Übermensch

If there exists any meaning, then attaining more power will always be instrumental to pursuing it.

There is nothing about nihilism that requires a discarding of the rules. The rules exist, and you take or leave them according to their utility.

Nihilism means that you're not guided by a belief in one purpose or another. That is, rules exist, but any rules that are stemmed in belief are completely suspect. It's almost like base-level utilitarianism (without, like absurdism, without the social aspect of what it means that the rules are meaningless).

Few nihilist anywhere and ever have argued that you should just give up or stop existing or stop following some sort of set of rules. That reading of nihilism is incredibly juvenile.

I'm not sure that follows. I think it would only follow if everyone else agreed with the "meaning" you are pursing.

You're describing Nietzsche's philosophy, not nihilism. Nihilism, as Nietzsche defined it, was inherently dismal and hopeless. It primarily described the feeling of despair and anhedonia that came with nihilism, it wasn't only the realization that our ideas of meaning and morality are made up. Otherwise Stirner would have been a Nihilist

>Nihilism, as Nietzsche defined it, was inherently dismal and hopeless.

That is the response to it. You're not differentiating the philosophy from the response. It's somewhat lazy, no offense.

When Nietzsche talks about nihilism he is really referring to pessimism, especially the Schopenhauerian brand of it.
Nietzsche IS a nihilist. He NEVER accepts metaphysical concepts as true and existing, rather he sees them as constructs that have to be seen in from a new point of view (this point of view is the Will to Power).

He is a nihilist, but he's not a pessimist. The key to his philosophy is a arbitrary trust on our capacities and intuitions while costantly aknowledging the limits of said trust and capacities. You should not take yourself too seriously to the point of becoming pompous, for everything you know is just stuff thta you like to think, but at the same time you should not discredit all of it only because there is no foundation for it. Do so and you'll fall in the worst trap of humankind: the ascetic ideal, arriving there either through religion, philosophy, art or science.

This is a great post, thanks.

Well this "empty" meaning usurps all other meaning because there is perfect agreement between all who hold it, so it will win out through natural selection.

Why does nipple stimulation feel so good?

Jew promoted philosophy, strictly for the goys

>Nietzsche is about self improvement
im actually nauseous right now

Christianity

you might really like the message of that post or w/e but you should know it has nothing to do with nietzsche before you go spreading the same dumb shit around.

Nietzsche hated nihilism with a passion, he wrote about it as if it were a plague in society

That post is literally true, you're just being blinded by semantics only because he used the term "nihilist".
As late as his Will to Power Nietzsche was still criticizing any sort of sincere metaphysical analysis of the world. He did not assign any fundamental meaning to anything, for his entire career he kept saying it, and kept showing how everything we think is arbitrary, and how this arbitrariness should not lead us to the path of the great pessimists of the 19th century.
He NEVER sincerely justified any sort of metaphysic model, rather he said that their being invented is not necessary a flaw.
His critique (which is essentially nihilist) of, for example, Christianity, does not stem from the fact that this religion is invented: it's, instead, about how this religion is life-denying.

To summarize: nihilism is the belief in a complete lack of meaning, and Nietzsche identified with that. What he did not identify with were the most common conclusions of the great nihilists of his century, who were mostly either pessimists or positivists. From nihilism he found another interpretation, based not on ideals, but rather on the most basic functions of human beings (the will to power being the most primitive, basic impulse he found).
Even after all this life-affirming drivel, Nietzsche still does not believe in a world-behind-the-world, he still does not think that what he is saying exists elsewhere in a platonic world. He's conscious of it, but in his mind this still does not make his conclusions invalid.

My advice for you is to read Schopenhauer (pessimism), Hegel/Kant (idealism, the triumph of metaphysics) and study the effects that British positivism had on European society at large: most of Nietzsche's philosophy is a direct response to these movements.
Don't get entangled in semantics and dictionary definitions and actually think about what he is saying.

This is a response to this post.

Nietzsche identified with the notion of a lack of absolute, non-subjective meaning, but he clearly believed it was possible to (for lack of a better term) invent a personal meaning for yourself and to impose that meaning on others and the world

This meaning would still be arbitrary and inherently human. As a belief it's still perfectly compatible with nihilism. What's different is that from nihilism Nietzsche does not derive a paralyzing, self-defeating position.

You should also notice that he did not hold to such a high standard none of his ideas. The idea of self-overcoming is a rationalization of this inability of reaching a deeper, stable meaning in something.

Nietzsche does not think that you can reach a in-itself by sheer conviction: this is nihilism, the only difference is that it is not the stereotypical idea of nihilism you're holding.

>This meaning would still be arbitrary and inherently human

Exactly, and

And this not imply the existence of a metaphysical world or foundation to said meaning, which is the foundation of nihilism. It's something you've made up, and even Nietzsche tell you so, by inviting you to costantly analyze these so called meanings you've found and to never take them seriously.

In his line of reasoning these meanings you find are still meaningless, elusivr and arbitrary, but they can still serve function and point to things that are in this world without having to resort to things outside of this one.

Being a nihilist does not mean that you have no reason to keep doing things, rather it means that there is nothing supernatural justifying those actions. No god, no platonic world, no ethics and morality that live outside of us. for his entire life N. championed this view.

Thing about nihilism is not in its statements, but its implications.

During my nihilistic phase I said: The best thing about Earth is that you can look away from it.

But you see, to an astronomer, to a psychonaut, to a deep sea explorer... The same statement holds true, and is not against anything.

It is the antagonism that makes a nihilist. A rejection of truth, I guess.

ok first of all you gotta grant me that using "nihilistm" like that is REALLY abusing terminology, but im all for charitable reading so lets forget it.

You seem to understand what youre saying in every sentence where you dont talk about nihilism. 'Complete lack of meaning' is not what Nietzsche was about at all. He critiqued a rational construction of christian morals a la kant not because he thought things didnt have meaning, he simply disagreed with the way meaning was attached to morals. He took rationality down a peg from its axiomatic & transcendent standing to a value second to (especially christian) morals. Only in todays day and age of scientism, logic and stem worship does the act of nuancing logic equal the rejection of meaning altogether.

Im sorry man but i literally dont see any nihilism when i read nietzsche.

>Only in todays day and age of scientism, logic and stem worship does the act of nuancing logic equal the rejection of meaning altogether.
The sad part is, this is only because their models can't express meaning. So reality needs to be cut to fit the length of the measuring tape.

there is this other term that actually applies to Nietzsche. 'existentialism' is commonly understood as the idea that the world has no inherent meaning but man has to attach its own meaning to it. I secretly think that all these people calling Nietzsche a nihilist got confused by the latest rick and morty episode and really mean to call him 'existentialist'

Do you remember about Nietzche's «camel, lion, child» analogy? «Camel» over there was a representation of all humans, which live with a given-moral, moral declared by someone else; «lion»fights with these external morals, destroy and deny them, so he can be called «nihilist»for that; next, the final stage of development is «child» with his ability to see the world as if it was for the first time, to create a new moral. So, yeah Nietzsche wasn't nihilist completely, but he thought of nihilism as about an instrument, which can help one to develop his authentical being.

anybody else think that it's only a more purple version of Stirner's "A Human Life" chapter?

>ok first of all you gotta grant me that using "nihilistm" like that is REALLY abusing terminology, but im all for charitable reading so lets forget it.

It's not for fuck's sake, it's literlally stating what nihilism is, which is the absence of any sort of foundation for meaning. Chances are that you're too far removed from the philosophical discourse Nietzsche took part in, and are instead treating the things he was criticizing as superfluous.
> 'Complete lack of meaning' is not what Nietzsche was about at all.
It's one of his main bullet point of virtually every single one of his books. Read the first section of Twilight of the Idols to see his most direct attacks at what were percieved, in his times, as the obvious philospical foundations for our thoughts and motives.

>He critiqued a rational construction of christian morals a la kant not because he thought things didnt have meaning
I explicitly said so. He wasn't criticizing Christianity for its lack of meaning, rather for the ideals that were attached to it, which were in Nietzsche's opinion inherntly opposite to the core necessities of life. Still, this consideration doesn't change the fact that Nietzsche did not think that behind HIS arguments there was some sort of otherwordly justification.
He wasn't discarding a metaphysical system to favor another one: rather he was saying that no metaphysical system really exists, but this does not mean that said systems and ideals should be ignored: he then proceeded to explain why in virtually every one of his books

>Only in todays day and age of scientism, logic and stem worship does the act of nuancing logic equal the rejection of meaning altogether.
Absolutely not true, this was a main feature of British positivism, which he also criticized harshly and equated to Christianity for its life-denying properties.
He was not criticizing them for their nihilism, rather he was criticizing them for the conclusion that they drawed from said nihilism.

>Im sorry man but i literally dont see any nihilism when i read nietzsche.
Because you probably never understood that most philosophers in our history literally thought that things such as ethics and morality existed outside of our imagination. Hell, most philosophers still think so to this day (there are lots of surveys you can check on that).
When compared to these people, who are the virtual totality of our philosophers in all stages of history, Nietzsche's thought becomes extremely nihilistic, to the point where it denies most of our philosophical achievements.
It's not nihilistic only if you look at it from the point of view of a guy who does not believe in anything while still not examining such lack of belief.

Nihilism is perfectly compatible with existentialism, in fact they're perfectly synergic. Calling Nietzsche a nihilist does not mean that we can't call him a existentialist. Also fuck you for equating me to redditors.

Your definition of meaning is very modern, and stems directly from existentialism. Most of the people in this thread should replace the world ''meaning'' with terms such as ''justification for action'', ''reason to live/do anything'' and so on.

This is not what Nietzsche was dealing with for teh most part, and when he was he was doing so at a surface level (he was not considering the roots causes of such justifications, but rather see how where they influenced by contemporary morality: an example can be the fact that people to this day still needs, for the most part, justifications for doing things, while still being incapable of using their will as a justification).

I guess cavemen needed for some fucked up reason to stimulate their nipples in order to survive.

You are a redditor if you think nieztche was a nihilist.

Sure thing kid. Or maybe (just maybe) you're just too fucking stupid to see that nihilism does not have to necessarily end up in cosmic pessimism. You're the redditor here.

Although, at this point, I'm pretty sure you don't even really know what nihilism means.

daoism and ironism maybe

Nihilism was a philosophical mudslinging term that a bunch of edgy people who didn't want to be called existentialists decided to wear. The moment there is a value system is the moment that person's nihilism is gone. The only truly nihilistic people are people who are mentally ill, usually suicidal, since everyone values something except people who are deeply depressed or imbalanced. Most self proclaimed 'nihilists' are larpers misusing the term.
Also, your Reddit spacing just gave you away, congrats.

>Nihilism was a philosophical mudslinging term that a bunch of edgy people who didn't want to be called existentialists decided to wear.

When Nietzsche was talking about nihilism there was still no existentialist current of thought. Nihilism was, at the time, a synonim for pessimism, and Nietzsche tried to overcome that. In this overcoming, though, there is still no creation or implication for a metaphysical outside-of-our-realm world, there is still nothing that determines a in-itself, no supernatural justification for our beliefs and thought.
Nietzsche always kept this main aspect (the complete denial of every religious and metaphysical foundation) in ALL of his works, he never retracted from this position that is essentially nihilistic.
From this position he developed a new system, which is not based on metaphysics, but rather on the ''sense of the world'' (this is how he put it, I don't know if it's the correct english translation). His statement are not built on the idea of good, but rather on compatibility with our modes of being here, on this Earth.

It is nihilistic, and it is not pessimistic, in fact it's based on the concept of ''being life-affirming''.
You can call it existentialist or whatever, but this still does not change that the foundations of his entire thought (which are NEVER discarded) are still inherently nihilistic. He doesn't believe in the existence of morality and neither do you: if this seems too obvious and simple to you have not examined the implications of such a conclusion, nor have you studied what were the actual beliefs Nietzsche was trying to fight against.

> essentially nihilistic
> inherently nihilistic
not an argument

only church-apologists call every nonrealist a nihilist, since it immensely simplifies their task. one can argue whether such projects fail, but just calling them inherently meaningless because they dont use the "foundations" of your own group is arrogant and lazy, especially since nobody has ever seen this absolute totality you are so sure of being in touch with.

I give up, you're too stupid to be argued against, and you keep putting Nietzsche in a ''atheist redditor vs dumb christian'' context. You clearly have no idea of what Nietzsche's ideas are, nor what was the context he was living, nor do you know the meaning of the words he used.

Just fuck off.

i'm another user who was rustled by your posts, you can keep arguing against the other guy if you want. and fuck you too.

Nietzsche try to overcome pessimism and nihilism. he is against nihilism because for him, nihilism its against the will, the pure will, you know?. and he knows believing in will is contradictory with being a nihilist?. is that simple.

>Nietzsche try to overcome pessimism and nihilism.

He has given us a new interpretation of nihilism, since all of the staples in this line of thought are still present in the core of his thought.

>he is against nihilism because for him, nihilism its against the will, the pure will, you know?
Surrendering to nihilism, and aim your will at ''nothing'' is what Nietzsche railed against. This is different, and still completely compatible with nihilism.

>and he knows believing in will is contradictory with being a nihilist?
He thought that even in the absence of foundations for any sort of belief (which he what believed in to his very last day) one could still aim his will at something, instead of turning to the ascetic ideal and aim it at nothing.

He doesn't believe in anything to his last day, the fact that he tells us to act in another way does not mean that the foundation for his thinking (which is, at its core, radically skeptical) are now grounded in metaphysics. You can assign any sort of meaning to any of your goals, but that meaning does not really exist, rather it's a organizing idea you can use to tend more efficiently to your goal. The fact that this meaning does not really existent makes Nietzsche's though objectively nihilist.

Now, I don't care if you think that using the term nihilist brings back bad memories (mainly edgelords from reddit). We're on Veeky Forums and we're discussing almost seriously Nietzsche: we should be able to go past that, and treat these words for what they actually mean, freeing them from anacronistyc contexts that are unrelated to what we are really talking about. Nietzsche's being a nihilist does not have anything to do with the idea of nihilism the internet gave you, and in fact I have stated multiple times that the conclusions he draws from nihilism itself are not correlated to the most common conclusions people come up with when approaching the lack of meaning.

I think all people think some things are pretty good & better than others

Therefore nobody is a nihilist

This, that other guys post is retarded. Nietzsche does not look down on asceticism, he looks down on people that refuse to challenge their own morality simply because someone else told them what to think. He does not look down on the ascetic priest, he does not pity them, he does not hate them, he does not preach to them. Nietzsche does not tell you what to think, he only asks if you would like to think for yourself. The only wrong in the world is "Thou shalt", the only right in the world is "I will". Also everyone has a will to power, even the ascetic in the own way follow their will to power.

You know nothing about what Nietzsche's wrote.

Guess I'm done with Veeky Forums. I refuse to believe that you guys are over 15 years old, or that you have actually read Nietzsche's entire ouvre while understanding even 5% of it.

10/10 post, you really fired my electrons.

>Nietzsche does not tell you what to think, he only asks if you would like to think for yourself. The only wrong in the world is "Thou shalt", the only right in the world is "I will".
shut the fuck up, nietzsche tells a specific group of people what to think and says that those who oppose the will of this group are wrong

you'd know this if you'd actually read him

you are too selfaware about the original meaning of nihilism. or the direction Nietzsche make of it.
i simply dont know. you think he get to the idea of will through his nihilism, but in my view his idea of will is a residuary element of make sense of the human mind or human spirit or whatever. he is highly punctilious with the atrocious consequences of the lack of meaning. (i remember his lectures of buddhism for example) anyway, if you really believe that nihilism is a synonym of pessimism for him, i dont know. maybe you are right. there is a reason because they adore Nietzsche and not Stirner. nietzsche is not really serious with the lack of meaning. is not really his field. and our era look into the abyss long ago. his solution to this is what is important, and is shit.

what's wrong with you guys?

is completely correct and has extensively shown why.

Are we talking about the same Nietzsche? The one who said that 'there are moral facts' and culminated, in his Will to Power, to say that there are no 'things'? Nietzsche advocated for the necessity for certain values and their usefulness, but he never pretended that they existed in any sort of way, nor that there was any metaphisical world making them true.
The concept of will to power itself is not metaphysical, it is instead inherently phisiological: this is the grounding for all Nietzsche's philosophy. This is nihilism, while also being life-affirming.

>anyway, if you really believe that nihilism is a synonym of pessimism for him, i dont know.
His attacks to nihilism are direct attacks to Schopenhauer and certain positivists, but you should also keep in mind that he attacks for the exact opposite reason (a manifacturing of a metaphysical world) the German idealists. This criticism aimed to what we could call ''bad nihilists'' (at least from Nietzsche's point of view) does not mean that Nietzsche is not a nihilist (where with nihilism I mean the absence of belief in the existence of meaning).

>nietzsche is not really serious with the lack of meaning.
He really is, and he pointed out from the beginning of his career to its very end. There is no book in which he does not talk about his absolute skepticism towards the metaphysical world.

>his solution to this is what is important, and is shit.
I'm not implying that ''nihilist'' is a pejorative term, in fact I've said multiple times that associating it with the worst examples of self-called ''nihilists'' we could imagine is a mistake when tackling Nietzsche, also I'm not even trying to discredit his achievements, rather I'm just trying to correct a belief that is not really grounded on what Nietzsche actually said, but rather on the desire of co-opting Nietzsche from internet neckbeards.
Once we aknowledge it, like we did multiple times in this conversation, we should be able of using the term ''nihilist'' for what it actually means, without spoiling its dignity with the lowest common denominator we can find on the internet.

>Nietzsche is about self improvement
OC

10/10

keep doing the good work

Who said the first one?

The first 3 are, I think, 3 deconstructions of what the other Nietzschian user has said in his posts, the third one being the complete scope of his interpretation.

"The fundamental characteristic of the eternal type of the plebeian, is to wish to be free, to wish to desire ; the noble type, wishes to obey."

T. Nietzsche somewhere in BGE

ps. kys and see

1) Heidegger's misreading
2) Most common reading, watered-down and not mean to the poor weak people :'((((
3) Final and correc interpretation of his later works, with the concept of Will left out due to lack of space ; "The weak and ill-constituted shall perish : and one shall help them to do so."