Humans face wide ranging and global challenges in the Anthropocene, the most prominent of which is anthropogenic climate change. One initial pivot towards sustainability, particularly in my home country of the United States, has been to rely heavily on technological innovation powered most obviously by engineers. Using the climate activist Greta Thunberg's speech at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference as my inspiration, I try to show how some of the technology based solutions only entrench what I call (...) the “Bestance” mentality, that is, the fundamental stance or orientation toward the natural world in the Anthropocene wherein all entities show up as mere resources. Upon showing the various ways in which traditional ethical approaches and environmental philosophical approaches have proved unhelpful in navigating the challenges of the Anthropocene, I try to demonstrate and how a Heideggerian ecophenomenological approach can help us not only understand how the world appears to many of us in the Anthropocene, but also what a more graceful way of being might look like in Heidegger's concept of “dwelling.” Using specific examples of current technologies pervasively normalized in the United States, including hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, desalination, and artificial nitrogen based fertilization, I use Heidegger's philosophical concepts to show how the land, sea, and air can show up as Bestand in the Anthropocene, that is, merely materials on hand to be manipulated in order to serve human interests. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard, in his essay "The Present Age," takes a hostile stance towards the press. This is because he maintains that the press prepares the ground for the emergence of nihilism. Hubert Dreyfus extends this idea to other information technologies, especially the Internet. Since Kierkegaard-Dreyfus’ attitude towards various forms of information technology originates from philosophical anthropology and a particular conception of the meaning of life, assessing the viability of the attitude they hold requires further critical scrutiny. This paper aims (...) to show that, although, Kierkegaard’s and Dreyfus' insights are important in understanding the dangers of information technology their approach concerning the meaning of life and human identity is a one-sided analysis of the problem situation; In particular, their reliance on "Unconditional Commitment" could bring about new undesired consequences. This paper emphasizes that an appropriate stance towards information technology needs, among other things, a richer and more effective philosophical anthropology; one that by utilizing religious-moral wisdom in a sensible manner, provides an effective way to safely benefit from various types of technology without falling into the abyss of nihilism. The paper further argues that we also need to provide an institutional control of technology through piecemeal social engineering in a democratic process. (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)

Heidegger argues that modern technology is quantifiably different from all earlier periods because of a shift in ethos from in situ craftwork to globalised production and storage at the behest of consumerism. He argues that this shift in technology has fundamentally shaped our epistemology, and it is almost impossible to comprehend anything outside the technological enframing of knowledge. The exception is when something breaks down, and the fault ‘shows up’ in fresh ways. Stiegler has several important addendums to Heidegger’s (...) thesis. Firstly, that Heidegger fails to fully appreciate the early Greek myth of Prometheus, and the technological depth that fire offers all human societies. Secondly, the fall, or failure, which is doubled in the myth of Prometheus, and shows up in epistemology accordingly. Thirdly the acceleration of technology since the onset of Information Technology, and the way this is disorientating our Being. I argue the fall in both Heidegger and early Stiegler has encaptured their imagination. In later work, Stiegler argues that acceleration is fused with algorithmic pretensions, that are distorting and undermining the creative political imaginary, and making it difficult to revalue the values that underpin the nihilist Anthropocene. The overcoming of the Anthropocene engages politics, economics, power, physics, and ecology. (shrink)

The present article tries to analyze the role played in Hans Jonas’ ethical reflection by religious—namely, Jewish—tradition. Jonas goes in search of an ultimate foundation for his ethics and his theory of the good in order to face the challenges currently posed by technology’s nihilistic attitude towards life and ethics. Jonas’ ethical investigation enters into the domain of metaphysics, which offers an incomparable contribution to the philosophical endeavour, without undermining its overall independence. In this way, Jewish categories—such as remorse, shame, (...) sacrifice, repentance, and selfrestraint—strengthen the philosopher’s ethical reflection, since he considers them to be essential moral values for the technological epoch. Yet the reference to the Jewish tradition supplies Jonas’ ethical endeavour with a powerful but only hypothetical insight into transcendence. (shrink)

Nihilism is in the air. Yet, it is hard to say to what profit—beyond that for marketers and manufacturers of electronic devices. Advertisements paradoxically take on a bravura of appealing to targeted-consumers’ nihilism in the guise of bold autonomy dependent on one’s incorporating their brand names into one’s life. Social analysts themselves, reporting on such phenomena, seem to shy from too much criticism of the trend lest they appear out of touch. We seem to have ended up in (...) a sociopolitical condition in which everyone senses some kind of social and ecological disaster looms but the free market of ideas should not disturb itself too much about it. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the underlying tendencies and attitudes toward reproductive medicine borrowing the Nietzschean concepts of nihilism: “death of God” with secularization; “will to power” with reproductive liberty and technological power; and the race of “supermen” with transhumanism. Medical science has advanced in leaps and bounds. In some way, technical innovations have given us unprecedented power to manipulate the way we reproduce. The indiscriminant use of medical technology is backed by a warped notion of human freedom. With secularization (...) in the West, freedom has taken on greater significance in society, but with a heavy emphasis on individual choices and rights. As technology joins forces with sexual liberty, it is not difficult to understand why the public accepts the latest novelty from the reproductive industry. As a result, many find Catholic teaching behind the times and incomprehensible, if not downright anti-scientific. In fact, this coupling of reproductive liberty (will) with reproductive technology (power) echoes the famous dictum “will to power” Nietzsche predicted would characterize post-modern societies. When liberty becomes absolute and technology unchecked, transhumanism is the logical outcome. As a response to these nihilistic tendencies, the paper will end with a critique drawing from theological insights. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to relate the critical core of Jesus Conill’s last book, Bodily Intimacy and the Human Person. From Nietzsche to Ortega and Zubiri, with the problem of nihilism, as a structure that survives in our contemporary societies, especially in the context of neurosciences, technology and our way of relating to both. After outlining the key insights of the book, especially its innovative conception of bodily intimacy, I will retrieve some contributions from Nietzsche’s notes regarding (...) nihilism, to show that after the “death of God”, other instances take his place, the logics of nihilism remain intact and underly the majority approach of neurosciences. I will conclude that the elements presented by Conill for a strong intimacy and subjectivity will be necessary for the task, still pending, of overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillards Kulturphilosophie läßt sich durch die Behauptung charakterisieren, daß die Medien in der modernen Kultur vorherrschend geworden sind. Seine These, die Medien hätten jeden Bezug zu einer von ihnen unabhängigen Realität verloren, haben zahlreiche Autorinnen und Autoren nihilistisch genannt. Das Zutreffende dieser Kennzeichnung verdankt sich im Wesentlichen einem eingeschränkten, auf das 19. Jahrhundert zurückweisenden Begriff des Nihilismus. Allerdings nimmt Baudrillard auf Phänomene Bezug, die er historisch später verortet und die sich ihrer Struktur nach kategorial von den Funktionen der Medien (...) im 19. Jahrhundert unterscheiden. Es gelingt ihm hierbei nicht, den allgemeinen Realitätsverlust, den er vor allem auf den wachsenden Einfluß von Wissenschaft und Technik im 20. Jahrhundert zurückführt, überzeugend nachzuweisen. -/- Als wolle er diesen Mangel beheben, führt Baudrillard in späteren Schriften weitere Struktureigenschaften der kulturellen Mediendominanz ein. Zu diesen Fortentwicklungen gehört die durch Medienmacht erzeugte „Transparenz“, die nicht zuletzt die restlose Durchsichtigkeit aller Zustände und Prozesse meint. Es ist dieses Merkmal, das Baudrillard 1981 selbst mit einem Nihilismusbegriff in Verbindung bringt. Der Nihilismus der Transparenz beansprucht, das spezifisch Neue der Sinnlosigkeit in zunehmend wissenschafts- und technikbestimmten Gesellschaften zu erfassen. Obwohl sich die Schwächen der Medientheorie in seiner Auffassung des Nihilismus reflektieren, gelingt es ihm, Phänomene der Nichtigkeit zu beschreiben, für die man gute Gründe hat anzunehmen, daß sie sich durch keinen Werte- oder Einstellungswandel mehr aufheben lassen. Um diese Einsicht zu begründen, muß man Baudrillards Medientheorie allerdings gleichsam vom Kopf auf die Füße stellen. Nicht auf einen evidenten, alles umfassenden Realitätsverlust, sondern umgekehrt auf einen Teil der vermutlichen Realitätsgehalte der Medien läßt sich die drohende Ausdehnung der Transparenz zurückführen. (shrink)

Heidegger’s main interest was ontology or the study of being. In his fundamental treatise, Being and Time, he attempted to access being (Sein) by means of phenomenological analysis of human existence (Dasein) in respect to its temporal and historical character. After the change of his thinking (“the turn”), Heidegger placed an emphasis on language as the vehicle through which the question of being can be unfolded. He turned to the exegesis of historical texts, especially of the Presocratics, but also of (...) Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Hölderlin, and to poetry, architecture, technology, and other subjects. Instead of looking for a full clarification of the meaning of being, he tried to pursue a kind of thinking which was no longer “metaphysical.” He criticized the tradition of Western philosophy, which he regarded as nihilistic, for, as he claimed, the question of being as such was obliterated in it. He also stressed the nihilism of modern technological culture. By going to the Presocratic beginning of Western thought, he wanted to repeat the early Greek experience of being, so that the West could turn away from the dead end of nihilism and begin anew. His writings are notoriously difficult. Being and Time remains his most influential work. (shrink)

For Heidegger, the modern understanding of beeing is located within the space-time horizon of metaphysics in the form of a nihilistic "will to power", which makes it increasingly difficult for it to free itself from metaphysical thinking. With the progress and success of science and technology, the addiction of the modern age to metaphysics even seems to increase; man will ultimately be brought into the closed horizon of a tragic and nihilistic interpretation of beeing. The age of enlightenment, is in (...) fact - according to the thesis of the author - not yet at an end: Only if enlightenment, through basic "philosophical thought", reflects on its own foundation in a more fundamental and critical way and really makes the "turning" ("Kehre"), might it be able to overcome its unexplored addiction to the horizon of metaphysics, as well as to overcome modern man's alienation of the self and being, and to find its way back to the Greek beginnings of western thought. (shrink)

This thesis explores, thematically and chronologically, the substantial concordance between the work of Martin Heidegger and T.S. Eliot. The introduction traces Eliot's ideas of the 'objective correlative' and 'situatedness' to a familiarity with German Idealism. Heidegger shared this familiarity, suggesting a reason for the similarity of their thought. Chapter one explores the 'authenticity' developed in Being and Time, as well as associated themes like temporality, the 'they' (Das Man), inauthenticity, idle talk and angst, and applies them to interpreting Eliot's poem, (...) 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. Both texts depict a bleak Modernist view of the early twentieth-century Western human condition, characterized as a dispiriting nihilism and homelessness. Chapter two traces the chronological development of Ereignis in Heidegger's thinking, showing the term's two discernible but related meanings: first our nature as the 'site of the open' where Being can manifest, and second individual 'Events' of 'appropriation and revelation'. The world is always happening as 'event', but only through our appropriation by the Ereignis event can we become aware of this. Heidegger finds poetry, the essential example of language as the 'house of Being', to be the purest manifestation of Ereignis, taking as his examples Hölderlin and Rilke. A detailed analysis of Eliot's late work Four Quartets reveals how Ereignis, both as an ineluctable and an epiphanic condition of human existence, is central to his poetry, confirming, in Heidegger's words, 'what poets are for in a destitute time', namely to re-found and restore the wonder of the world and existence itself. This restoration results from what Eliot calls 'raid[s] on the inarticulate', the poet's continual striving to enact that openness to Being through which human language and the human world continually come to be. The final chapter shows how both Eliot and Heidegger value a genuine relationship with place as enabling human flourishing. Both distrust technological materialism, which destroys our sense of the world as dwelling place, and both are essentially committed to a genuinely authentic life, not the angstful authenticity of Being and Time, but a richer belonging which affirms our relationship with the earth, each other and our gods. (shrink)

This article offers a Nietzschean theory of digital will to power to conceptualize the temporality of social media feeds run by algorithms. Stylistic and methodological temporalities of Nietzsche are discussed as well as their influence in subsequent social theory of political technologies. The paradox of heavy investment in both subjective expression and nonhuman temporalization in social media milieus is addressed with the concept of an event-without-witness drawn from Nietzsche’s account of himself as the solitary thinker of catastrophe of nihilism (...) and psychoanalytical and deconstructive literatures on the catastrophes of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to and fascination with the philosophical and cultural modes of mummyfication, i.e. eternalization as an expression of the will to power is used to think the will to power in the creative algorithmic temporalization of social interactions through the selection, distribution and serialization of data for social media feeds. (shrink)

Algorithmic governmentality is a new form of political governance interconnected with technology and computation. By coining the term “algorithmic governmentality,” Antoinette Rouvroy argues that this mode of governance reduces everything to data, and people are no longer individuals but dividuals (able to be divided) or readable data profiles. Implementing the concept of algorithmic governmentality, the current study analyses Project Itoh’s award-winning novel Harmony in terms of such relevant concepts as “subjectivity,” “infra-individuality” and “control,” as suggested by Rouvroy and colleagues. The (...) analysis further draws on Foucault’s ideas of “governmentality” and “neoliberalism” and Deleuze’s concepts of “dividuality” and “society of control.” In Itoh’s fictional world, the entire society is subject to the new medical government, which replaced the chaotic world with a perfect but harrowing benevolent society, eradicating disease, suicide and crime. As elucidated in this paper, despite the dominant controlling government, there is a hope for humans to regain and reestablish their subjectivity and give meaning to their own personality by defying the nihilistic computational system. (shrink)

The delusory quest for disembodiment, against which the quest for re-embodiment is reacting, is characteristic of macroparasites who live off the work, products and lives of others. The quest for disembodiment that characterizes modernism and postmodernism, it is argued, echoes in a more extreme form the delusions on which medieval civilization was based where the military aristocracy and the clergy, defining themselves through the ideal forms of Neo-Platonic Christianity, despised nature, the peasantry and in the case of the clergy, women. (...) This argument is used to expose and reveal the oppressive and ecologically destructive drive underlying the aspirations of the dominant classes in the modern/postmodern world to disembodiment, whether this be seen as the quest to be unbounded by time and place, to be free of dependence on labour and natural resources, to be free of the humdrum of everyday life by entering ‘virtual’ worlds, or, as with post-humanists, to overcome the limits of the body by fusing with technology. These modern and postmodern forms of the quest for disembodiment, it is suggested, now threaten civilization, the future of humanity and most terrestrial life. This analysis is used to clarify the liberating mission of the grand narrative for re-embodiment, exemplified by the quest for Inclusive Democracy, Earth Democracy, Ecological Civilization, or for an Ecozoic Age. The grand narrative of the Age of Re-embodiments is shown to be inseparable from the struggle for truth, justice and liberty as central to real democracy empowering people to augment rather than undermine the conditions for life. (shrink)

I argue that it’s quite comprehensible to get upset about metaethical nihilism, to indulge what I call nihilistic despair. When we lose the objective moral or normative point of view, we lose the promise of luck-immune guidance and categorical importance, things many of us hope for. This is all quite Williams-friendly, but I reject his puzzling but suggestive remarks that nihilistic despair must be a self-pitying muddle. Finally, I argue that internalism about reasons is even more depressing than outright (...) nihilism, in one way at least. (shrink)

Preface -/- This volume was published in 2000 by Jaca Book under the title Ethics of Reason. La filosofia dell'uomo nell'epoca del nichilismo e del confronto interculturale (The Philosophy of Man in the Age of Nihilism and Intercultural Confrontation) and is now long out of print. I gladly republish it online because, for the most part, I still recognize myself in what was written. The book had required considerable work and had been prepared by many years of study at (...) a time when I had the opportunity to study intensively and continuously. It benefited from the encounter that took place for me in those years between the continental tradition (with particular attention, in addition to the classics, to twentieth-century Christian thought of Thomasian and Augustinian inspiration) and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. Exceeding 350 printed pages and dealing with various themes, albeit interrelated, and much metaphysics, it was certainly not a work suited to the new cultural trends. I have subsequently deepened and modified individual aspects in other publications, but the overall itinerary in the volume remains valid for me. Even the title is for me still valid, although today I would prefer Ethics of Rationality. The challenges of nihilism and interculturalism (to which the subtitle refers) remain valid, albeit in new forms, even if they are generally talked about less than they once were and take on new configurations. But the fact that something is talked about less or should be talked about less does not mean that the problem does not exist or has been philosophically overcome. To these can be added other challenges such as the ecological issue or the application of technology to mankind with biotechnology, challenges that have long been present in our culture. Some in-depth examinations of individual anthropological and ethical themes as well as philosophy of religion can be found in the volume L'uomo. Lineamenti di antropologia filosofica (Rubbettino 2013) and in the essays collected in the two volumes entitled L'esperienza integrale. Philosophy of Man, Morals and Religion (Orthotes 2016). In particular, the themes of Virtue ethics and Natural law have been re-proposed and explored in more recent essays (some of which are present in this collection). Certain themes such as those present in the central chapter precisely on the Ethics of Reason (where ample space is devoted to John Henry Newman) and other more exquisitely metaphysical ones such as those present in Chapter IV devoted to the classical transcendentals (ens, unum, verum, bonum, etc.) are only to be found in this volume. The volume, in fact, defends a realist conception of rationality that is inspired by Thomas Aquinas' conception of being, taken up with an existential accentuation, and which opposes the rationalist, immanentist and scientist turn of part of modern thought that according to many 20th century authors (such as Heidegger, but also Gilson and Fabro) would logically lead to nihilism. For this realist accentuation, too, it seems to me useful to republish the volume online. I therefore republish it with a few minor modifications and a few caveats. The overall itinerary of the volume was recently reproposed in a more summary and fragmentary form in the volume Etica del filosofare. Frammenti ironici, Il Melangolo 2020 and in my afterword to Virtù, legge e fioritura umana. Essays in honour of Angelo Campodonico, Mimesis 2022. First of all, in the new text that I am reproposing here, I have changed the term integrity (principio d'integrità) to integralità (principle of wholeness), which in the Italian language seems to me to be more in keeping with what is meant, even if it is more used and abused especially in the past decades in certain contexts. This was the reason why I had avoided using it. The last two chapters, concerning the theme of God, would deserve revision, although I agree with the general structure. Perhaps today I would always stress the centrality of theological personalism (the great contemporary alternative between theism and evolutionary Spinozism), but in a more relational key and open to Trinitarian theology. -/- Angelo Campodonico Chiavari, 25 August 2022 . (shrink)

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 nihilism is the view that no objects have proper parts. Despite how counter‐intuitive it is, it is taken quite seriously, largely because it solves a number of puzzles in the metaphysics of material objects – or so its proponents claim. In this article, I show that for every puzzle that mereological nihilism solves, there is a similar puzzle that (a) it doesn’t solve, and (b) every other solution to the original puzzle does solve. Since the solutions to (...) the new puzzles apply just as well to the old puzzles, the old puzzles provide no motivation to be a mereological nihilist. (shrink)

Mereological nihilism (henceforth just "nihilism") is the thesis that composition never occurs. Nihilism has often been defended on the basis of its theoretical simplicity, including its ontological simplicity and its ideological simplicity (roughly, nihilism's ability to do without primitive mereological predicates). In this paper I defend nihilism on the basis of the theoretical unification conferred by nihilism, which is, roughly, nihilism's capacity to allow us to take fewer phenomena as brute and inexplicable. This (...) represents a respect in which nihilism enjoys greater theoretical simplicity than its rivals which has not yet been explored, and which is immune to many of the objections which have been leveled against previous arguments for nihilism from nihilism's theoretical simplicity. Composition as identity might be thought to confer a similar degree of theoretical unification as nihilism. I end the paper by arguing that this is not the case. (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)

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)

Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Philosophy of the Future examines Nietzsche's analysis of and response to contemporary nihilism, the sense that nothing has value or ...

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)

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)

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)

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)

The spectre of global environmental destruction is before us, the legacy of the expansion and domination of the world by European civilization. Not even the threat to the continued existence of humanity is enough to move the members of this civilization to alter its trajectory. And Marxism, which had held out the possibility of creating a new social order, has been swept from the historical stage by the failure of Eastern European communism. Nihilism Inc. is an attempt to overcome (...) this crisis. Examining the relationship between metaphysical assumptions, ideas, social practices, institutions and economic processes in the formation and evolution of European civilization, it offers a genealogy of its current nihilism. The theory and practice of Marxism are analysed to show why the Soviet Union proved even more environmentally destructive and even less responsive to the environmental crisis than the West. These analyses reveal the need for a radical cultural transformation, a transformation which can only be effected on the foundation of a new metaphysics. The final part of this work offers the required metaphysics, clearing the way for the creation of an environmentally sustainable civilization. (shrink)

This essay is part of a doctoral dissertation presented to the Department of Philosophy, University of São Paulo, in 1993, named 'Genealogy of the Real' . Its core idea is a Nietzschean approach to a masterpiece among philosophical inspired movies, namely, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, which surely touches deep groundings of the concept of truth and reality.

Bernard Reginster, in his book The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, takes up the challenge of figuring out what Nietzsche might mean by nihilism and the revaluation of values. He argues that there is an alternative, normative subjectivist interpretation of Nietzsche's views on nihilism and revaluation that makes as much sense as—indeed, he often clearly leans toward thinking that it makes more sense than—a fictionalist reading of Nietzsche. I argue that his arguments do not succeed. (...) Once we have looked carefully at the details of the positions and the arguments ascribed to Nietzsche, the fictionalist option is the more charitable interpretation of the texts. I focus on the metaethical issues that play a central role for Reginster in his articulation of Nietzsche's nihilism and Nietzsche's strategy for overcoming nihilism. (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)

Mereological nihilists typically employ a paraphrase strategy in order to mitigate the apparent absurdity of their denial of the existence of composite objects. I argue here that the nihilist's paraphrase strategy is incomplete, because no schema for generating nihilistically acceptable paraphrases of sentences concerning material constitution has ever been given. Nor can an adequate schema be arrived at by generalising things that nihilists have already said. I fill this lacuna in the nihilist's account by developing and defending a novel paraphrase (...) schema that makes essential reference to the determinable‐determinate relation that holds between arrangement‐properties instantiated by the simples. (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)

According to ontological nihilism there are, fundamentally, no individuals. Both natural languages and standard predicate logic, however, appear to be committed to a picture of the world as containing individual objects. This leads to what I call the \emph{expressibility challenge} for ontological nihilism: what language can the ontological nihilist use to express her account of how matters fundamentally stand? One promising suggestion is for the nihilist to use a form of \emph{predicate functorese}, a language developed by Quine. This (...) proposal faces a difficult objection, according to which any theory in predicate functorese will be a notational variant of the corresponding theory stated in standard predicate logic. Jason Turner (2011) has provided the most detailed and convincing version of this objection. In the present paper, I argue that Turner's case for the notational variance thesis relies on a faulty metasemantic principle and, consequently, that an objection long thought devastating is in fact misguided. (shrink)

(Version 2.4) I have argued elsewhere for ascribing an error theory about all normative and evaluative judgements to Nietzsche. Such a nihilism brings with it a puzzle: how could we—or at least the select few of us being addressed by Nietzsche—continue in the face of this nihilism? This is a philosophical puzzle and so, defeasibly, an interpretive puzzle. If there is no theory it would make sense for Nietzsche to have about how the select few could go on, (...) then this is some evidence against the proposed interpretation of him as a nihilist. I defended the interpretation by arguing that Nietzsche’s declarations about creating values point to a practice of generating honest evaluative illusions. Such honest evaluative illusions are tricky things, though, and, precisely because they are honest, one might worry that they lack the motivational power of genuine evaluative belief. Can they truly play the role that evaluative beliefs play in our psychological economies? I suspect that Nietzsche does not want the honest illusions to play exactly the role that evaluative beliefs played. The cheerfulness, the playfulness, the lightness that Nietzsche hopes for are, I have suggested, a function of the shift from belief to pretence, from illusion to honest illusion. The question, nonetheless, is whether the resulting picture is too light. Can I go through life merely acting, as a critic might put it? My suggestion in this essay will be that the thought of eternal recurrence is meant to add weight to the lightness of acting—“acting”, obviously, in both the here relevant senses of the word. (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.

In this paper the importance of Tarski's truth definition is evaluated like a productive resource to criticize Nietzsche's nihilistic view and any pragmatic understanding of truth.

Scattered skeptical remarks and a general austerity that infused his writings have given Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes a reputation as some type of nihilist. Noted commentators such as Richard Posner and Albert Alschuler have claimed as much. This article seeks to correct this misunderstanding. Holmes was not a nihilist in the sense of being melancholy due to a belief that the world has no absolute moral values or gods. Instead, Holmes was a pragmatist in the spirit of William James and (...) John Dewey. While Holmes had doubts about moral truth and deities, he ultimately thought that their existence (or non-existence) should have no bearing on our behavior or the law. We must, through our collective efforts, find values that work for us. (shrink)

"... Dr. Ihde brings an enlightening and deeply humanistic perspective to major technological developments, both past and present." —Science Books & Films "Don Ihde is a pleasure to read.... The material is full of nice suggestions and details, empirical materials, fun variations which engage the reader in the work... the overall points almost sneak up on you, they are so gently and gradually offered." —John Compton "A sophisticated celebration of cultural diversity and of its enabling technologies.... perhaps the best (...) single volume relating the philosophical tradition to the broad issues raised by contemporary technologies." —Choice "... important and challenging... " —Review of Metaphysics "... a range of rich historical, cultural, philosophical, and psychological insights, woven together in an intriguing and clear exposition... The book is really a pleasure to read, for its style, immense learning and sanity." —Teaching Philosophy The role of tools and instruments in our relation to the earth and the ways in which technologies are culturally embedded provide the foci of this thought-provoking book. (shrink)

According to Composition is Identity, a whole is literally identical to the plurality of its parts. According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note, it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi.

A new approach to Nietzsche, so called Nietzeche sindrom.

According to an editor of The Economist, the world produced, in the years since World War II, seven times more goods than throughout all history. This is well appreciated by lay people, but has hardly affected social scientists. They do not have the conceptual apparatus for understanding accelerated material-technical change and its meaning for people's personal lives, for their ways of relating to them-selves and to the outside world. Of course, a great deal of speculation about emerging life forms in (...) industrialised societies exists and social scientists with a futuristic bend have projected their diverse visions upon public debates, ranging from thc Efficient Hedonism of "post-industrialist' society a la Daniel Bell to the “Responsible Convivialism” of 'post-materialist" critics such as Fritz Schumacher. Competing images of the coming "services society" or "self-service society" share a central concern: the ongoing relation between tile spheres of large organisations and personal lifestyles, between salaried work arid private consumption. They also share a eel-tau' implausibility: few people recognize themselves in either projection. And they sham ubiquitous reference to "technology", without accounting for it in real terms. A good diagnostic of what is actually happening seems to me to be Jonathan Gershuny, who sees a drift toward a particular type of self-service economy: a quite radical shift in the mode of provision of social services, as he calls it, based on new kinds of consumer technologies. Industrialization used to be partial, but is becoming total fast. This process obviously has many facets, the one I am interested in here is the intrusion of modern technology into spheres of life which in the past have been relatively little dependent on it. (shrink)

Arguments for moral nihilism—the view that there are no moral truths—are criticized by showing that their major premises suggest epistemic or intellectual nihilism—the view that no beliefs are reasonable, justified, ought to be believed, and so on. Insofar as intellectual nihilism ought be rejected, this shows that the major premises of arguments for moral nihilisms ought to be rejected also.

This is the introduction to the special edition of Cosmos & History on Overcoming Nihilism.

As we enter the 21st century, we do well to consider the values implicit in science fiction, the principal arena of future speculation in popular culture. This study explored whether consumption of science fiction (SF) is correlated with distinctive socio-ethical views. SF tends to advocate the extension of value and rights to all forms of intelligence, regardless of physical form; enthusiasm for technology; and social and economic libertarianism. This suggests that consumers with these socio-ethical views would be attracted to the (...) SF genre, and that amount of SF consumption would be correlated with adoption of these views. -/- Groups of respondents involved in medical ethical and environmental issues were surveyed in 1992 (N=278). SF consumption was found, at first-order correlation and controlling for covariates, to be associated with: greater support for extending rights to animal and machine intelligence; greater enthusiasm for technology, and rejection of limits to human endeavors; and greater social libertarianism. SF consumption was not associated with specific views on the cognitively and physically disabled; support for abortion rights; or economic libertarianism. (shrink)

New technologies are the source of uncertainties about the applicability of moral and morally connotated concepts. These uncertainties sometimes call for conceptual engineering, but it is not often recognized when this is the case. We take this to be a missed opportunity, as a recognition that different researchers are working on the same kind of project can help solve methodological questions that one is likely to encounter. In this paper, we present three case studies where philosophers of technology implicitly engage (...) in conceptual engineering (without naming it as such). We subsequently reflect on the case studies to find out how these illustrate conceptual engineering as an appropriate method to deal with pressing concerns in the philosophy of technology. We have two main goals. We first want to contribute to the literature on conceptual engineering by presenting concrete examples of conceptual engineering in the philosophy of technology. This is especially relevant, because the technologies that are designed based on the conceptual work done by philosophers of technology potentially have crucial moral and social implications. Secondly, we want to make explicit what choices are made when doing this conceptual work. Making explicit that some of the implicit assumptions are, in fact, debated in the literature allows for reflection on these questions. Ultimately, our hope is that conscious reflection leads to an improvement of the conceptual work done. (shrink)

According to the Value-Neutrality Thesis, technology is morally and politically neutral, neither good nor bad. A knife may be put to bad use to murder an innocent person or to good use to peel an apple for a starving person, but the knife itself is a mere instrument, not a proper subject for moral or political evaluation. While contemporary philosophers of technology widely reject the VNT, it remains unclear whether claims about values in technology are just a figure of speech (...) or nontrivial empirical claims with genuine factual content and real-world implications. This paper provides the missing argument. I argue that by virtue of their material properties, technological artifacts are part of the normative order rather than external to it. I illustrate how values can be empirically identified in technology. The reason why value-talk is not trivial or metaphorical is that due to the endurance and longevity of technological artifacts, values embedded in them have long-term implications that surpass their designers and builders. I further argue that taking sides in this debate has real-world implications in the form of moral constraints on the development of technology. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how Nietzsche’s critique of nihilism concerns the complicity between Christian morality and modern atheism. I unpack in what sense Schopenhauer’s ascetic denial of the will signifies a return to nothingness, what he calls the nihil negativum. I argue that Nietzsche’s formulation of nihilism specifically targets Schopenhauer’s pessimism as the culmination of the Western metaphysical tradition, the crucial stage of its intellectual history in which the scientific pursuit of truth finally unveils the ascetic will (...) to nothingness that motivates it. I contend that Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer anticipates current scholarly debates around the significance of the nihil negativum and offers a compelling objection against contemporary proponents of philosophical nihilism such as Eugene Thacker and Ray Brassier. (shrink)

The effects of anthropogenic climate change will be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral nihilism (...) (the denial of moral truths) is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one’s likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I will argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable. (shrink)