Nihilism and Meaning, part 1

Philosophy Talk
John Perry and Ken Taylor chat with Hubert Dreyfus about nihilism, the meaning of life, and other silly things.
The image is detail from Joan Miró's La Leçon de Ski.

http://www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows/Nihilism.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• philosophy
• talk
• john
• perry
• ken
• taylor
• hubert
• dreyfus
• nihilism
• meaning
• of
• life
• atheism
• god
• religion
• nietzsche
• heidegger
• sartre
• existentialism

[thepepis]

My life hasn't been the same since I became a Nihilist. The claws of Nihilism have pulled me into a limbo of hopelessness and despair.

[ZomBLord]

Not "no value". No OBJECTIVE value.

[CrucifiedDionysus]

i don't find nihilism to be melancholic at all, depending how we define nihilism. if we defined it as Nietzsche did... that being a state in which the highest values devalue themselves... then yes it is a bit melancholy... but if we buy into a Nietzschean style of nihilism, or that which he is accused of... life is far from meaningless... it is all that provides meaning... there is no inherent meaning of course. We get to make our own and that is great, but I wouldn't really call that nihilism

[VincitOmniaVerit]

There is inherent meaning or purpose in the universe, because, if there was, what would it possibly be? The question itself would be so unanwerable because no answer would satisfy us, it would merely cause us to ask even more questions ad infinitum. Luckily, however, in a universe without meaning, life provides the only reasonable and satisfying answer, and that is to exist. Its almost as if our DNA knows how empty and devoid of meaning the universe is, and it fights even harder just to survive

[regas666]

Hah, my friends try to dog on this religion all the time cuz i've chosen it as my own and its just so funny cuz with little effort, almost none at all, i win every argument. Like, they'd say something along the lines of, "Man, that's religion contradicts itself." and all i have to say is, "Well man, religion, you even I do not exist so....what's the point of talking about it?" and they're just fuckin' brainfucked at that point....YOU CAN'T WIN SOCIETY!! I DON'T EVEN BELIEVE INYER GAY ASSES! FU!!

[12NadaSurf12]

gordon freeman already killed your god

[BlackProductionInc]

This is so extremely american xD Pretty cool subject though, but the presentation is dreadful.

[PHOSPH3R]

@LiquoriceLexi

Second.

[ep1strophy]

Thanks for posting.

For anyone interested, British political philosopher John Gray grapples with "Western" nihilism, making use of the work of Hubert Dreyfus, in his challenging and very interesting 1995 essay "Enlightenment's Wake".

[Israe5l]

Transcendentalism. Is this thought about God and Man? We got a interesting dualism. But that some how doesn't sound right. Man and something else. We want something else. This is a revolutionary thought or at least reactionary-radical thought. We want to become something else.

Nihilism sounds like Dostoevysky. Dostoevsky's characters didn't care about doing something new. Or doing something---just horrible.