If Nihilists believe in nothing, how come they believe in Nihilism?

Question

Hi Lee, Thanks for your answer. But there are Nihilist movements and Organizations.

Answer 1

It's a bit like people saying that atheism is a sort of religion, because atheists hold unprovable beliefs about God (his non-existence).

But this is all just word games. It's really about set theory.

Do you know Russell's paradox? Does the set of all sets contain itself? For example, does the catalogue of books in a library list itself as one of the books? Does the contents page of a book have an entry for "contents"? This problem is at the heart of mathematics.

Answer 2

To a degree the point you're making is right. You can see parallels in post-modernism (a meta-narrative telling you to eschew meta-narratives) and punk (An ideology advocating individualism)

Answer 3

A nihilist doesn't believe in nihilism, they believe in nothing (or really the absence of anything, not quite the same things) and are categorised as nihilistic.

It's only a frame of reference and not a movement as such... kinda like being an atheist... in order to be described as an atheist, some people believe the possible existance of god must be inherent, when in fact it is merely a contrary position to theism.

Nihilism has been defined in a number of different manners and it is fair to say some of those definitions have principles and organisations applied to them... it is potentially an incongruence with the word itself, but then you would need to examine wha tthe principles of the individual or organisation are... way too wide to do that here in a couple of sentences.

Glibly, in the widest sense of the word, you are right... but then so is my response... nihilism is not a movement as such, it is merely a word to describe a belief or attitude. The absence of anything obviously infers the presence of something, too - indeed the presence of which something is absent!

Nihilism is usually applied in a moral sense rather than the absence of every or any "thing", by our very existance no one can really believe in nothing (no thing, that is), as they themselves exist, in at least one plane - so it is usually the refutation of a prescribed morality or individual moral "truths", if you like.

@David... why is the word "Dictionary" in the dictionary? Surely whoever is looking it up know what it means and where to get the spelling?