of mystery and the virtues it invites, while a final section considers the relationship between living with mystery and religious faith. (shrink)

In A Confession, a memoir of his philosophical midlife crisis, Tolstoy recounts falling into despair after coming to believe that his life, and for that matter all human life, is meaningless and absurd. Although Tolstoy's account of the origin and phenomenology of his crisis is widely regarded as illuminating, his response to the crisis, namely, embracing a religious tradition that he had previously dismissed as “irrational,” “incomprehensible,” and “mingled with falsehood” seems unpromising, at best. Nevertheless, I argue, Tolstoy's account (...) of his response makes a valuable contribution to contemporary thought about the meaning and absurdity of life. I begin by drawing on classic discussions in the philosophical literature, and on Tolstoy's memoir, in order to characterize the problem of meaning and the problem of the absurd, and to clarify the relation between these problems. I then draw on Tolstoy's account of his response to his crisis in order to characterize a form of faith in our deepest values. I argue that such faith supplies one important part of the story concerning how we might respond to the problem of the absurd — a part that has been overlooked by more recent discussions of these issues. (shrink)

I wholeheartedly sympathize conceptually with Coeckelbergh’s paper. The dialectical relationship between vulnerability and technology constitutes the core of Hegel’s Master and Slave. Yet, the empirical dimension is underdeveloped and Coeckelbergh’s ideas could profit from exposure to case studies. Building on a movie/novel devoted to vulnerability coping and living with ICT, I challenge the claim that modern heroism entails overcoming vulnerability with the help of enhancement and computers.

Games Studies reveals the performative nature of playing a character in a virtual-game-world (Nitsche 2008, p.205; Pearce 2006, p.1; Taylor 2002, p.48). Tbe Player/Character relationship is typically understood in terms of the player’s in-game “presence” (Boellstorff 2008, p.89; Schroeder 2002, p.6). This gives the appearance that living-into a game-world is an all-or- nothing affair: either the player is “present” in the game-world, or they are not. I argue that, in fact, a constitutive phenomenology reveals the Player/Character relationship to be (...) a multi-dimensional matter of empathy. I advance a broadly Schutzian framework, drawing on his 1932 discussions of “face-to-face encounters” and ”historical predecessors,” showing how at- tention to empathy reveals a variety of “presences” that different kinds of Player/Character relationships afford. The central determinants of empathetic affordances which I focus on here are (i) how much players know about a character (especially the character’s past) and (ii) how players learn this information.The purpose of this discussion will be to show that a phenomenological analysis reveals that the relationship between a player and their character is complex, highly variable, and inherently social. Furthermore, it will add to the growing body of scholarship that demonstrates that video games are rich social objects deserving of study. (shrink)

This is a public philosophy piece that explores some questions around heroes, trauma, and wrongdoing.

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by (...) training (de Miranda). The second round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

Throughout the course of this paper I build upon the foundations of William Desmond’s philosophy in order to develop a rebuttal towards the nihilistic consequences brought about by many modern thinkers, for example: Albert Camus. These nihilistic consequences seem to play a significant role in the drastic increase of anxiety and depression seen throughout our current epoch. Ultimately, philosophies such as that of Camus cannot avoid this fall into nihilism. Nevertheless, these ramifications seem to stem from a misinterpretation of (...) Camus’ notion of the ‘Absurd’. Thus, this confrontation with the absurd determines whether or not we can escape the consequences of nihilism that can be found throughout modernity. (shrink)

Results: We analyzed 1,402 surveys and 15 in-depth interviews. Many (32%) CL participants reported greater difficulty refilling medications and a minority (14%) reported greater difficulty accessing HIV care during the pandemic. Most (99%) Opt4Mamas participants reported no difficulty refilling medications or accessing HIV/pregnancy care. Among the CL participants, older women were less likely (aOR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.92–0.98) and women with more children were more likely (aOR = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.00–1.28) to report difficulty refilling medications. Only 2% (...) of CL participants reported greater difficulty managing FP and most (95%) reported no change in likelihood of using FP or desire to get pregnant. Qualitative analysis revealed three major themes: (1) adverse organizational/economic implications of the pandemic, (2) increased importance of pregnancy prevention during the pandemic, and (3) fear of contracting COVID-19. (shrink)

This book takes us to explore the 'life of robots' and presents us with a refreshing narrative that demystifies their recurrent anthropomorphic understanding. General ideas of what robots are and what they can do often lack knowledge about the limitations, functionality, and complexity needed to turn a robot into a fully operational machine. In this book, the authors portray a grounded and accessible description of current research developing robots. They are insightful, yet still allow the reader to understand basic (...) processes and requirements of robotics. They deliver on their goal to show robots as human artifacts instead of placeholders for anxiety, i.e., a threat. However, they underdeliver regarding the ethical insights of robots as moral agents in the final chapter. Withal, this is an essential introductory reading for anyone interested in learning about the functioning of robotics and AI, and their integration to society. (shrink)

Background: The most common hematological abnormality among people infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is anemia. This is also related to high mortality risk among patients receiving Antiretroviral Therapy (ART). Purpose: This study aimed to identify predictors of anemia among HIV patients taking ART using a regimen of the single-tablet drug contain tenofovir, lamivudine, and efavirenz in Jayapura, Papua. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at Jayapura regional hospital from June to September 2017. A total of 80 HIV (...) patients were eligible for analysis. Data collection was conducted through an interview, medical record, measurement, and laboratory assay. The significance of differences among categorical variables was analyzed using Fisher’s exact test. The variables with p < 0.25 were then analyzed using binary logistic regression to determine predictors associated with anemia. A threshold of p < 0.05 indicates statistical significance. Results: This study showed that Body Mass Index (BMI) <18.50 (p = 0.01; OR = 5.63; 95% CI = 1.43 < OR < 22.19), length on ART ≤12 months (p = 0.00; OR = 4.90; 95% CI = 1.65 < OR < 14.53), and Cluster of Differentiation 4 (CD4+) percentage out of normal (p = 0.02; OR = 0.19; 95% CI = 0.05 < OR <0.77) had a significant association with anemia. Conclusion: BMI, length on ART, and CD4+ percentage were predictors of anemia among HIV patients taking antiretroviral therapy containing tenofovir, lamivudine, and efavirenz regimen in Jayapura. (shrink)

Advance directives are intended to extend patient autonomy by enabling patients to prospectively direct the care of their future incapacitated selves. There has been much discussion about issues such as whether the future incompetent self is identical to the agent who issues the advance directives or whether advance directives can legitimately secure patient autonomy. However, there is another important question to ask: to what extent and in what conditions is it ethically appropriate for one to limit the liberty or agency (...) of one’s future incompetent self by issuing an advance directive? -/- In this paper, I use a virtue-ethical approach to explore this question, focusing on the case of an advance directive for the future self with moderate dementia. First, I examine virtuous attitudes with regard to autonomy and argue that one can manifest vices or ethically undesirable character traits in trying to intervene in the future self’s life. In particular, I argue that this case can manifest vices such as disdainfulness, intellectual arrogance, and self-dictatorship, which is the vice of trying to control one’s life to an excessive degree, and that a self-dictator fails to give due moral consideration to the future self’s liberty or agency. I then introduce the Daoist idea of wu-wei, which recommends embracement of what happens in one’s life, as one of the possible remedies for the overemphasis on the value of autonomy and control. (shrink)

Does a nihilist who kills himself betray his own beliefs? An unreflected answer would probably turn out positive, because a nihilist may be defined as a person who embraces all aspects of life and pain itself. But someone who escapes his sorrowful existence by committing suicide seems not to accept his own human condition and therefore cannot die as a nihilist. If this argumentation is right, human life would not be possible outside cultural contexts, for the particularity of nihilism (...) is its large distance to and independence of culture and collectivity. In his autobiographical work "Arbeit und Struktur" Wolfgang Herrndorf portrays his three and a half years of living with brain cancer. At the same time he shows us how his originally humanistic nihilism turns into a more pessimistic one while coping with his disease. Herrndorf, in a manner of speaking, writes his own "myth to live" without being able to rely on the shelter of culture, without a "myth of collectivity". In the face of this, we must assume Herrndorf's ideological transformation from a cooperative nihilism to a pessimistic nihilism, which justifies his own death, was his sole opportunity to mentally survive the three and a half years of pain and dissolution. From this perspective, the example of Wolfgang Herrndorf and his "Arbeit und Struktur" would reveal mankind's absolute dependency on metaphysical significance and its need for individual myths to live. Despite regarding himself as a modern, secular and rationalistic human being, Herrndorf cannot overcome the necessity of the iconological translation of "reality to world". Therefore, the intent of this master's thesis is to show that all living human beings are captives of icons and their metaphysical representation, and that the endless effort of translating whole reality into a single myth to live is part of our conditio humana. (shrink)

Despite confident assertions by science and religion, no one can be absolutely certain what is going on in this drama we call existence. We are haunted by the realization that we are finite, vulnerable, mortal, and perhaps meaningless creatures. The ambiguity in all experience leaves us in a state of fundamental uncertainty, with a buried anxiety underlined by fear of mortality. However, the ability to consider consciousness as a personal creation enables us to appreciate experience for its own sake, (...) despite uncertainty and anxiety. It is the basis of art, and also of tolerance, epistemic responsibility, and the creative ability to think, perceive, and act outside the box. (shrink)

Review of Daniel Callahan, The Troubled Dream of Life.

Upon its release in 1968, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was attacked by many critics as an exploitative low budget film of questionable moral value. I argue in this paper that Night of the Living Dead is indeed nihilistic, but in a deeper philosophical sense than the critics had in mind.

Mereological nihilism is the thesis that composite objects—objects with proper parts—do not exist. Nihilists generally paraphrase talk of composite objects F into talk of there being “xs arranged F-wise” . Recently several philosophers have argued that nihilism is defective insofar as nihilists are either unable to say what they mean by such phrases as “there are xs arranged F-wise,” or that nihilists are unable to employ such phrases without incurring significant costs, perhaps even undermining one of the (...) chief motivations for nihilism. In this paper I defend nihilism against these objections. A key theme of the paper is this: if nihilists need to employ such phrases as “there are xs arranged F-wise,” non-nihilists will need to do so as well. Accordingly, any costs incurred by the nihilist when she employs such phrases will be shared by everyone else. What’s more, such phrases are intelligible when employed by the nihilist, as well as when they are employed by the non-nihilist, insofar as analyses of such phrases will not essentially involve mereological concepts incompatible with nihilism. (shrink)

Mereological nihilists hold that composition never occurs, so that nothing is ever a proper part of anything else. Substance dualists generally hold that we are each identical with an immaterial soul. In this paper, I argue that every popular objection to substance dualism has a parallel objection to composition. This thesis has some interesting implications. First, many of those who reject composition, but accept substance dualism, or who reject substance dualism and accept composition, have some explaining to do. Secondly, (...) one popular objection to mereological nihilism, one which contends that mereological nihilism is objectionable insofar as it is incompatible with the existence of people, is untenable. (shrink)

In The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche heralded the problem of nihilism with his famous declaration “God is dead,” which signalled the collapse of a transcendent basis for the underpinning morality of European civilization. He associated this collapse with the rise of the natural sciences whose methods and pervasive outlook he was concerned would progressively shape “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” The Russian novelist Turgenev had also associated a scientific outlook with nihilism through the (...) scientism of Yevgeny Bazarov, a character in Fathers and Sons. A century or so later, can we correlate relevant scientific results and the nihilistic consequences that worried these and other nineteenth-century authors? The aversion of empirical disciplines to such non-empirical concepts as personhood and agency, and their methodological exclusion of the very idea of value would make this a difficult task. Recent neuroscientific (MRI) investigations into free will might provide a useful starting point for anyone interested in this sociological question, as might the research results of experimental or evolutionary psychologists studying what they take human beings to be. In this paper, I turn instead to a more basic issue of science. I will question the universality of a principle of identity assumed by a scientific understanding of what it means for anything to exist. I will argue that the essential features of human existence present an exception to this principle of identity and thereby fall outside the grasp of scientific inquiry. The basis of this argument will be an explanation of why it is nonetheless rational for us to affirm personhood, agency, moral values, and many more concepts that disappear under the scrutiny of the sciences. (shrink)

The question of what “is” someone who is queer in a metaphysical standpoint have been hotly debated in contemporary metaphysics of gender. In my paper I will explore the view of a Phenomenological source and understanding of queerness within the umbrella of gender. Within the realm of gender we can see how queerness is a blob to which gender is both part of and a stand in for the person gender. Using Phenomenological methods based on Husserl’s foundation I can establishes (...) a base for which queerness can be clearly seen. In my paper I will address not only the difference of cis heteronormative phenomenology and the reality that queer people live. This causes a negation in a metaphysical way. The object in which the queer person lives becomes In a way how Hegel understood that if we see a gendered person in the cis reality we can say “this is a man or women” due to the way we correspond cis normative gender. This is where I will try to use Husserl’s “principle of contradiction” and Hegel’s idea of “negation” to show the fluidity of gender in which queerness encompasses. I can clearly demonstrate the “Horizon” in which the limits of cis hetero perspective of understanding of gender and queerness. But in the same thought I will further drive this idea that in a sense the split with in an ontological reality between the lives of cis hetero people and queer people. By giving definitions of what if different such a orientation and performance with the reality that queer people live with such a gender binary ontology. I will then derive some meta-language and construct a realty how communities build themselves from a mutual understanding of this queer ontology. Also real world examples of how the logic of gender effects the way that queer people operate. The counter argument I would argue against a gender nihilism that would try to attack the question that I raise that queerness is a separate state within consciousness. To which I would defended against an individual level of gender identity and understanding. To treat gender in an alienated value. But by using a strong phenomenological structure I would be able to defended by idea that queerness with in gender is a whole different ontological reality that the cis hetero reality. I will then derive some meta-language and construct a realty how communities build themselves from a mutual understanding of this queer ontology. . (shrink)

In this paper we offer an interpretation of the inner relationship between nihilism and the tragic. With reference to the work of Heinz von Foester and to the sciences of complexity, we will argue that the essential feature of the tragic is “autoreferentiality”. Furthermore, arguing in favor of the use of the theological notion of kenōsis as the most precise description of the “history of nihilism”, we will show that the latter is to be understood in terms (...) of the “weakening”, or lowering of all the reference points generated by autotranscendent, etheronomous, social phenomena. The consequence of nihilism is therefore autoreferentiality. This result will offer the opportunity to see both to what extent we are now, at the end of modernity, living a tragic situation and, eventually, to claim – by recalling that autoreferentiality is also the inner logic of freedom – that the tragic is the outcome of modernity, but not a necessary one. (shrink)

Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem Was Nietzsche a nihilist? Yes, because, like J. L. Mackie, he was an error-theorist about morality, including the elitist morality to which he himself subscribed. But he was variously a diagnostician, an opponent and a survivor of certain other kinds of nihilism. Schacht argues that Nietzsche cannot have been an error theorist, since meta-ethical nihilism is inconsistent with the moral commitment that Nietzsche displayed. Schacht’s exegetical argument parallels the substantive argument (...) (advocated in recent years by Wright and Blackburn) that Mackie’s error theory can’t be true because if it were, we would have to give up morality or give up moralizing. I answer this argument with a little bit of help from Nietzsche. I then pose a problem, the Doppelganger Problem, for the meta-ethical nihilism that I attribute to Mackie and Nietzsche. (If A is a moral proposition then not-A is a moral proposition: hence not all moral propositions can be false.) I solve the problem by reformulating the error theory and also deal with a variant of the problem, the Reinforced Doppelganger, glancing at a famous paper of Ronald Dworkin’s. Thus, whatever its demerits, the error theory, is not self-refuting, nor does it require us to give up morality. (shrink)

Recent research about the microbiome points to a picture in which we, humans, are ‘living through’ nature, and nature itself is living in us. Our bodies are hosting—and depend on—the multiple species that constitute human microbiota. This article will discuss current research on the microbiome through the ideas of Japanese ecologist Imanishi Kinji (1902–1992). First, some of Imanishi’s key ideas regarding the world of living beings and multispecies societies are presented. Second, seven types of relationships concerning the (...) human microbiome, human beings, and the environment are explored. Third, inspired by Imanishi’s work, this paper develops the idea of dynamic, porous, and complex multispecies societies in which different living beings or species are codependent on others, including microbiota and human beings. (shrink)

The book explores the themes of a) “radical concepts” in politics (inspired by François Laruelle’s “non-Marxism” and “non-philosophy,” developed in accordance with Badiouan and Žižekian “realism”); b) politically relevant and applicable epistemologies of “Thought’s Correlating with the Real” (Laruelle), inspired by Laruelle, Badiou and Žižek and c) the possibility of hybridization of the epistemic stance of “radical concept” with the politics of grief and “identification with the suffering itself” proposed by Judith Butler. Radical concepts, the political (...) vision and the theory based on them, are always already succumbing to the “Lived” (Laruelle), to the singularity of the Event (Badiou), to the encounter with the “kernel of the Real” (Žižek) conditioning a political horizon and the grand and small political narratives taking place within it. The thesis of the book is that the instances of the “lived,” the “event” or the “Real” can be inherently inter-connected by virtue of the category of the “experience” which is an instance of the sheer lived, the bare being subjected to an occurrence which is always already an instance of trauma. The mere subjection to certain” taking place,” the passion (in the etymological sense derived from the Latin verb pati or in the Spinozian sense) which is category beyond the psychological notions of feeling, rational (or irrational) thought, i.e., an ontological category referring to our relation with the “Out-There” which always already happens to us, is that to which the radical (political) concept succumbs to as the ultimate authority rather than to a doctrine, a system of thought, to the “philosophy’s auto-mirroring” (Laruelle). Political revolt or the revolutionary stance stems from precisely this bare experiential, the sheer lived and thus, from the Real of the conatus of staying-in-life. Paradoxically the survivalist stance, the principle of self-preservation is also the revolutionary stance which is by definition destabilizing and destructive. Bodily resistance to subjection (i.e., to discipline) and the continuity of the Self in-the-Real is the source of resistance. The Real of grief and mourning, the identification with the purely experiential stance of the suffering itself is the foundation of a “radical concept” of political solidarity, which by virtue of its being grounded in the Real, i.e., in the Lived, provides the possibility of acting in a revolutionary way. But it is also a form of human universality or political universality, which yet again is not historic universality but rather purely categorical. Other concepts that can be called radical, concepts which are minimally transcendental (Laruelle) and are, therefore, of revolutionary potential are also violence, mourning, labor (work) and gender (the trauma introduced by the linguistic determination as a “he” or a “she”), life, death, animal. Yet, the main focus of the book is the exploration of the lived of vulnerability, trauma and the conatus of life as the determination in the last instance of the revolutionary (political) stance. Clearly, the revolutions and the revolutionary stance this book advocates, or rather, whose potentiality it explores, are not necessarily historical revolutions produced by the intentionality to create politico-historic change. They are not this necessarily. Yet again they are such possibly. Still all purely (on the formal level) revolutionary stance tends to introduce universal change, radically change the political horizon and to reverse the politically unthinkable into a thinkable by elevating it to the level of a universal political truth. (shrink)

Michael Marder in Dump Philosophy claims that that there has been so much dumping with modern civilization that we now live in a dump, with those parts of our environment not contaminated by dumping, now rare. The growth of the dump is portrayed as the triumph of nihilism, predicted by Nietzsche as the outcome of life denying Neoplatonist metaphysics. Marder’s proposed solution, characterized as “undumping”, is to accept the dump and to promote reinterpretations and informal communities within (...) the dump. It is argued here that Marder provides great insight into our current situation and its causes; however, his proposed solution is too weak. To respond to the situation described, it is argued, it is necessary to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy dumping, or more broadly, healthy and unhealthy participation in nature. To make this distinction, it is necessary see humans as ecosystems and components of ecosystems, including the global ecosystem, as these have been characterized by anti-reductionist ecologists. Ecosystems can be healthy or unhealthy. Dumping and dumps should be identified as problematic outputs when they damage the health of ecosystems. The products of human activity not destined to be consumed or used for further productive activity, can then be identified and judged according to whether they augment or damage ecosystems’ health. Dumping should be severely restricted. This should be associated with making a commitment to life and its value, and living to augment life, developing the social and economic forms and institutions that facilitate living in this way. (shrink)

Animistic cognition has adaptive value in domains of social and physical niche prediction. This argument is extended to our contemporary relationship with digital and AI technology.

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological (...) nihilism has with empirical results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision (...) making, Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

This paper attempts to rethink the philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) and challenge the still prevailing tendency in Iqbal scholarship to view it merely as an outcome of the influence of the ideas of various Western/European philosophers. I present Iqbal’s arguments in their particular historical and intellectual context to show that they developed in response to a specific philosophical problem and that Iqbal looked for a solution to that problem in Islamic tradition. I suggest that Iqbal’s philosophy is best understood (...) in the context of, and as a response to, the problem of nihilism as it was debated in modern German philosophy during ‘the pantheism controversy’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To demonstrate this, I analyse Iqbal’s article on ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī to show his concern with the problem of nihilism, and his solution to it based on al-Jīlī’s Sufism. (shrink)

Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often seen as a derogative term for a ‘life-denying’, destructive and perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a (...) long line of philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning, significance and purpose. Inspired by Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty, two modern existentialist masterpieces, this paper explores the various alternatives that have been offered in how to respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only “really serious philosophical problem” and concludes that the problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and transcending existentialism. (shrink)

This essay confronts Ray Brassier’s vindication of nihilism with other two important but frequently underexamined philosophical attempts to overcome nihilism: Hans Jonas’ and Keiji Nishitani’s. By putting these different takes on nihilism into dialogue, it explores some blind spots in Brassier’s position, as well as some of the practical consequences, for our current planetary situation, of undertaking a radical divorce between the normative and the natural that results from his radical nihilism. The article opts for (...) a more moderate acceptance and eventual self-overcoming of nihilism, according to which, even if natural entities are indifferent to human reasons and meanings, this does not entail that nature is bereft of a human-independent normative dimension. In other words, the essay argues that care must be taken not to confuse criticisms of an anthropocentric conception of reasons and meanings with the belief that meaning is completely absent from the natural world. Thus, the central contention of the article is that, given our current climate and ecological catastrophe, one of the most pressing tasks of contemporary philosophy is to understand normativity in non-anthropocentric ways, so that humans are no longer considered as the only entities that respond to normativity. Such an attitude conceives humans as estranged normative creatures amidst a meaningless, indifferent natural world, toward which they would have no ethical responsibilities. The essay finishes by suggesting ways in which to develop an account that does not fall into this ethical vacuum. (shrink)

A few months after the publication of the French translation of his book Causing Death and Saving Lives, Jonathan Glover was kind enough to return to some of the theses defended in this book. In forty years, this work has become a classic of applied ethics in the English-speaking world. Glover tackled a series of questions involving the lives of men and women, including abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia, the death penalty and war. We asked him here about the method he (...) considers the best in moral philosophy, and returned to his criticism of certain dominant ideas at the time. Jonathan Glover also discusses some of the positions of his former students Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan. (shrink)

Philosophers have identified a number of principles that characterize morality and underlie moral judgments. However, philosophy has failed to establish any widely agreed-upon justification for these judgments, and an “error theory” that views moral judgments as without justification has not been successfully refuted. Evolutionary psychologists have had success in explaining the likely origins and mechanisms of morality but have also not established any justification for adopting particular values. As a result, we are left with moral nihilism -- the (...) absence of any unarguable values or behaviors we must or should adopt. The philosophical and psychological implications of this nihilism suggest accepting shared, non-absolute values as “good enough”; a revised, humbler view of moral and other value judgments; and the possible acceptance of the hard truth of a value nihilism. (shrink)

I present some key ideas for reckoning with nihilism today in light of Nietzsche's conception of nihilism and Sloterdijk's Enlightened False Consciousness.

This article explores the ‘lack of meaning’ in contemporary society as a consequence of Western dualist thought paradigms and ontologies, via Gilles Deleuze’s concept of ‘reactive nihilism’ following the colloquial murder of God. The article then explores processual and new materialist approaches in the understanding of the lived and carnal self, arguing for immanent and senseful materiality as an ethical platform for religious, environmental, and societal solidarity for tomorrow. For the theoretical justification of the processual approach in understanding the (...) enfleshed self, the article employs John Dupré’s processual approach in the philosophy of biology, as well as Astrida Neimani’s critical posthumanism, and contextualizes these considerations with Erich Fromm’s ethical distinction of being and having. (shrink)

Feelings of marginalisation impact the lives of LGBT+ people in a fundamental way, but for those who have an intellectual disability, and are gay, there is a heightened sense of alienation. This article examines the unique oppression faced by these individuals in a heteronormative and ableist world, where a long history of extreme control of sexual intimacy has resulted in harsh forms of social exclusion. Although moves have been made to empower service users who are intellectually disabled and identify as (...) LGBT+ to participate fully in life, there is also a need to assess the relationship between rights, responsibility, and risk. This article further explores whether by drawing upon government social policy, barriers are being dismantled through the development of innovative local strategies that aim to deliver non-discriminatory person-centred services. (shrink)

As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a 'soft' nihilism that appears more palatable than its 'hard' counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is (...) incoherent. (shrink)

Indigenous people (IP) have faced multiple difficulties in education. Indigenous students often do worse academically than non-indigenous student peers. These stated the low enrollment rates showed a dropout rate, absenteeism, repetition rates, literacy rate, and thus the educational outcomes, with retention and completion being two significant issues. Further, this study explores the lived experiences and challenges faced by indigenous high school students amidst the new normal education. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study were: (1) The (...) reason why IP learners were not satisfied with their performance is that they cannot understand some of the lessons due to the language barrier. (2) IP learners are committed to finishing their studies, however, some of the students lack resources for studying, like gadgets for researching, and they do not have cell phones. And the other students may have gadgets or cellphones, but their internet connection is low or not accessible in some places at their location. (shrink)

Note: This is a "pre-review" version, not the final version that will be published. -/- In “Nothing is True,” Will Gamester defends a form of alethic nihilism that still grants truth-talk a kind of legitimacy: an expressive role that is implemented via a pretense. He argues that this view has all of the strengths of deflationism, while also providing an elegant resolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. For the alethic nihilist, Liar and related sentences are not true, (...) and that is the end of the story. No contradiction arises because it does not thereby follow that any of these sentences are also true, since nothing is. Gamester concludes that the simplicity of this response to the semantic paradoxes makes alethic nihilism an attractive approach. We disagree. In addition to providing insurmountable obstacles for his form of alethic nihilism, we contend that a certain form of non-nihilist deflationism is better placed to deal with the paradoxes and to account for truth-talk more generally. (shrink)

A new philosophical and psychological concept is needed for the alienated and radically different human being according to the nihilist Romanian-French philosopher E.M. Cioran. This concept of the not-man describes a post-anthropological subject, which is “inhumanˮ from a psychological point of view, emphasizing estrangement and otherness in the definition of humanity. I have compared Cioran's provocative and unusual term with Nietzsche's analysis of the overman – the difference between the two conepts proceeding from two conflicting nihilist perspectives – and (...) I also have identified the not-man in the novel of the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human. (shrink)

This article recapitulates and develops the attempts in the Nietzschean traditions to address and overcome the proliferation of nihilism that Nietzsche predicted to unfold in the next 200 years (WP 2). Nietzsche approached nihilism not merely as a psychology but as a labyrinthic and pervasive historical process whereby the highest values of culture and founding assumptions of philosophical thought prevented the further flourishing of life. Therefore, he thought nihilism had to be encountered and experienced on many, often (...) opposing, fronts to be fully consumed and left behind. Thus, just as Nietzsche captured the subtle reinventions of nihilism in new forms in his time, in the new doers assumed behind new deeds (WP 488), this article focuses on the contemporary tectonic shifts brought by digital technology and challenges subjectivation and narrativization of algorithmic will to power in human-like interfaces such as ChatGPT. Having identified philosophers and himself as the most advanced nihilists in their overvaluation of truth, in the 4th part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche grappled with the difficult, perhaps impossible, temporality of post-nihilistic historicity that oscillates between highest creativity and highest truths, especially in the sections entitled The Shadow and At Noon whereby he explored new temporal techniques to evade the relapses into temporal nihilisms of the notions of linear progress or eternity (TSZ, 4). By drawing on this juncture, this article offers ways to address transfigurations of nihilism behind new technological performances of subjectivity. The article points toward creative temporalities beyond narrativity and subjectivity insofar as the statistical operations and probabilistic estimations of language-models exceed grammatical construction of meaning. This multifaceted application of his thought on the contemporary ontic reality is necessary to perceive our comet's incalculable movement as a veritable ray of sunshine. (shrink)